Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-03
Topic: Government Operations
James Lindesay-Bethune (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, in moving the amendment in his name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, raises a number of interesting issues. I am delighted to be able to share many of the sentiments that lie behind the proposal, having served both the previous Government under both their Prime Ministers and this Government on a number of independent bodies advising them on better regulation While supporting and sharing the sentiments that lie behind the amendment, I am not completely convinced that the Bill is the right place in which to progress them. I am also concerned that, as written, there could be unintended consequences I wholly agree that the Secretary of State should be reviewing the current regulatory machinery used to consider regulatory and deregulatory proposals. I would prefer to see—which I believe is the case—the relevant Secretary of State regularly reviewing the entire regime that oversees regulation and deregulation; so rather than it being a one-off exercise, this, as it were, should be a regular exercise undertaken by any Government Going on to the next part of the amendment, I also agree that the scope of the review should include the RPC, but not be limited to the RPC. That is absolutely right. Not only are regular reviews very important, but the reviews should be very broad and should cover the broad scope that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, set out in terms of the landscape that surrounds and underpins legislation and determines the culture that produces legislation, regulation and so forth The ecology of regulation is certainly a very long and quite complex one. The review should look at how the better regulation machinery deals with policy-making prior to regulatory proposals being brought forward. It should look, as the RPC does, at specific proposals that come forward, but it should also look at compliance and enforcement issues. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, mentioned, it should also look at the extent to which alternatives to regulation are properly considered. I share the motives behind this amendment, but, as I said, I have concerns about the exact proposal for putting this in the Bill In terms of the possible unintended consequences, it is the third part of the amendment that I have some concerns about. It is, to an extent, pre-emptive. To have a review of the better regulatory regime, and then presume that it must be the RPC that needs to be strengthened, is almost pre-empting the outcome of any such review. I wholly agree with the noble Lord that, at the moment, the RPC is the best show in town. It is doing an excellent job. It is well established, very well respected and extraordinarily effective. It is providing robust and independent scrutiny and analysis, supporting new regulatory proposals At 3 pm today I went to the launch of the RPC’s latest annual report. It was a well attended event. It looked back at the work it had done since 2010, over the lifetime of this Parliament. There are some very impressive statistics in the report. For example, it has managed to drive an improvement in the percentage of impact assessments from departments that are judged to be fit for purpose to around 80%. That is a much higher percentage than was the case in 2010, and some departments are achieving a much higher percentage than 80%. If noble Lords read nothing else but the executive summary, they will see a page or two of very impressive achievements elsewhere on what it has managed to deliver by way of progress. Further to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, in those five years the RPC has scrutinised more than 1,200 regulatory proposals and issued just over 2,000 opinions on the quality of the evidence base supporting those proposals. It has done an extremely important piece of work throughout the past five years. I agree that the RPC’s role is absolutely fundamental to the current better regulation regime If we had been debating this matter eight years ago, we would have said that the Better Regulation Commission was the best show in town. A similar amendment then would have suggested putting the BRC in the Bill. If we had been discussing it 12 years ago, we would have said that the Better Regulation Task Force was the best show in town and would have suggested putting that in the Bill. One of the strengths of the better regulation effort by successive Governments over the past 10 to 15 years has been its ability to evolve. My concern about the last part of this amendment is therefore that it presumes the continuity of the current body. The RPC is, as I said, doing an extraordinarily effective job at the moment; but given what we have learnt from the past 15 years, it is not unlikely that we might eventually want either the RPC to evolve into a successor body or to create another body alongside it to broaden its duties or scope The last chapter of the RPC annual report which was launched today deals with the future. It is a very interesting chapter in that the RPC speculates, with the experience it has gained, on how it could be more effective and how the better regulation effort could be more effective in the years to come. Although I favour leaving the Bill as it is, the noble Lord’s comments in moving the amendment, and the issues which the amendment raises, are very important. The Secretary of State should regularly conduct major reviews of the machinery and landscape surrounding regulation. Those reviews should be very broad-ranging and should look both at current bodies and at new bodies that may be sensibly developed in the future. In the mean time, I welcome that the Bill provides for the continuity of the role that the RPC performs and the outcomes that it delivers. That is the most important thing—that the role is undertaken and the outcomes achieved Under the business impact target, the Secretary of State must appoint an independent body to verify the impact of new regulations that are scored under the target. That is set out in Clause 25 and has been welcomed by the RPC. I agree that it is an important signal that independent scrutiny will continue to play a central role under any future Administration. The current arrangements under the RPC are working very well, and the RPC has developed a strong foundation for the future. However, to assume that the current machinery will be the right machinery in three or five years’ time might not be the best way to proceed with the Bill. Otherwise, I welcome the issues that have prompted the noble Lord to table this amendment.