Deregulation Bill
Debate between Oliver Heald and Toby Perkins(10 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Solicitor-General
I do not agree. I think that my hon. Friend makes a huge contribution in the House, although I do not always agree with him.
It was made clear in the briefing the Government published in 2007 that there was no intention of affecting prior deposits. It was also never the intention that landlords who had protected deposits and who had given their tenants information about that protection should then have to reissue the same information about the deposit protection each and every time the tenancy was renewed, although the same deposit would continue to be protected in the same scheme from one tenancy to the next. That, however, was the result of the Court of Appeal’s decision in the case of Superstrike Ltd v. Marino Rodrigues. As a result of that decision, a large number of landlords were at risk of court action and open to a financial penalty, despite having done what the sector and successive Governments considered to be the right thing. Our proposals are broadly similar to those made by my hon. Friend, and will protect landlords who follow Government and tenancy deposit scheme advice from financial penalties and delayed possession proceedings by providing a grace period and making other provision.
New clause 21 deals with short-term lets. It is aimed at an outdated, 40-year old law that restricts householders in London from being able temporarily to let out their homes, or even a spare room, for less than three months without having first secured planning permission for change of use. Currently, failure to secure planning permission in Greater London for short-term letting can result in a fine of up to £20,000. That is not the case in the rest of England, where property owners can let out their homes on a short-term basis without needing permission to do so.
During the 2012 Olympics while we were all encouraging visitors to come to London and join in the celebrations, some people who welcomed visitors into their homes were subject to enforcement action from London boroughs. That was not universal, but I do applaud the boroughs that entered into the spirit and encouraged residents to let out their homes or a spare room. Wimbledon is on at the moment, of course, and Londoners have traditionally rented out spare rooms and homes to people visiting the capital for the championships. The new clause enables the Secretary of State to make regulations to give London residents more of the freedoms enjoyed in other parts of the country.
I have discussed this with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind). He made the point that sensitive handling is needed to ensure that regulations covering companies that sub-let regularly are not circumvented by these changes. The regulations have to be properly dealt with in a sensitive way.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
I entirely agree with what the Minister says about the sensitivity of this matter and the importance of getting it right. The London property market’s problem at the moment is certainly not that it is too long term. With that in mind, does the Minister think there has been sufficient consultation and enough opportunity to consider the full implications, given that the proposal has been brought forward long after all the pre-legislative scrutiny has been finished?
The Solicitor-General
I would never describe my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley’s plans as mad, but on this occasion I do not agree with them.
Turning to Government amendment 12 and the amendments to remove clause 17, we had a lively debate about insolvency practitioners in Committee. Of course, the profession deserves a great deal of credit for the good work it does in rescuing struggling businesses that still have a viable future, saving jobs and preserving value in the economy. As the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) said in Committee, the World Bank rates our Insolvency Service the seventh best in the world, and it is a service that other countries admire. This has been achieved through innovative policy developments, and we believe that the one we are discussing now—the system of partial authorisation introduced by clause 17 —is a positive development for the sector, for the profession, for creditors and for insolvent companies and individuals.
The proposed system will reduce barriers to entry by enabling would-be insolvency practitioners to qualify in respect of only corporate or personal insolvency; if they want to, they can continue to do both, but those who wish to specialise will benefit from shorter training periods and lower training costs. That will increase competition and bring down fees, and the profession will benefit too. If a firm decides to fund someone through qualification, it will cost them less than it does now. The amount of money involved is substantial: BPP, the leading provider of professional training, charges £3,470 for each of the three courses needed for the professional examinations, and there are many fees on top of that, so we are talking about significant sums—not hundreds of pounds but thousands. The Government have heard arguments against partial authorisation, but have decided to continue with the policy.
Amendment 85, which would remove clause 30, is misguided. It is intended primarily to halt the Government’s proposed changes to the Planning and Energy Act 2008 and is based on a misunderstanding of what we are doing. It would bring to an end all the excellent work we have undertaken with industry and many interested bodies in the sustainability, access and environmental sectors to rationalise the plethora of local standards by regularising them through the building control system. It would also leave in place the considerable range of excessive and ill-considered costs imposed on the housing industry by some local authorities. These standards are holding back development and are a mess.
On journalistic materials, I did promise earlier that we would introduce extensions to the power of the criminal procedure rules to cover the procedure for making certain sorts of applications, ensuring that journalists do not lose any of the statutory protections they currently have.
I need not address the remaining minor and technical amendments at this stage. I am sorry to have taken up so much of the House’s time, but this is a big group of amendments.
