Mary Creagh
Main Page: Mary Creagh (Labour - Wakefield)Enterprise Bill [ Lords ] (Fourth sitting)
Mary Creagh Excerpts(8 years, 2 months ago)
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The Chair
I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following:
Amendment 79, in clause 15, page 13, line 10, after “which”, insert “section 21 and”
See explanatory statement to amendment 78.
Amendment 80, in clause 15, page 13, line 14, after “businesses”, insert
“and such other persons as the regulator considers appropriate”
In conjunction with amendment 78, this amendment would require each relevant regulator to report not only on the views of businesses (and ‘other regulated persons’), but also on the views of such other persons as the relevant regulator considers appropriate.
Amendment 81, in clause 15, page 13, line 16, at end insert—
(iii) of the effect of the duties under sections 21 and 22 on the proper exercise of its relevant functions;”
This amendment would require each relevant regulator to report on the effect of the performance of the duties on the proper exercise of the regulatory functions to which they apply.
Amendment 82, in clause 15, page 13, line 18, after “in”, insert “section 21 and”
See explanatory statement to amendment 78.
Amendment 85, in clause 15, page 13, line 41, after “in”, insert “section 21 and”
See explanatory statement to amendment 78.
Amendment 86, in clause 15, page 14, line 28, at end insert—
““businesses” includes businesses and other regulated persons;”
Amendment 87, in clause 15, page 14, line 30, after “by”, insert
“section 21 to have regard to the principles in subsection (2) of that section and”
See explanatory statement to amendment 78.
Amendment 83, in clause 15, page 13, line 31, at end insert—
“(d) the persons from whom information should be obtained for the purposes of a performance report.
This amendment would make provision for guidance to be issued on who should be asked for information for the purposes of preparing a performance report.
Amendment 84, in clause 15, page 13, line 31, at end insert—
‘(6A) Before making guidance under subsection (5), the Minister must consult—
(a) persons carrying on businesses; and
(b) such other persons as the Minister considers appropriate.”
This amendment would require the relevant Minister of the Crown to consult businesses and such other persons as the Minister considers appropriate before making guidance relating to the performance reports.
Amendment 88, in clause 16, page 15, line 13, after “businesses”, insert
“and such other persons as the regulator considers appropriate”
See explanatory statement to amendment 80.
Amendment 89, in clause 16, page 15, line 15, at end insert—
(iii) of the effect of the duties under section 21 and 22 on the proper exercise of its relevant functions;”
See explanatory statement under amendment 81.
Amendment 90, in clause 16, page 15, line 30, at end insert—
“(d) the persons from whom information should be obtained for the purposes of a performance report.”
See explanatory statement to amendment 83.
Amendment 91, in clause 16, page 15, line 30, at end insert—
‘(5A) Before making Guidance under subsection (4), the Minister must consult—
(a) persons carrying on businesses; and
(b) such other persons as the Minister considers appropriate.”
See explanatory statement to amendment 84.
Amendment 92, in clause 16, page 15, line 42, after “businesses”, insert
“and such other persons as the Minister considers appropriate”
See explanatory statement to amendment 80.
Amendment 93, in clause 16, page 16, line 9, at end insert—
‘(11A) In this section—
“businesses” includes businesses and other regulated persons.”
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
Congratulations to the Doorkeepers and engineers on shutting our window; I am sure we will all be peeling off our outer layers in due course.
I want to continue my remarks on the amendments to these regulatory clauses and the benefits of good regulation in creating green jobs and growth. In fact, in case we needed any further examples of that, there is a Waste and Resources Action Programme exhibition outside this very Committee Room, which has the strapline, “Less Waste More Jobs”. That beautifully illustrates what I was saying before lunch.
I want to take a little bit of time to look at the potential impact of the clauses on both the natural environment and the Office of Rail and Road. Let me begin with Natural England. Its statutory purpose is to
“ensure that the natural environment is conserved, enhanced, and managed for the benefit of present and future generations, thereby contributing to sustainable development.”
Its statutory purpose is to protect the natural environment, while the contribution to sustainable development, which includes economic considerations, is an outcome arising from that protection.
The clearest manifestation yet of the potential of the growth duty to have an overriding or undermining influence on the proper exercise of Natural England’s regulatory functions is its recent adoption of a new outcomes approach to the protection and management of our most important wildlife sites and precious places. That new approach was first introduced in a letter from Natural England’s chief executive, James Cross, to a number of key stakeholders in October 2015, with an amended version subsequently published online.
The stated aim is for Natural England to move
“away from being seen as regulators and more towards enablers”
through
“closer working with business to help them achieve their goals while also helping the environment”.
