Simon Hughes
Main Page: Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Vince Cable
I do not think a specific procurement code is required for this institution, though of course Government procurement raises wider questions. If the hon. Lady looks at the first tranche of commitments—the £200 million—she will find that that is for a fund dealing with a substantial number of waste projects, which have small-scale enterprises as part of their supply chain. That is the way that SMEs will benefit.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
Will the Secretary of State confirm that not only are the Government committed to the green investment bank, which is a very good thing and has long been called for, but that there is a wider strategy in his Department, the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Department for Communities and Local Government to make sure that we develop the green economy, producing a significant number of extra manufacturing jobs and apprenticeships and growth, and that that is a very significant part of the Government’s policy as a whole? It is not just about a bank and £3 billion being lent over a certain number of years.
Vince Cable
My right hon. Friend is right. We have the Green Economy Council, which is an over-arching body representing the key Departments in the Government to make sure that our work in this area is integrated and properly joined up.
Vince Cable
That is an issue on which we have frequently exchanged views across the House, and we do indeed want to see employee consultation, but we are not mandating employee representatives on boards, which I know some people have called for, and we have made that very clear in the past.
Simon Hughes
This is one of those issues that the Government inherited. It is the scandal, left by the previous Government, of absolutely obscene pay for top executives—uncontrolled by shareholders. I therefore welcome the proposals, but will my right hon. Friend clarify that the Prime Minister and Government still take the view that in the public sector the ratio should be a maximum of 20:1, and that in the private sector, where it is not a matter for Government to determine, all shareholders will have adequate notice of any proposals, so that there is both private and public participation in the debate as well as a binding vote on the remuneration package for the executives at the top of private sector companies?
Vince Cable
There are separate developments taking place that do not require primary legislation, and they will improve the quality of information available to shareholders. The Financial Reporting Council has responsibility for that, and I do not have the powers to direct it, even if I wanted to, but the quality of information is intended to improve, and we certainly want to see a range of information made available, including the aggregates that my right hon. Friend describes, as well as simpler and clearer information. That process is taking place in parallel with this Bill.
The Bill will improve the way in which competition is promoted and policed. The UK’s support for a free and open trading system remains fundamental to our economic strategy, and the steady pressure from competitive markets ensures that businesses boost productivity and consumers benefit. Our competition regime has been well regarded, but it can be too slow, and recently there have been some worrying criticisms about how it has managed cartel offences.
The reforms that I propose are designed to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of competition enforcement, operating through a new competition and markets authority, backed by streamlined and strengthened powers. The current division of responsibility for the two phases of the markets and mergers regimes, between the Competition Commission and the Office of Fair Trading, can lead to a duplication of activity and the inefficient use of resources. Further, the time it currently takes to complete mergers, markets and anti-trust cases is often far too long, and that in turn imposes additional costs on business, including on those that pose no threat to competition.
Our reforms to the competition regime are designed to create a single, strong voice for competition and a one-stop shop for business; to create greater certainty for business, thanks to faster, clearer and, indeed, statutory time frames; to provide for more effective action to tackle anti-competitive mergers, including the discretion to suspend them; and to provide for robust action to tackle cartels, which can damage business and consumers alike, by removing, for example, the need to prove dishonesty. In addition, it will be easier for businesses to ask the new competition and markets authority to halt uncompetitive practices while investigations are ongoing. These measures go hand in hand with proposals, on which we are currently consulting, to allow businesses to take private actions to stop anti-competitive practices and to achieve redress.
Another aspect of our reforms relates to intellectual property rights, an issue that the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), raised a few moments ago. The modernisation of copyright is critical to investment in the UK’s creative industries, one of our most successful export sectors. Research by Imperial college and the Intellectual Property Office shows that annual copyright investment in artistic originals in film, TV and radio, books, music and art was about $5 billion, twice the original estimate. Spending on UK design amounts to almost £33.5 billion, and there are about 350,000 people in core design occupations of all kinds.
The sale of unauthorised replicas of classic designs, such as a lamp or a piece of furniture, means that firms that depend on design can lose out, so the Bill ensures that those designs that are also artistic works and, therefore, qualify for copyright protection will be protected for 70 years from the creator’s death, instead of for the current 25 years.
The Bill also creates an order-making power that will allow the Government to make any future changes related to copyright exceptions or exceptions to rights in performances. The practical consequence of that will be to maintain the level of criminal penalties, in which as I said earlier I have a personal interest, given that my private Member’s Bill introduced the current maximum penalty level of 10 years’ imprisonment
In addition, the Government have made a number of proposals in response to the Hargreaves review of intellectual property and growth and subsequent consultation. They are needed to ensure that the copyright system is fit for purpose in the digital age. It has been decades since the intellectual property regime was overhauled, during which time the world has changed beyond recognition. It would be negligent to leave unchanged a system suited to the cassette recorder in an era of iPads and cloud-based music services.
Primary legislation will be required for three of those reforms: the introduction of a scheme to allow extended collective licensing; one to allow the use of orphan works; and, finally, a back-stop power to allow the Government to require a collecting society to implement a statutory code of conduct, should it fail to introduce or adhere to a suitable voluntary code.
The Government’s proposals on extended collective licensing and on the use of orphan works are designed to make it simpler for users to use copyright works legitimately, while protecting the interests of rights holders. At the same time, introducing codes of conduct for collecting societies will provide valuable reassurance to the thousands of small businesses and other organisations, including creators, that deal with them.
The Government are finalising their response to the consultation on those three proposals, and if we decide to proceed we will want to move swiftly. The Bill presents an opportunity to do so, and I shall announce a decision on the matter as soon as possible.