Toby Perkins
I begin by drawing the House’s attention to my declaration of interests.
The fact that the Solicitor-General had to whistle through so many new clauses and amendments says a tremendous amount about the Bill and the way the Government have approached it. We have 49 minutes to debate 43 different new clauses, amendments and new schedules. It is an absolute disgrace and an affront to democracy that this House is being asked to whistle through the approval of very important measures that this Government have brought before us at a moment’s notice.
The Bill was originally an unambitious, predominantly inconsequential list of minor changes to the way we sell yarn and chocolate liqueurs that most people would not much mind or particularly appreciate, mixed in with a few substantially more dangerous provisions. However, it has morphed almost daily into a leviathan of a Bill with a multitude of ill-thought-out, scarcely consulted on clauses, the aims of which are unclear, the consequences of which are uncertain, the benefits of which are unproven, and the coherence of which is absolutely impossible to fathom. If this is the final piece of legislation this Government introduce, it will be a fitting climax for them: unloved, owned by no one, with few advocates, whose central purpose has long since been obscured, and who exist now only to be seen to be doing something, in the hope that, if they hang around for a bit, the polls might take a turn for the better.
The ultimate summary of the Government’s approach was heard when the Solicitor-General said in response to the very reasonable criticisms of his previous Bill that we are where we are. In fact, the Deregulation Bill could be the “we are where we are” Bill. Virtually no one is speaking up for it or offering much in the way of support for it.
We oppose clause 17 because we believe it will dumb down the profession. As the Solicitor-General rightly said, we have one of the best insolvency professions in the world. The Bill will de-professionalise what is a very successful profession. It will give an advantage to large insolvency firms, working against the smaller firms and new entrants to the market that Members on both sides of this House profess to support. In Committee, we warned that this change would represent a regulatory move, rather than a deregulatory one. Throughout their response, the Government were unable to come up with any serious support for the Bill.
The Solicitor-General said that the purpose of the Bill—its benefit—was to save money. When he was asked about that in Committee, he said that it costs £4,000 for each of these exams, and if someone only has to do two of them, they will save £4,000. He was also very critical of the insolvency profession, and then suggested that that saving will be passed on to the customers of insolvency practitioners. Many practitioners have been in the industry for some 20 years. The idea that, 20 years later, they are going to give some sort of discount because back then they saved themselves £4,000 bears no scrutiny.
In Committee, the Solicitor-General described responses to the consultation on this change as “mixed”. That was an extraordinarily generous euphemism. Excluding the Secretary of State, just one out of seven recognised professional bodies in the field supports partial licences, and 75% of small firms undertake both corporate and personal insolvency procedures for commercial reasons, so it is the large players that are likely to be able to adopt partial licences. If any of the benefits that the Solicitor-General has laid out actually come to pass—I strongly suspect they will not—they will exclude small players from the insolvency market and make it very much the preserve of large companies. He is setting out to dumb down the profession rated by the World Bank as the seventh best in the world, judged on the basis of the amount returned to creditors and the speed of the process—two key aspects we would expect an insolvency regime to have. When I asked a turnaround specialist from Germany who was working in Chesterfield why he was working in the UK rather than back in his homeland, he told me, “Because your insolvency regime is so much better than ours.” He gave a list of reasons why we should be proud of what we have. Amazingly, this Government are coming to this House to make changes that would de-professionalise something that is tremendously successful and which do not enjoy the support of the industry. The major trade body representing insolvency practitioners calls for clause 17 to be not amended but scrapped, yet the Solicitor-General says he is doing this on behalf of the industry. This is a bizarre set of circumstances.
The Solicitor-General will be creating a three-tier system where, rather than there being one set of exams, people will operate in three different ways. The implications for Scotland, whose insolvency regime is very different, have not been laid out. Our amendment would delete the clause. Even if one accepts the Government’s arguments on personal insolvency specialists not needing corporate insolvency, saying in reverse that people who do corporate insolvency, which will often involve aspects of personal insolvency, do not need to have studied personal insolvency is bizarre. We think the Government are very misguided, as does the industry, and we strongly call on them to do the right thing, support our amendment and drop this clause.
I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds), the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) want to discuss their proposals, and despite the lack of scrutiny that these clauses will get, I will ensure that they get an opportunity to do so. However, I shall quickly speak on those measures from the Front Bench.
