House of Commons
Monday 11 December 1995
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Madam Speaker in the Chair]
Oral Answers to Questions
DUCHY OF LANCASTER
Regulations (Cost-benefit Analyses)
1. Mr. Nigel Evans: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what progress has been made in preparing the cost-benefit analyses of regulations. [3300]
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Roger Freeman): When making new regulatory proposals that affect business, Ministers now need to certify that the benefits clearly exceed the costs. Revised booklets on carrying out benefits assessment and compliance cost assessment are currently being prepared for distribution within Government.
Mr. Evans: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, if Britain is to remain the enterprise economy of Europe, we must look at the cost-benefit analyses of all rules and regulations that affect business--whether they come from Brussels or from Westminster? We must also examine the interpretation of those rules and regulations so that they are not made worse by Whitehall or town hall. Does my right hon. Friend agree further that, if the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats were to come to power, Britain would change from the flourishing enterprise economy of Europe into the bureaucratic clipboard centre of Europe?
Mr. Freeman: I am grateful to my hon. Friend; I believe that his analysis is correct. For a number of years, the European Union has attempted to assess the costs of implementing new directives. However, I am bound to say that that system has not worked well. I hope that, by the end of this calendar year, the Commission will adopt new procedures, which will involve a much more rigorous assessment of the costs of introducing new directives, and introduce the new principle of proportionality. We want directives to be relevant and proportionate to the problems that they seek to solve.
Mr. Wigley: Will the Minister assure the House that the use of cost-benefit analyses in relation to regulations arising from legislation originating in this Parliament does not underpin the report that appeared in the Financial Times of 30 November? The report said that the Deputy Prime Minister and the Chief Secretary are seeking to abolish national quangos in Wales which deal with bodies such as the Welsh Development Agency, the Wales tourist board and those with education functions. Will the Minister give a categorical assurance that there is no truth whatsoever in that suggestion? We in Wales want those
quangos to be more answerable: we do not want to see them eliminated or collapsed into United Kingdom quangos.
Mr. Freeman: Where he has responsibility, my right hon. Friend the First Secretary of State and his ministerial colleagues shall continue to drive down the number of quangos. I am pleased to inform the House that we have reduced the number of quangos by about 100 in this calendar year. [Interruption.] Those are the facts--even though hon. Gentlemen do not like to hear them. As to the hon. Gentleman's specific question, the abolition of individual quangos is, and will remain, the responsibility of individual Ministers.
Regional Policy (Competitiveness)
2. Mr. Clapham: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what plans he has to make regional policy more sensitive to the objective of competitiveness. [3280]
The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Michael Heseltine): The White Paper "Competitiveness: Forging Ahead" described a wide range of regional initiatives to promote competitiveness, and I recently held a seminar with the regional directors of the Government offices to review developments. The Government intend to report progress in a further competitiveness White Paper next year.
Mr. Clapham: I hear what the Deputy Prime Minister has said, but does he agree that it would be much better to direct regional selective assistance towards investment in research and development and possibly product innovation? That would help to secure industries in particular regions and at the same time be a structural initiative which would strengthen competitiveness more effectively.
The Deputy Prime Minister: No, I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. I think that regional selective assistance is a major engine that has attracted the very remarkable success in inward investment that we are now achieving in this country. Some 40 per cent. of all inward investment in Europe is coming here.
I believe that the very exciting announcement made today about the success of regional challenge is a further example of the success of Government policies. Some £160 million of European money has been put up for competition, and has produced 34 winners. That has attracted an additional £351 million of private sector money to add to the already substantial investment that the public sector is making in the regions.
Mr. Harris:
I very much welcome the news of
£6 million that is coming to west country tourism as a result of regional challenge. That is particularly welcome in the light of my right hon. Friend's speech on tourism in the south-west recently. Will he nevertheless kindly consider what many of us still regard as the major disadvantage that the south-west faces in attracting industry--the offers that Wales is able to make? That ability gives the Welsh a tremendous advantage over the south-west. Many of us think that that is a very unfair advantage.