That will apparently involve
“radically reducing the need for regulation”,
and helping businesses to
“achieve their aims in a way that benefits the environment, but takes account of their circumstances”
by seeking
“the best outcomes for everybody, at the right pace”.
While it is right to seek to minimise conflict and to achieve win-win outcomes via the agreement of “common and shared objectives” when possible, there will often be situations where the objectives of businesses will conflict with the proper exercise of Natural England’s regulatory functions and its statutory purpose.
I cite that example in relation to the natural environment, but there are, of course, potential issues around the built environment because local authorities are also listed in clauses 15 and 16. As a former local councillor for seven years, I know that in these straitened times, councils will often err on the side of caution and will be fearful, particularly when making planning decisions. We can see a clear moment when officers will be advising on granting planning permission for something so that the growth duty or reporting requirements that will be placed on them are not subsequently challenged by businesses.
The final area I wish to talk about is the protection of the public interest in its most naked form: the health and safety of workers and the travelling public. Clause 17 applies this reporting duty to the Office of Rail and Road, Ofcom, Ofwat and Ofgem, which is the first time that has happened. In my time as shadow Secretary of State for Transport, I had a great deal to do with the ORR—the Rail Regulator, as it was then. Its statutory duty is to protect the health and safety of workers and the travelling public, to manage demand and supply for rail paths between freight operators and passenger operators and to protect the needs of disabled travellers and ensure they have access to the railway.
With this new duty, I can see clearly that the demands of growth could lead to conflicts of interest. For example, passenger rail travel has doubled over the past 20 years, and there is enormous pressure on those rail slots. It is the difficult duty of the rail regulator to decide which towns and cities get new train services and when the track operators will have access to freight paths to undertake the upkeep and engineering works that keep the railways going. Those decisions are made versus the interests of the commercial operators who run those passenger services. It is in the interests of the rail regulator to ensure that those paths are not too close together and do not run too quickly so as to maintain a safe distance between trains. It must also ensure that there is a requisite number of safety operatives to oversee workers carrying out minor engineering works on the track to avoid tragedies, which sadly occur far too often.
I am concerned that extending the duty to report performance to the Office of Rail and Road, in particular, could end up putting pressure on the regulator to make decisions in the interests of growth that are inimical to the public interest, the protection of public safety, the protection of the health and safety of the workers on the railway, and of course the protection of disabled travellers, whose additional needs in terms of boarding and getting off trains may hold up the smooth operation of the service for a couple of minutes. I have heard anecdotal evidence from my constituents in Wakefield of people being told, “You are holding up the train. We are going to miss our slot. You are going to make us late, and we will lose money as result.” Those pressures already exist, and adding a financial and growth pressure to the regulator could lead to perverse outcomes.
A similar argument could be made about Ofwat, which is responsible for making sure that water companies clean up the beaches, protect the rivers and maintain the reservoirs. The water companies might make more money if they invested less in the asset base but that would not necessarily be good if a reservoir failed and took out a town or village below it. When regulations fail, the consequences in terms of protection of the public are huge. When the Minister replies, I hope that she addresses in particular the issue of road and rail regulation.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
Welcome back, Ms Buck. This is the first time that my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield has spoken in the Committee since her success yesterday and I add my congratulations on her appointment as the new Chair of the Select Committee on Environmental Audit.
As my hon. Friend has said, the Labour party is pro-business, but we are not pro-business as usual and it is important that we challenge unacceptable business practice and exploitative practice. We support good regulation but at the same time we must ensure that unhelpful or damaging regulations are addressed. My hon. Friend cited excellent examples of good regulations that show how such reporting should be done. She also explained that we must take a longer-term view when we consider the environment or other aspects of life. The short-term, balance-sheet effects of regulation are not enough. Whether a regulation, an action or a change in the rules has an effect on a business or an economy in a matter of weeks, months or a year or so is very different from its longer-term impact, whether on the economy or, indeed, the environment. We should be trying to achieve the level playing field that has been a central theme of our deliberations on the Bill so far, and that level playing field should apply to business, consumers and the wider public. The costs of regulation to business can be apparently significant, but savings can be made elsewhere. My hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield has given many examples of exactly that, but I will give a few others as well.
When the minimum wage legislation came in during the early part of the Labour Government, there was criticism that the regulations would produce a big cost to business and to the economy; that they would cost jobs. That turned out to be scaremongering and untrue. There was in fact a benefit, not just to the workers who saw big increases in pay and protection of their terms and conditions, but to the wider economy. People were in a position to spend more money in the economy, which had benefits for business and the wider economy. There was also a benefit in the protections that were given to those businesses that had always been good employers and paid decent wages.