On Sunday trading, I support entirely what the Minister said, and I will not be supporting new clauses 10 to 14 for the following reasons: the Government promised that their emergency legislation for the Olympics was not a Trojan horse leading to further liberalisation of Sunday trading hours; the importance of Sunday trading legislation for employees; the broad, cross-party coalition supporting our current legislation in this area; the impact these proposed changes would have on small businesses and the convenience sector, which is very much under pressure; and the fact that these measures are being proposed in the way that they are, without any consultation on an issue that divides opinion tremendously. All those things mean that this Bill is entirely the wrong place for such measures to be introduced.
On new clauses 20 and 21, the Labour party is, as we said previously, absolutely committed to greater security for tenants and a long-term approach to the private rented market. It is revealing that at a time when the Labour party is proposing policies that will give tenants more security and certainty in their tenure, the Government are introducing something that specifically encourages more shorter-term lets. Just because their priorities are wrong, it does not mean that, individually, there is no merit in these new clauses, but they need to be considered carefully. The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) has made a strong case, and London Members from across the House are deeply concerned that the London letting market does not suffer from the problem of being too long term. I am very concerned that there should be proper consultation on these new clauses.
We think that the proposal made by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion is important. We are very conscious that the Green party leader of Brighton council recently slammed the entire principle of right to buy, describing it as the
“biggest privatisation programme this country has ever seen.”
Right to buy is important. We need to help people who otherwise would not be able to access the housing market, as with so many in Cameron’s Britain; in 1997, it took the average family three years to save for a deposit on a home but now it takes about 22 years. Given that catastrophic record of this Government, in particular, it is important that right to buy is available, but it is also important that these properties are replaced.
As I have said, this group contains a huge number of measures. We will seek to divide the House on amendments 84 and 2. It is entirely wrong that Members have had so little time to discuss this group, but in order to give people the opportunity to discuss their proposals, I will leave my comments there.
Deregulation Bill
Debate between Oliver Heald and Toby Perkins(10 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Solicitor-General
Yes, I am sure that that would be possible. I am looking to the Box and to my Parliamentary Private Secretary sitting behind me to see whether that can be achieved. A list was certainly provided. It is not definitive. It was produced on the basis that regulations would be produced and in place by the time of Royal Assent, that there would be proper consultation, and that the Health and Safety Executive would be involved. The idea is that the House has an opportunity to see them and that there is proper consultation on them.
The Government believe that we should reduce the number of administrative hoops that self-employed people have to jump through to free them up to continue to do their jobs unhindered and to continue to contribute to the UK’s economic growth. Currently, section 3(2) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 imposes a duty on every self-employed person to have regard to, and protect against, the risks that their undertaking creates both to themselves and others, regardless of the type of activity they are undertaking.
Toby Perkins
Will the Minister expand on what the hoops are that self-employed people will no longer have to jump through? In practical terms, for any self-employed person who has the time or inclination to watch the debate, what is it that they will no longer have to do that they would previously have found so burdensome and obstructive to their responsibilities?
The Solicitor-General
I will come on to that in a moment. Let me just say, for the benefit of the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), that the prescribed list of undertakings has been compiled to include high hazard industries or activities. They will be prescribed if one of four criteria is met: where there are high numbers of self-employed people in a particular industry with high rates of injuries or fatalities, for example agriculture; where there is significant risk to members of the public, for example fairgrounds; where there is potential for mass fatalities from, for example, explosives, fireworks and so on; and where there is a European obligation to retain the general duty on self-employed persons, for example in construction, where there is a Council directive imposing duties on the self-employed. That is the nature of the way the list is being compiled.
In answer to the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins), at the moment, a self-employed accountant or an author working at home would be under a duty to carry out a risk assessment. He said in Committee that that would be a quick and easy thing to do, but the point is that every self-employed person in the country—we are talking about millions of people—has that duty. The perception that they have an onerous burden on them was identified by Professor Löfstedt at King’s College, the leading expert in risk assessment, who was asked to examine this for the Government. The amendment seeks to limit the number of self-employed persons covered by section 3(2) of the 1974 Act. The change would mean that only self-employed persons who conduct an undertaking of a prescribed description would be covered by the duty. That is what the regulations will prescribe.
The change has been proposed as a result of the recommendations of Professor Ragnar Löfstedt in his report, “Reclaiming health and safety for all: An independent review of health and safety legislation”, which was published in 2011. He recommended that self-employed persons be exempt from health and safety law where they pose no potential risk of harm to others through their work activity.
“Prescribed” is defined by the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 to mean prescribed by regulations made by the Secretary of State. This clause therefore enables the Secretary of State to make regulations for the purposes of bringing self-employed persons within the scope of section 3(2), where their undertaking poses a significant risk of harm. Committee members will have seen a list of prescribed undertakings, which will be subject to public consultation and parliamentary procedure. The list is designed to strike a careful balance between the need to free self-employed people from unnecessary burdens while still providing the important protections to those who need them. The clause was debated in Committee, and the Committee voted for it. I thus urge the hon. Member for Chesterfield and his colleagues not to press the amendment and I urge Members to accept Government new clause 2.