The Deputy Prime Minister:
My hon. Friend is a doughty fighter for the causes of the south-west. I have been pleased by the response from the south-west to the
Mr. Caborn:
The House--[Hon. Members: "Hear, hear.] Thank you. The House will be very pleased to know that there has been a meeting of the integrated regional officers. That is to be welcomed. Can the Deputy Prime Minister tell us when the officers will produce their regional strategies, which were requested by the Select Committee on Trade and Industry some six or seven months ago? Can he tell us when those integrated regional officers will be accountable to the House for co-ordinating the spending of £6 billion, which makes the figures that were mentioned earlier pale into insignificance? Those officers are important civil servants--when will they be accountable to the House?
The Deputy Prime Minister:
Any time the hon. Gentleman wants to table a question.
Mr. Jacques Arnold:
Would not the competitiveness of that most important region of the United Kingdom, Scotland, be put in jeopardy were it to have an Assembly? Politicians at such an Assembly would spend much of their time inventing new regulations that would damage the competitiveness of Scotland.
The Deputy Prime Minister:
As always, my hon. Friend is extremely perceptive. The imposition of a tartan tax would be seriously damaging to the Scottish economy, as an increasingly large number of Scottish industrialists are beginning to realise. If ever a Labour Government were elected and added the imposts of a minimum wage and the social chapter, that would bring to an end the remarkable recovery that the Scottish economy has undergone recently.
3. Mr. MacShane:
To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what Cabinet Committee meetings he chairs. [3281]
The Deputy Prime Minister:
I chair the Cabinet Committees on Competitiveness, on the Co-ordination and Presentation of Government Policy, on the Environment and on Local Government.
Mr. MacShane:
Four Committees. That is some work for a grown man, and it helps to explain why the rest of the country now considers that the Deputy Prime Minister, with the right hon. Member for Peterborough (Dr. Mawhinney), is now working principally on party political work at taxpayers' expense.
Can the Deputy Prime Minister, as chairman of the Committee on the Co-ordination and Presentation of Government Policy, explain to the House why a draft of a Cabinet document by Lord Mackay was erroneously briefed to The Daily Telegraph, thus forcing a humiliating public retraction from the Lord Chancellor?
The Deputy Prime Minister:
The hon. Member knows that that is a very considerable misrepresentation of what actually happened. He will also know that the Leader of
Mr. Jenkin:
Has my right hon. Friend ever changed his mind about nuclear weapons, or about the need for standards and testing in education, or about nationalisation--
Mr. Campbell-Savours:
On a point of order, Madam Speaker--
Madam Speaker:
I shall take points of order after Question Time; but perhaps the hon. Member for Colchester, North (Mr. Jenkin) will now come to the point that he is making.
Mr. Jenkin:
Does not my right hon. Friend's record make him worth a million Labour party members on any Cabinet Committee?
The Deputy Prime Minister:
I agree with the thrust of my hon. Friend's question, but I differ in one respect. It is not Opposition Members who have changed their minds; it is the leader of the Labour party who has changed his mind. As anyone who sits in the House knows, the only issues that ever excite the Opposition parties are the same ones as have always excited them: those that fundamentally attack the prosperity of the enterprise economy, those that increase the trade unions' ability to wreck our economy and those that pander to the worst excesses of an envious society.
Mr. Simon Hughes:
Will the Deputy Prime Minister do a little better now than he did when answering the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane)? Will he answer the question instead of just having a go at the Opposition? Will he tell the House--this is, after all, a matter of public concern--what he is doing to find out how a draft speech was released before authorisation by a senior Cabinet Minister? What inquiry is being held? What responsibility does the right hon. Gentleman have for the actions of the Lord Chancellor or of the chairman of the Tory party in the Cabinet?
The Deputy Prime Minister:
The hon. Gentleman will know that the chairman of the Conservative party is a valued and upright member of this Conservative Administration. He is quite able to explain for himself, as he has often done in the past--as has the Lord Chancellor. There is no point in my adding to explanations already clearly put in the public domain.
Mr. Prescott:
Did the right hon. Gentleman authorise the Tory party chairman to instruct Conservative central office to brief The Daily Telegraph on Lord Mackay's speech? Will he confirm whether the Lord Chancellor ever intended to warn the judiciary not to overstep its powers? Was such a statement ever contained in a draft prepared by the Lord Chancellor? Is it not time someone made a public apology to the Lord Chancellor?
The Deputy Prime Minister:
The right hon. Gentleman has been listening to the spin doctors of the Labour party. These matters have been fully explored by my right hon. Friends. If the hon. Gentleman wants to pursue them further, he can table specific questions to the people responsible; he will be told again what he has been
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