Deregulation Bill

Alok Sharma Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Government Policy (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I will begin by saying something that several in the House might find mildly surprising in the context of this debate: regulation is often sensible and necessary. It is no part of the Government’s plans or our view of life to suggest that regulation is never useful. Indeed, like previous Governments, this Government are presiding over an immense amount of regulation, much of which is constructive and helpful. Nevertheless, it remains true that what we inherited in 2010 was not just a rational set of regulations that anybody who looked at them carefully would have sponsored. There were all sorts of regulations that, frankly, made no sense at all. What we set out to do in 2010 was to review the entire regulatory scene. We have put in an enormous amount of effort, and I am immensely grateful to those in the civil service and outside who have helped us.

As we have gone through regulation after regulation, we have in many instances discovered that there are things being regulated that no longer exist. There are regulators doing things that no longer have any useful purpose, and bodies that are provided for in regulations that no longer function. We have also found that there are things being regulated that do exist, and for which regulations are still operative, but on which such regulation ought not to exist. I suspect that dealing with such matters would be uncontroversial among hon. Members, and I shall give the House two minor, slightly amusing, examples.

On inspection, it turned out that every time the Mayor of London or a borough of London wanted to set up a statue to any grand figure of our past, they had to seek, under a regulation, the specific approval of the Secretary of State. That is clearly completely mad, so I am glad to say that the Bill will remove that particular amusement. A second example—it is a particular favourite of mine, as it has taken a very long time to get this changed—is that until we manage to get the Bill enacted so that clause 40 becomes law, I regret to tell the House that it remains the case that it is an offence to sell liqueur chocolates to under 16s. I can sort of see why someone had the crazy idea to legislate for that at some point, but it does not make any sense, so we are getting rid of it.

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is starting to outline a delicious smorgasbord of deregulation. I am particularly pleased about the clauses that will cut red tape for business. When the Departments looked at everything that could be deregulated, were there examples that they wanted to include in the Bill, but could not because they are overridden by EU legislation?

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[Chi Onwurah]

The hon. Gentleman would be pleased if his Government had our record on growth and business starts.

We now know where the Minister without Portfolio, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) has been hiding for the past year. He has been off with the Minister for Government Policy tackling big issues such as deregulating the sale of knitting yarn, freeing our children to buy their own chocolate liqueurs and decriminalising household waste. When the Prime Minister told people suffering from high energy bills to put on a jumper, the Minister sprang into action by making it easier for them to knit their own.

[Alok Sharma]

rose—

[Chi Onwurah]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman has something to say about knitting yarn.

[Alok Sharma]

My right hon. Friend the Minister for Government Policy made the point that there is a lot of regulation that we can do nothing about because of EU regulation. If the hon. Lady cares so much about regulation, why will she not support the European Union (Referendum) Bill?

[Chi Onwurah]

I know that the Government face a real challenge in keeping their Members off the subject of Europe, but perhaps in this debate on deregulation, they will understand that we are not here to discuss the potential of a referendum. I will come on later to talk about the relevance of Europe to the matter under discussion. Europe is not the issue that confronts my constituents today. My constituents are being hit by the cost of living crisis and the measures that this Government, not Europe, have brought in to ensure that their wages do not rise at the same rate as prices.

It is nice to know that when the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government spoke eloquently about every Englishman’s right to have the remnants of their tikka masala collected promptly, the Minister boldly made sure that they would not face prosecution if they placed it in the wrong receptacle. It is all in this Bill—farriers, road humps and late-night takeaways. This is the Christmas tree Bill to end all Christmas tree Bills. In fact, Christmas trees are one of the few things that are not covered by this Bill.

[Alok Sharma]

rose—

[Chi Onwurah]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman has something to say about that.

[Alok Sharma]

It appears that the hon. Lady is going to oppose every measure in this Bill. Is that the case?

[Chi Onwurah]

There are some measures in this rag, tag hotch-potch of a Bill that are welcome and that we do not oppose. What we oppose is the approach of this Government to a cost of living crisis, which is to attack the rights of ordinary working people.

By my count, the 69 clauses and 17 schedules cover at least 12 Whitehall Departments. As I have said, although there are many parts of the Bill that we support or do not oppose, there are some very disturbing proposals hidden beneath the knitting yarn, which we will vigorously oppose. There are fresh attacks on employment rights, with the removal of yet more powers from employment tribunals. Those are measures that the Government’s own impact assessment claims will have a negligible effect on businesses or even cost them money. We will not support any new attacks on working people.

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[Chi Onwurah]

I know that almost 1 million young people are unemployed and that 1.3 million people in part-time work are seeking full-time work. I also know, because I speak to these people in my constituency, that some people who are supposedly in jobs with zero-hours contracts are getting no work, cannot make any plans and cannot go out and spend money. That is the working environment that this Government support and that the next Labour Government will change.

Let us turn to the first, and most worrying, part of the Bill—the general measures affecting business. Exempting self-employed people in certain industries will create confusion about who is covered and who is not. The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health, the chartered body of health and safety practitioners and the world’s largest health and safety professional membership organisation, is opposed to that, calling it

“a very short-sighted and misleading move”,

and saying that

“it won’t actually help anyone; it won’t support business; but it will cause general confusion.”

Even the Federation of Small Businesses, which supports the change in principle, says that the implications are not well understood and it is particularly concerned about the unintended consequences for insurance, which will need to be considered further in Committee if the Bill gets there.

The Bill will also remove employment tribunals’ power to make wider recommendations to employers who have been judged to have discriminated against someone unlawfully. Such recommendations are only advisory—they are not mandatory and they promote good working practice. Why are the Government trying to prescribe the ability of tribunals to make observations? What are they afraid of? The Prime Minister says that we are in a global race, but that race cannot be won by attacking employment rights at every opportunity. The Opposition will not support a race to the bottom.

The House of Commons Library considered the impact assessment for that measure and found that despite the Minister labelling it deregulatory and counting it as an out under the Government’s arbitrary one in, two out system, business will incur a cost as a result of the removal of the power. Only this Government could propose a supposedly deregulatory measure that costs business money. Those on the Front Bench look slightly puzzled; this is work by the House of Commons Library.

[Alok Sharma]

I am not sure how often the hon. Lady talks to business, but perhaps she saw the submission from the British Chambers of Commerce, which said:

“The BCC supports the thrust of this Bill. The BCC welcomes measures to reduce unnecessary health and safety regulations on the self-employed”.

She should talk to business more before she comes to this House.

[Chi Onwurah]

I have just quoted the FSB, which stands for the Federation of Small Businesses—I hope that the hon. Gentleman is aware of that. I talk to business regularly and if he disagrees with the FSB, we would be pleased to hear the evidence on which that is based.

The Government sacked hundreds of staff at great expense several years ago, and they are now seeking to re-employ them through a recruitment firm, hiring at least half of them. I have seen the job advert, and apparently they will work on the Government’s red tape challenge and deregulation programme. [Interruption.] Well, it is certainly true that the Government need all the help that they can get, but I hope that they will succeed—