Toby Perkins
I am pleased to speak to new clause 2 and to support amendment 72, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) and me. I start by declaring my interest as a member of Unite the Union, which has made representations on this issue, and by expressing my gratitude for the opportunity to discuss these amendments. We are grateful to the Government and others who supported our demand for proper time to debate the important health and safety aspects of the Bill. We felt that the original programme motion might well have denied Members that opportunity.
Let me respond first to the Minister’s comments about new clause 2. Labour Members warmly welcome the intention to allow Sikhs to wear turbans in place of head protection in all workplaces. Making such a change is important to our Sikh communities and for our country as a whole. I am pleased that the Minister was able to announce the extension of the exemption to Northern Ireland. That will be pleasing to the Sikh community in Northern Ireland and throughout Great Britain. The turban is not only the most visual part of a Sikh’s faith, but a proud part of our island story. We want the contribution of Sikhs to be visibly demonstrated in workplaces across the country. The Minister was absolutely right to speak warmly of the contribution that Sikhs have made to Britain. The success of this approach was seen in 2012 when Guardsman Jatinderpal Bhullar became the first turban wearer on guard duty outside Buckingham palace.
Despite our broad and deep support, we feel that the new clause could be clarified, so let me make a couple of suggestions for the Minister to consider as further improvements. First, on the blanket exclusion for emergency response services and military personnel, we believe that each case should be considered according to its individual merit. What further steps can the Minister take on that? The pace of technological change in the future will never be as slow as it is today—amazing though that may seem to us now—so it would be prudent to keep the mechanisms for making such amendments as flexible and responsive as possible. Why has the Minister not opted to have exclusions set outside the primary legislation as a statutory instrument simply to allow changes to the law to move with the time?
The Solicitor-General
The exclusion does not amount to a blanket exemption. It applies only in hazardous operational situations in which the wearing of a safety helmet is considered necessary. That means that all other means of protecting the Sikh must be considered and rejected before that legal requirement would kick in. It is based on circumstances specific to the particular Sikh, and only a very hazardous situation would require this to happen.
Toby Perkins
The Minister may not have understood what I was talking about or I may not have understood what he was talking about. I believe that there is a blanket exemption to the exclusion with respect to emergency response services and military personnel.
The Solicitor-General
The exemption applies to the emergency services and the armed forces, but it is not a blanket one. It applies only in hazardous operational situations in which the wearing of the helmet is necessary. The narrow circumstances about a particular Sikh are looked at, and then the decision is made. The aim is that it should apply only in such circumstances as the burning building that I mentioned earlier.
Toby Perkins
I am grateful for that clarification. Will the Minister clarify the definition of “workplace”, as concerns have been raised that the term could be ambiguous and confusing? Could he offer some clarification and perhaps tighten up the definition and the language more generally? For example, would a Sikh working within a vehicle be considered to be working in a workplace?
Toby Perkins
The idea that the Liberal Democrats might be able to save themselves a bit of shame is a novel concept—perhaps my hon. Friend is being a little bit too ambitious—but we shall none the less listen with great interest to what they say.
The Solicitor-General
The hon. Gentleman, in his lurch to the left, seems to have forgotten that when his party was in office, it was in favour of a tenfold increase in contracting out in the NHS, and in favour of flexible working. Those were the things of which his party spoke, as new Labour. Is the hon. Gentleman old Labour?
The Solicitor-General
I will give way in a few seconds.
Another point was raised about confusion between the workplace—[Interruption.] There was confusion in much of what was said between the place where the work takes place and the activity. It is the activity that is going to be exempted. If something is a dangerous or hazardous activity, it will be exempted from the change, so that people will be safe. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington asked about the docks, but if someone is doing something dangerous or hazardous there, they will be exempt. There is a separate regime for maritime activity, which is organised differently by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency—the enforcing authority for that area of endeavour.
Toby Perkins
The Solicitor-General is making a bizarre contribution, which is adding to the confusion rather than resolving it. He argues that if someone is doing an activity that is prescribed as safe but in a dangerous place, they will not be covered by the legislation. Does he not understand that the people who fund his party are those who will end up saving money, while the people in the trade unions are those who, over the years, have done the dying. That is why they feel so strongly about health and safety, which needs to be protected. The Solicitor-General needs to clear up the confusion, not add to it.