The same, of course, is true today when we debate the challenge of the exploitative use of zero-hours contracts. Sports Direct is an employer that is often cited. There is grave concern at the way zero-hours contracts are used in that business for people whose only or main employment is with that business. That does not just make life very difficult and precarious for the individual; the competitors of Sports Direct or similar businesses where the zero-hours culture is a concern face pressures that are unacceptable, unfair and damaging both to business and to the wider economy.
There are many examples of how regulation can be a force for good. It can be a way of improving the wider environment and economy. It can help business, even though at first glance it may appear not to do so. As we seek to create a fairer society and a fairer and more successful economy, these matters are very important and we rightly have the opportunity to debate them. My hon. Friend was right to table the amendments. They do the job of highlighting the concern and the challenge. She has highlighted the long-term environmental and economic benefits of ensuring that we measure and evaluate regulation—the immediate impact and apparent negative effects, but also the longer-term, beneficial effects. In many cases, what may appear to have a financial cost in the short term has a much greater financial and environmental benefit in the long term. I am therefore pleased that my hon. Friend has tabled the amendments and I am happy to support them.
Anna Soubry
I am so sorry. Then I will not address those, but I will thank the hon. Lady for her probing amendments. She makes some important points, but I just do not agree that we need to include the amendments. I thank her for the debate that we have had and I am delighted to note—Hansard needs to record this—that she has taken her ski jacket off, hopefully because she has warmed up.
Mary Creagh
The Minister said that there was nothing to prevent regulators from consulting with other bodies and people of interest, but that is to misunderstand the behavioural nature of large organisations that are set out in the statutory code, which tend to do what they are prescribed to do in statute. The clauses introduce a statutory requirement to consult with business and to report annually on the impact of businesses. By giving the regulator a duty to consult solely with the private interests of businesses while not consulting with the public interests that they are there to protect—of consumers, citizens, stakeholders and civil society organisations—she is putting the private interests above the public interests that the regulator exists to protect. I have made my point. She said that this would be done through secondary legislation. The House will have a chance to discuss the matter in the future and, no doubt, the debate will continue to rumble along. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Bill Esterson
I beg to move amendment 65, in clause 15, page 13, line 16, at end insert—
“(iii) of the measures adopted by the relevant regulator to make regulations which have an impact on small businesses more comprehensible, and
(ii) of the measures taken to promote awareness of regulations which affect small businesses;”
This amendment would create a new obligation on Regulators to provide an assessment on how they are simplifying their regulations and ensuring that they report on their efforts to extend awareness of regulations.
Kevin Brennan
Of course, the expansion that the Minister referred to in the stand part debate on the previous clause was achieved by converting Train to Gain trainees over the age of 25 into apprenticeships. That was a very clever statistical sleight of hand. I congratulate the Government and the Minister’s PPS on giving us those statistics, although I had to ruthlessly deconstruct them for the Committee’s benefit.
Following Second Reading of the Bill in the Commons, the Minister wrote to my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills outlining a number of amendments that the Government intended to table for debate in Committee. Many of these late additions to the Bill—which, after all, is more than halfway through its parliamentary journey—refer to other parts of the Bill. Earlier, we heard about the new clause on Sunday trading that the Minister tabled, and which we will debate later.
The Minister signalled in her letter to my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State her intention to amend the Bill to establish a new independent body, the institute for apprenticeships. We support that concept and proposal but, despite the Bill having gone all the way through the House of Lords and despite the fact that the Minister wrote to the shadow Secretary of State on 2 February—some nine days ago—I understand that the Government have not been able to find the time to draft the amendment that we were promised in her letter in time for our discussions on this part of the Bill.
Ms Buck, you will be aware, having served as a Minister and as a shadow Minister, of the difference in the level of resources available in government and in opposition even before the Chancellor announced his intention to cut further the money available to Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition to do their vital work in holding the Government to account, which is why we had the urgent question in the Chamber this morning. There is simply no comparison to be made—as we both know, Ms Buck, as former Ministers and shadow Ministers—between the support available to Ministers in the Government and the meagre rations that the Opposition have to exist on. Ms Buck, as an avid music fan, you will appreciate the aptness of the line from the song “Sit Down” by James:
“If I hadn’t seen such riches I could live with being poor”.
Given that the Minister has not been able to get her amendment in on time for this part of the Bill, despite having the Rolls-Royce service of the civil service available to her, we have tabled new clause 20, which sets out a statutory framework for the new institute for apprenticeships. We welcome the Government’s recognition of the need for a more substantial body to oversee apprenticeships. We have taken the initiative to move forward with the institute proposal, which was in the “English Apprenticeships: Our 2020 Vision” report.
