Deregulation: Public Services and Health and Safety

Baroness Andrews Excerpts

Thursday 13th July 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Andrews]

That this House takes note of the impact of deregulation on, and the role of regulatory enforcement in delivering, public services and health and safety.

[Baroness Andrews (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to have the opportunity to introduce this debate and particularly grateful to all noble Lords joining me in what is an extremely important matter. At the heart of this debate is a fundamental question: what sort of a state do we aspire to live in? This question is inescapable in the light of the appalling and preventable tragedy at Grenfell Tower and the issues it raises around the quality and safety of public services. Of course, our thoughts are ever with those people whose lives will never be the same again.

Following from this, the question we really need to ask ourselves is what sort of country we want to live in and whether it is one in which the universal principle of government that every citizen should have the basic right to safety and security has been replaced by a political ideology where the minimum will do. If the minimum puts the poorest and most vulnerable at the greatest risk, perhaps this is what the Prime Minister meant when she said, in response to Grenfell Tower, that the state is not working.

It is absurd to say that the state is not working, as if it is something beyond the control of government. The state has not failed; the fact is that the state is being wilfully dismantled and disabled by an ideology that explicitly pursues a leaner and meaner state. This has been marked not just by an increasing frenzy ramped up over seven years by successive Ministers to get rid of as many regulations as fast as possible, but by a climate of hostility that invites compromises over safeguards and standards, and opts for guidance rather than enforcement. Crucially, this fatal obsession with deregulation in all forms across Whitehall has been pursued with no regard for consequences, other than the benefits to business. Even then, the outcomes are far from transparent or consistent.

So it is no wonder that there is such visceral anger about the catastrophe of Grenfell Tower. There will eventually be answers to why the regulations that were supposed to protect residents signally failed to do so. What also needs an answer is why the review of the Building Regulations 2010 was delayed and why the 2013 review of the 2005 regulatory reform order was not converted into recommendations. This debate cannot pursue that or the contextual factors that contributed to the risks of living in Grenfell Tower. One such of course is the conspicuous refusal of successive Governments to prioritise housing for the poor as opposed to the rich and the refusal to respect the dignity and the voice of social housing tenants. When you put that together with 40% cuts on average in local authority budgets, there is no doubt that the poor will suffer the most.

I hope today’s debate will open up further opportunities to uncover the impact of the culture in which regulation has been routinely derided as red tape and where Ministers are incentivised to reduce the so-called burdens on business as far and as fast as possible. It is worth reflecting on the term “red tape”. It has in fact kept greed and exploitation in check since the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution and continues to do so. Red tape has meant that over many years in this country children no longer work all the hours God sends. It means that our food and drinking water do not kill us, that our landscapes and green spaces are protected, and that our transport systems, homes and workplaces are as safe as they can be.

On 21 June, in an open letter to the Prime Minister, 70 leading health and safety agencies and practitioners said unequivocally that enough was enough. They stated that,

“for many years, Ministers and others with influence over them have called for regulations, including in health and safety, to be axed as a matter of principle … This mind-set has meant that, even when it was recommended and accepted that mandatory fitting of sprinklers would make homes or schools safer, this was rejected in favour of non-regulatory action. In practice, this approach favours inaction”.

As they emphasised, much of what is seen as most burdensome is due to poor understanding and implementation or an exaggerated fear of liability.

Those independent, authoritative national safety organisations now demand a change in direction and culture from this Government. No one defends keeping redundant or unenforceable regulations. Over many years—and the Labour Government were much involved in it—much has been pruned and improved in the pursuit of better regulation and it is being done daily by the Health and Safety Executive. But here is the change: since 2010, we have had Conservative-led Governments who have departed from a legitimate search for better regulation to a position where deregulation is an ideological and political choice—where, indeed, it has turned into a battle cry.

Having already pledged to,

“kill off the health and safety culture for good”,

David Cameron in 2012 went on to describe it as an albatross around the neck of business. I wonder how that sounds to the families of the 13,000 people who die each year from exposure to chemicals or dust.

