Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

David Simpson Excerpts

Monday 11th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Binley]

I consider the hon. Gentleman to be a friend, and our views meet on a number of issues, particularly clean coal. However, they do not meet on this matter, because his suggestion would only add even more bureaucracy to small businesses. We need to lift that bureaucracy, and I ask that that point be appreciated.

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I agree with 99.9% of what the hon. Gentleman is saying, especially about small and medium-sized businesses, which are the backbone of this United Kingdom. Does he agree that it is the Government’s role and responsibility to create the environment that will help those businesses to succeed?

[Mr Binley]

I agree entirely, and I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point much more succinctly than I did.

The Government recognise that employment regulation needs to be addressed. It is in everybody’s interests that workplace disputes are resolved as speedily as is practical. I share the concern of my colleagues on the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee that we must be assured that introducing a mandatory process will expedite matters. It is conceivable that ACAS will be involved in trying to conciliate more than 200,000 cases a year. Can the Minister provide an assurance that that will speed up the process?

In response to the earlier consultation, the Government recognised the need to increase ACAS’s resources, arguing that that would be paid for by savings from cases that would not proceed to a tribunal. However, ACAS’s report makes it clear that three quarters of claims are already resolved before that phase. What further reduction do the Government envisage under the mandatory system, and will the additional resources be provided up front? Otherwise, if we are not careful there will be as big a road block as there is in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. I ask the Minister to consider that very carefully. ACAS acknowledges that

“problems at work can be a barrier to growing a business”,

and I support that view, but it has to be properly funded if it is to do the job that the Government will ask it to do. I am not sure that we have been assured that that will be the case.

I welcome the provisions in the Bill to improve competition policy. Small businesses are capable of performing robustly in a competitive market, and we should ask whether we are doing enough to enable them to compete. When market forces fail to deliver a competitive environment, it is proper that authorities should intervene, but we need to make our competitions investigations speedier. Cartel investigations and dominance inquiries in this country take an average of more than 30 months, which is simply not good enough. We can imagine the cost involved for small businesses at the larger end of the scale that are involved in such process—it is enormous. All that we are doing is stopping good people managing their businesses for growth. We are making them defend their position simply because the law says they must. The law needs to be more helpful and understanding to them in that respect, and I ask that that matter be looked into more deeply.

Finally, I welcome the extension of the primary authority scheme in clause 52. It is essential to widen small businesses’ opportunity to participate. The existing arrangements are too prohibitive, so the reform is positive. I pay tribute to the Labour party for introducing the scheme when they were in Government—I always want to recognise value where it exists, because the House is better when it works together than when it works apart.

I repeat that this is an important Bill, and it has been brought forward at a sensitive time in the economic cycle. The voice of business could not be clearer. We need to create a simple, predictable, reliable and agile regulatory environment. We need to encourage entrepreneurs to start businesses and want to grow them here, and we need a competition regime that champions competitiveness and opportunity. Those are tough asks, and it remains to be seen whether the Bill will perform those tasks. It will if Ministers allow it to be amended effectively in Committee and on Report. I want an assurance from the Minister that the Government will be that understanding.