We tabled new clause 20 to establish the institute for apprenticeships and spell out how it could operate. The first three subsections of the new clause set out the institute’s role. Subsection (4) relates to the composition of the institute’s board. It cannot be emphasised enough how essential it is for the board to have wide-ranging representation, including all key components of apprenticeship creation and delivery. That is not only a matter of dry process. If the institute is to have people’s confidence, it will need to command that confidence, so it must have a broad-based make-up.
The Apprenticeship Delivery Board announced by the Prime Minister in January, which is tasked with advising the Government on how they can achieve their target of 3 million apprenticeship starts by 2020, is made up of members who are all able people, I am sure, but who are drawn from a relatively narrow section of business—with, incidentally, only one woman among their number. There has been no role thus far for others such as further education providers, universities, trade unions, local authorities or, for that matter, any British manufacturers in the Apprenticeship Delivery Board as far as I can see.
It is therefore crucial that the remit and board of the institute for apprenticeships are broadly based. The board must have at its heart employers, and especially small businesses. It also requires input from a broader-based background of further education providers, colleges, universities—especially given the crucial role of higher skills and degree apprenticeships—and relevant trade unions, which have key experience to offer in this area.
Mary Creagh
My hon. Friend makes a good point; I have been listening with interest. This is surely evidence, if evidence were required, of the cocktail and canapé circuit we were talking about on Tuesday. Does he agree that if we are to ensure apprenticeships are the stepping-stone to further and higher-level educational qualifications, it is imperative that advanced engineering, advanced manufacturing and, in particular, transport and construction providers are part of that board? If we fail to do that, we will not enable people who are going into those careers to progress to the highest levels and we will be reliant, as we have been in many transport and civil projects, on bringing people in from other countries.
Kevin Brennan
My hon. Friend is right to raise that point. I am personally more of a beer and meat pie circuit man.
The people who make up the Apprenticeship Delivery Board all seem highly eminent; I am not disputing that at all. We have the chief executive of Channel 4, the head of apprenticeships at Barclays Bank, someone from the City of London, the chairman of Sun Mark Limited and people from the Compass Group, Fujitsu and Wates Construction. I am sure they are all perfectly eminent people, and as I said, one of them is a woman, but there should be a broader base to the group if we are talking about apprenticeships, particularly from manufacturing and trade unions. If we are going to make real progress, we need a partnership approach to the provision of apprenticeships. That means all of the people who are charged with trying to get apprenticeships up and running and delivering them should have some involvement. That is the broader point I am making.
Mary Creagh
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is imperative we have someone to represent the FE and college sector, perhaps from the Association of Colleges, the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education or the open college network? A variety of training providers offer ongoing lifelong education, often in partnership with trade unions, to ensure that people who perhaps missed out on apprenticeships at the start of their life have access to ongoing adult education. It is important that older learners are not excluded from the career progression that an apprenticeship provides.
Kevin Brennan
Yes, I do think that, but I am not sure the Government do. That is why we have phrased new clause 20 on the institute for apprenticeships as we have. I will be interested to hear the Government’s view on the issue that my hon. Friend laid out.
Mary Creagh
I am very surprised to hear that. I remember that during the horse meat scandal one of the big problems was that there were not enough trading standards authority officers to go round and do the job, with an enormous amount of testing and enforcement activity in terms of human health and environmental health, and food testing and technology. That was in 2012, or 2013, and I would be surprised if the number of those trading standards officers had risen since the horse meat scandal. This measure that we are discussing is an example of the Government putting an extra burden on local authorities at a time when their budgets have been cut across the piece over the past five years by about 30%.
Kevin Brennan
I hate to refer back once again to the days when my hon. Friend and I were radiant with lawful power, but as a former Consumer Minister I was in charge of the trading standards at one point; it was one of the many different responsibilities that one has as a Minister, from time to time. I can confirm that what my hon. Friend said is right and that trading standards officers are already severely stretched.
It is a serious and valid point to ask the Minister how she can ensure that those officers will have the adequate resources to carry out these additional tasks that we are discussing, when they are already struggling greatly to deal with all the additional responsibilities they have, and the challenges of the new forms of consumer—
Kevin Brennan
Fraud that is going on—exactly—and we now know that such fraud is going to form a huge part of the crime statistics in the future. It is causing great problems and is very difficult to investigate. So it is imperative that the requirements of trading standards in this area are achievable, effective and proportionate, as our colleagues in the other place said during the passage of the Bill in the Lords.