Since 2010, the Cabinet Office has charged Ministers across Whitehall with finding first one, then two and now three regulations to ditch for every new one made, on the grounds that red tape stifles growth and reduces profits. The Department for Communities and Local Government, the department responsible for building regulations, has proved only too eager to assist. One of Grant Shapps’ first actions as Housing Minister in 2010, which now has a tragic resonance, was to abolish the National Tenant Voice, the first body set up—just previously—deliberately to represent social housing tenants. He also diverted the independent Tenants Services Authority, the first regulatory agency to champion tenants’ rights, into the Homes and Communities Agency. This move not only made it less visible; it also had the effect of constraining the co-regulation opportunities and consumer elements of its work.

That work of representing tenants’ interests has been taken forward by the national tenant organisations. My first question to the Minister is: will he meet the NTOs to discuss how to go forward in empowering tenants in the light of Grenfell Tower? There are landlords who are hostile to their involvement.

Mr Pickles at CLG also set to work to deregulate as much of development control as possible, thus making it much easier for housebuilders, for example—who have never had the incentive to build in the interests of society—to develop less carefully but more profitably. The provision for “viability” in the National Planning Policy Framework has also let developers off the hook of social housing and social benefit if they can claim that it reduces their profit margins.

Mr Pickles’ successor, Sajid Javid, boasted during the election of May 2015 that the Conservative manifesto promised a further £10 billion of cuts in red tape over the following Parliament. That £10 billion, he said, would be easier to slash than the previous £10 billion. He was particularly pleased that deregulation had achieved,

“less bureaucracy for house builders and developers”,

while,

“thousands of regular businesses no longer face health and safety inspections”.

How right he was, because, in April 2016, a TUC survey found that half of all workplaces had never been visited by a safety inspector.

The Red Tape Challenge ran until April 2013. On 27 January 2014, David Cameron announced that it had identified 3,000 pieces of regulation to be improved or removed, with 800 abolished or simplified. May I ask the Minister for an up-to-date figure on how many regulations have now been scrapped and with what savings, and how are the £10 billion in savings calculated? How much has been saved since 2015? I appreciate that the Minister may not have those figures with him; I would like him to write and I would like a copy placed in the Library. Some of the regulations that have been scrapped are particularly worth noting. For example, new homes no longer have to be zero-carbon rated. That is a problem, not least because it is at the forefront of new technologies. Self-employed people no longer have workplace protections.

It is rare that one gets a glimpse into the workings of Whitehall, but this comment by someone who served as a special adviser to BIS for four years is instructive as to the processes:

“In 4 years … Steve Hilton and his Red Tape Challenge provided more moments of exquisite satirical lunacy than any other. I will never forget listening … to Steve and A Certain Cabinet Minister debate whether to lift the ban on inflammable nighties … At one point Steve suggested scrapping entirely the Consumer Protection Act”.


Bizarre thought though that is, my immediate reaction on reading it was one of simple anger that while this nonsense was being driven by No. 10, no such urgency was being given to updating the fire regulations.

However sophisticated the regulatory system, the loss of expertise, skills and resources for enforcement renders it ineffective. Evidence shows, for example, that since 2010, one-third of environmental health officers have gone, so food outlets are checked less frequently and air-quality stations are closed. The heaviest cuts fall in the poorest areas. Professor Steve Tombs of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies has shown that health and safety, food protection and pollution control staff in Liverpool have been cut from 39 to 16, with corresponding reductions in the other Merseyside authorities. There has been a steady fall in the number of enforcement notices issued by the HSE and local authorities. I know that other noble Lords will have other examples. Most significantly, the relationship between the HSE and industry itself has changed. The HSE has been directly disabled by a cut of 46%. It is no longer allowed to conduct proactive inspections. At the same time, the commercialisation of its activities, through the introduction of fee for intervention, means that the HSE is less likely to be consulted over health and safety.

Professor Tombs suggests that there is a long-term downward trend in every form of enforcement. If that is the case, I suspect that there will be a long-term downward trend in health and safety in the workplace, reversing the steady progress that has been made over 40 years. Housing and planning has been particularly hard hit. The planning system is now much weaker than it was, because of the expansion of permitted development and changes to the prior approval process. This means that a high-rise office block can be converted to housing without the requirements for any space for children’s play or social facilities. The Parker Morris space standards are long gone and there is now the prospect that these dwellings will indeed become the slums of the future. There has also been a loss of oversight in terms of building regulations. Nick Forbes, the leader of Newcastle, has described it thus:

“Buildings can go up and councils have no right to know what they are made of, if the developer chooses to have a private sector firm sign off on regulations”.


