Deregulation Bill

Debate between Lord Clarke of Nottingham and Chi Onwurah

Monday 3rd February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah]

I am going to make progress, as many Members wish to speak.

Regulation is a concern for some businesses, but business people understand that rules are needed to protect people’s safety and rights, promote competition and prevent employers from being undercut by those who do not play by the rules. As the Federation of Small Businesses has noted, the concerns of business are often about how regulations are developed and introduced, how they are enforced, and the duplication and overlapping rules that waste their time. The Government’s rather crude “one in, two out” approach fails to recognise that sensible and proportionate regulation introduced and implemented properly can promote healthy, competitive markets. The issue is more complex than the number of rules coming in and out.

We believe it is essential to take a fresh look at existing regulation, how it is implemented, and how—in response to the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood)—it is translated from European directives. Regulation protects consumers’ and employees’ rights, ensures that our industries play their part in moving to a green and sustainable future, and keeps citizens safe; it has saved many lives. It is important that it is effective and enforceable. Challenges arise when ill-thought-through regulation has unforeseen consequences or is interpreted bureaucratically and inflexibly. Some regulation can certainly represent an unnecessary burden on businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises that may not have access to legal advice to interpret regulation accurately or the resources to implement it fully.

When in power, Labour sought to reduce regulation by introducing the Better Regulation Commission and the ongoing better regulation programme, and made a number of legislative changes to reduce the cost of regulation. Our programmes for simplifying regulation delivered—[Interruption.] Our programmes delivered— I would have thought this figure would be of some interest to Government Members—£3 billion of savings to business per year. In contrast, the impact statement for the draft Bill—Ministers have not dared to produce a comprehensive summary for the current Bill—estimated that it would save business and civil society £10 million over 10 years. So we have savings of £10 million or £3 billion; I think the Minister can do the maths. The figures underline that while we all agree unnecessary regulation can be a burden on business, a sensible approach to deregulation is about more than repealing statutes.

In government, we introduced legislative reform orders to help Ministers to get unnecessary burdens on business off the statute book. However, as the Regulatory Reform Committee has noted, instead of using those 11 procedures already available to Government for deregulating, Ministers chose to invent a new one. We also set up the primary authority scheme and the Regulatory Policy Committee, as well as a Cabinet Sub-Committee to focus minds at the very top of Government. That was our record in government.

Building on Labour’s progress in government, the Bill seeks to introduce a growth duty on regulators, as the Minister explained. This duty will compel them to have regard to the promotion of economic growth when carrying out their functions and to carry them out in a necessary and proportionate way. We support the aims behind the duty and, clearly, the principle that regulators should go about their business in a proportionate way, but we must ensure that the duty does not inhibit or contradict the primary function of any regulator.

The crude proposals in the Bill do not fit into an overall strategy or vision for this country. They show no recognition of why growth is important to deliver good, sustainable jobs, to help people’s incomes rise faster than costs, and to ensure that we become richer as a nation. They do not mention long-term or sustainable growth—they refer simply to growth—and they fail to recognise that good regulation is necessary to protect jobs and growth. Is it right that a housing bubble or a casino-capitalism-fuelled, short-term growth spurt should be a primary consideration for the Office for Nuclear Regulation? I hope we all recognise that markets need to be regulated in order to protect growth and jobs, or are the Government suggesting that the underlying cause of the global financial crisis was too much regulation?

[The Minister without Portfolio (Mr Kenneth Clarke)]

I am sorry to put the hon. Lady out of her stride, but I have slightly lost her point; I will be replying to this debate, so I just want to follow her argument. She has said that she is in favour of regulators paying regard to the aim of getting growth in the economy and of their regulations being proportionate to the risks they guard against, but now she appears to be speaking against that. I do not follow her argument: is she proposing to vote against the regulators being asked to have regard to the growth of the economy and against their regulations being proportionate? If so, I have not followed her logic. How on earth would our proposed measures produce a casino-like growth bubble? We are simply proposing a sensible constraint on regulators to make sure that they remain proportionate and do not do out-of-proportion economic damage.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Clarke of Nottingham and Chi Onwurah

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

3. When he expects to appoint a new Victims’ Commissioner.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)]

I am extremely grateful to Louise Casey for the work she did as Victims’ Commissioner and the advice that I received from her while she was in office. We are considering the future of the role and intend to make an announcement in due course.

[Chi Onwurah]

In 2005, teenager Jenny Nicholl was murdered. Her murderer was convicted in 2008 but her body has never been found. Her mother, a constituent of mine, tells me that she received little support while suffering aggressive media intrusion and insinuations. Murder victims’ families have no formal status in court, are offered no protection from the media and, on average, incur costs of £113,000. Mrs Nicholl found the Victims’ Commissioner a strong supporter and champion. To whom should she turn now?

[Mr Clarke]

When Louise Casey was Victims’ Commissioner, she advised me strongly on giving more resources to the support of bereaved families, and I thought that her advice that we should target our support to victims and their families was very sensible. We are working on that and will continue to do so. I propose to publish a consultation document on a general victims package covering a wide range of areas, and I can assure the hon. Lady that in all our work we intend to give even greater emphasis to the importance of looking after victims, as well as getting justice in their cases.