The new institute for apprenticeships must play a part in ensuring that capacity is available to enforce new accreditation. However good a job trading standards officers do, and many local ones provide an excellent service, all local authorities in England, in the shape of trading standards or public protection standards, have had their ability to supervise and enforce weakened by the Government cuts. That is why we need to keep a close eye on how effective this mechanism proves to be, and why we have tabled this particular amendment.
Mary Creagh
The penny is dropping in all sorts of places. Basically, is the idea that people who currently go round checking bakeries and doing health and safety checks, and monitoring safe working practices in warehouses and checking when there are falls from height and those sorts of issues, are now being expected to regulate the quality of apprenticeships? I can see that these are people who are already going into employers’ areas, but they are looking for very different things compared with an Ofsted-like person or a skills person, who would look at evidence of learning progress, qualifications acquired and progress towards learning targets, rather than safe working.
Obviously, we want safe working for these apprentices—there is no doubt in my mind about that—but I am not sure that trading standards is the best regulatory authority to ensure the quality of workplace-based learning.
Kevin Brennan
My understanding is that the Government intend that trading standards will enforce the new frameworks for apprenticeships, and perhaps the Minister in her response can outline how exactly that will work.
Anna Soubry
Excellent. The institute for apprenticeships will be independent. It will scrutinise and then approve or reject standards and assessment plans. It will carry out quality assurance of assessments, and is expected to carry out functions in relation to funding cap allocations.
Mary Creagh
I do not know whether the Minister had a hand in the appointments to the apprenticeship board, but will she explain why blue ribboned providers such as Jaguar Land Rover, Airbus and British Aerospace—high-prestige apprenticeship providers that have been doing this for decades—were not invited to be part of the board? I wonder why that is. Why is not the national health service on it? Is it only for private sector providers? The NHS is a very large employer with an ageing workforce, so it would certainly want to bring people in on health and social care apprenticeships. I wonder why it is excluded as well.
Anna Soubry
The institute will be funded from the apprenticeship levy. It is going to be small, lean and mean, and it is going to do the job. It will have people on it who are best placed to ensure that it carries out quality assurance of assessments and that the standards that are necessary in apprenticeships are absolutely there.
Anna Soubry
No, not yet. Sorry. We were making good progress. There are a lot of things that we agree on, but I am afraid that the Opposition are really showing their true face here. It is the old, state-heavy way of doing things. If they want to do something, they have to prescribe everything in a long, long list, and there has got to be this body and that body—[Interruption.] Hang on. What matters is that we have a rigorous, independent group of people who can get on and do the task that is required. The institute will have enough of a budget to ensure it can do that. The other thing that is important for us all to understand is that, because it applies only to England, the devolved Administrations have been fully involved in setting up the institute. That was the right thing to do. We have done all these things in full consultation with and with the agreement of the devolved Administrations.
Mary Creagh
I just want to clarify something. I was not suggesting that those employers should be set out on in the Bill or any such thing. I was merely asking why there are some notable omissions—including engineers from British Gas, electrical apprentices and apprentices in the transport industry—in the selection of the individuals on the board. Some people have been doing this for years, and some of the people on the board are newer to the apprenticeship world. I think a mix of old and new might have been more useful. I just want to ask about the qualification level. Will it be measured against other international standards for apprenticeships?
Kevin Brennan
I would not agree that our proposal does not seek a truly independent institute. Independence is a point of agreement, so I am surprised that the Minister is not accepting new clause 20 today. However, I accept that, generally speaking, the Opposition have their say and then the Government have their way if they can produce a majority. As Disraeli once said:
“A majority is always the best repartee.”
The Minister unfortunately does not have to prove her argument because of the nature of the Government having a majority. However, when dealing with such legislation, it is important that the Government are able to explain their proposals and are able to bring them forward so that we can properly scrutinise them, which is our job, and have the Government prove their case. We will want to have a proper look at the Government’s proposals when they are down in writing.
Mary Creagh
My hon. Friend is a poet and does not know it—[Interruption.] It is late in the day. May I, through him, encourage the Minister to consider some of the Government’s big investments, such as High Speed 2 and the new rail college, which will be located in and around Doncaster near the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley? I think there might be another skills site in Birmingham, so how will that feed in? Hundreds of apprenticeships will be created in those two centres of excellence over the next few years. I am keen that the Committee considers how both Government and private investment can be maximised so that we get the best possible bang for our buck from the new institute.
Kevin Brennan
I hope that we will get that opportunity.
The Minister asked me whether I will give way, so I am happy to do so if she still wants to intervene.