This debate is even more timely than I thought it would be, because of the publication of the European repeal Bill today. Stripping out the European regulatory frameworks is a compelling prospect for Brexiteers. Priti Patel, Secretary of State for International Development, told the Institute of Directors:

“If we could just halve the burdens of the EU social and employment legislation we could deliver a £4.3 billion boost to our economy”.


One example she offered was cutting working time protection for self-employed lorry drivers. In this House we will be in the paradoxical situation of both defending the current standards of safety and effectiveness in areas such as medicine or information technology and, at the same time, trying to prevent Government overriding Parliament by the use of excessive, inappropriate secondary legislation. I only hope that we will have the resources and arrangements that will allow us to do that to the best of our ability.

In conclusion, it is almost 200 years since the first expert inspectors were created to stop coal mines, factories and food killing people. The state has changed a lot—it has had to—from one which sprang to action only after a national disaster, in the nightwatchman state of the Victorians, to one which has tried, over a century, to anticipate and prevent new harms as they emerge in an increasingly sophisticated economy. We should be proud of that, not least since it has been good for growth, good for business, good for public health and good for society.

In view of these social and economic benefits, it is alarming that this retreat from regulation over the past seven years has been conducted without any public reference to the impact on anything other than business. So my third question to the Minister is: will he now take the lead in commissioning a comprehensive social and economic review of the impact of the Red Tape Challenge and all that has followed from this so that the claims and assertions of the benefits of the deregulatory regime can be tested and the costs and charges can be revealed? Will he also agree to meet the health and safety bodies which have written to the PM to discuss their deep concerns? Their letter concludes:

“You have it in your power to remove immediately a “risk to people at work and outside of the workplace—unwise deregulation—which threatens public and worker safety.


We, leaders in health and safety in the UK call on you to scrap the Government’s approach to health and safety deregulation and to think again”.


Only the Government have the power to ensure that the state remains proactive, responsible and accountable in its care for the entire community, especially the most vulnerable. Grenfell Tower should indeed be a turning point, and I hope the Government will rise to that responsibility. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Andrews (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to everyone who has taken part. I said that I thought that this would be the start of a wider debate on the state of the nation and the nature of attitudes towards regulation, and so it has turned out. I note that in concluding, the Minister said that he hopes that Grenfell Tower will indeed change the culture around regulation, and I hope that that is the case. It is up to the Government, essentially, whether that happens.

I thank all noble Lords for their incredibly thoughtful and informative contributions. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Patten, that there was wide consensus around the House that the attempt to introduce effective, proportionate regulation started with the Labour Government, but there was also a sense around the House that there has been a step change to a more aggressive culture. The Prime Minister has learned of the absurdity and perversity of the process and outcomes of some of the ways in which the one in, three out rule has been interpreted. I was particularly grateful for the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, his frank and thoughtful account of his time as a Minister, and his proposition on building inspection responsibility.

I asked the Minister four questions; none of them has been answered. I understand why two of them were not. They were about the review of regulation, although he gave some illustrations of outcomes. I should be very grateful if he would answer them as best he can, especially the invitations to the organisations that I mentioned.

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

I am sure that I can address those questions. On the meeting with the two groups of people that the noble Baroness suggested, I would be very happy to do that, but I think it would be best if they met my noble friend Lord Bourne from the DCLG, rather than me.

[Baroness Andrews]

I understand and am grateful for that.

In conclusion, Brexit raises huge problems, some of which have been identified today, in terms of transposition and enforcement. I go back to where the noble Lord, Lord Best, started: when we have effective regulation, high standards and high ambitions for the quality of public services—what we provide by way of housing and everything else—we are actually doing a service to the economy as well as to the community. That should be our ambition; that should be what we want government to do; that should be what we want the state to do.

I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part, some at considerable personal expense, and I hope that this will open up a debate which we will continue, particularly as we face the prospect of Brexit. I beg to move.

Motion agreed.