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12.20 pm
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Tony Newton): I have lost count of how many of these debates I have replied to in my capacity as Leader of the House in the past four years. I thought that today's debate began a little slowly. My usual practice is to avoid saying much about anything as there is not enough time, but today I thought that I may have to make up time.
Therefore, I went to the trouble of securing a copy of the intergovernmental conference White Paper so that I could read from it as much as proved necessary in order to satisfy my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence). However, I am once again in the position of having to rattle away and say as much as I can before the debate concludes at 12.30 pm.
I turn briefly to the remarks of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker). I shall not revisit the millennium issue. I do not accuse the hon. Gentleman of abusing his position on the Front Bench, but no one is in any doubt that he represents a midland, rather than a London, constituency. However, London Members of Parliament also put their oar in this morning, so they can continue the dispute between them.
The hon. Gentleman said that he was not present yesterday to hear the statement about beef. That was clear from his speech, because he repeated the points raised by the Leader of the Opposition, whose performance has received the reverse of rave reviews in today's newspapers. The Leader of the Opposition got it wrong. The hon. Member for Perry Barr has no doubt read the Hansard report, but I shall remind him of what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said.
My right hon. Friend made it clear that his right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Agriculture spoke to Commissioner Fischler before the statements were made to the House. He went on to point out that the issue was leaked in a Labour-supporting newspaper on the morning of 12 March. He said:
I turn now to some of the other issues upon which hon. Members have invited me to comment. I turn particularly to the contribution of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris), who raised the issue of haemophiliac patients who contracted hepatitis C from contaminated blood products before the heat treatment began in the late 1980s. He appropriately paid tribute to the efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Marshall) in that area. I am familiar with that tragic problem, as I was Minister for Health for part of that time.
The right hon. Gentleman knows--and was kind enough to acknowledge--that there is little that I can add this morning to the comments made on earlier occasions about the difficulties that the issue presents. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, the Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam), met representatives of the Haemophilia Society in March to describe the action that the Government are taking.
There are continuing discussions about developing good practice in the treatment of those patients and ensuring that they have ready access to treatment centres. I know that my right hon. and hon. Friends will examine carefully the right hon. Gentleman's comments, as well as those of one or two other hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Perry Barr.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton read out a formidable list of charges, as he saw them, against the European Court of Justice. I think that I counted 11.
Sir Ivan Lawrence:
There were 14.
Mr. Newton:
I am sorry, I have missed three. It was a lengthy list of charges.
My hon. and learned Friend kindly adverted to the fact that the Government make clear in the White Paper--which I have already brandished in the House--their concern that the court's interpretation sometimes seems to go beyond the intentions of laws as framed originally. The White Paper sets out in broad terms the proposals that we expect to discuss at the IGC, and those matters are being worked up.
My hon. and learned Friend said that a memorandum is due for publication, but he will understand that it is not sensible or practicable for me to comment on it this morning in advance of its publication. However, I am sure that his words will be examined with appropriate care.
The hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate(Ms Jackson) raised a matter to which the hon. Member for Perry Barr also referred from the Dispatch Box. In view of the hon. Gentleman's comments, I make it clear that the British Government are doing--and will continue to do--everything we can to assist with the case. The British High Commission is pressing the Nigerian authorities for access to Adefolahan Mokuolu on humanitarian grounds, particularly as he is a minor.
I understand that the hon. Lady is in daily contact with the consular division on behalf of her constituent. The acting high commissioner raised the matter with the director general of the Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs only yesterday, and it undertook to investigate the situation. I am sure that my right hon. and hon. Friends will do all they can to assist the hon. Lady's constituent who is in that awful position.
My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton(Mr. Nicholson) referred to the beef ban. I recognise the importance that he and his constituents attach to ensuring the smooth operation of the slaughter scheme for cows aged more than 30 months. My right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Agriculture made it clear yesterday that we are now operating at close to current capacity. I am sure that he will look carefully at my hon. Friend's comments about continuing problems in his area, and I shall ensure that he sees the piece of paper that my hon. Friend passed to me on behalf of the Somerset branch of the National Farmers Union. We are serious about ensuring the smooth operation of the scheme, but we should remember that it is a big task.
My hon. Friend overcame the frustration of recent weeks by adding to a 10-minute speech about beef that he said was terminated mid-sentence and returning to a subject that he raised with me via a question on the Housing Bill. He has shown his usual ingenuity and
dedication to his constituents' interests, and I shall ensure that his remarks are drawn to the attention of my colleagues in the appropriate Departments.
The most engaging speech from my point of view was delivered by the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon), the mostly silent former deputy Chief Whip. Somewhat ominously, he has moved to what I call the "trouble-making Bench" below the Gangway. I hope that is not an augury of future difficulties. The last time that he moved from the Front Bench to the Bench behind it--an unusual manoeuvre for a deputy Chief Whip--he suddenly burst into song, and denounced the Leader of the House for attempting to improve the procedures in this place. He made it clear that his views about that were unchanged.
I hope that we shall hear more from the hon. Gentleman in the new, responsible role that he fulfilled this morning on behalf of the Port of Tyne authority. The hon. Gentleman knows that the Government believe that the privatisation of ports produces more efficient, competitive and accountable operations, and offers greater opportunities to the people who work in the ports and benefit from their activities.
I do not have time to elaborate that argument or to comment on any of the other speeches, much as I might wish. I will certainly make sure that the remarks of the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) are communicated to those of my colleagues who will be seeing the Norwegians at the international whaling conference.
I have just about run out of time--I am not sure when that will happen. I will just try to complete this next sentence. I hope that everybody--not least you, Madam Deputy Speaker--has a happy holiday.
Mr. Anthony Steen (South Hams):
It is always a delight to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker--and an equal one to see my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster present to answer this debate. Normally, Adjournment debates are answered by a junior Minister, so to have a Cabinet Minister present is a delight, particularly as my right hon. Friend is well known for his interest in, and campaigning zeal for, deregulation.
Deregulation is firmly part of the Conservative party's ideology and folklore, having been around for nearly20 years. The 1979 manifesto commitments were concerned with freeing up the markets, creating less restriction for individuals and boosting an enterprise economy. The 1985 White Paper, "Lifting the burden", charted the deregulation course for the next decade. The message was simple:
Parliament passed the Deregulation and Contracting Out Bill in 1994, and the Prime Minister threw his full weight behind the deregulatory initiative, saying that deregulation was at the heart of the Government's economic strategy. One year later, progress is at best disappointing and at worst deeply depressing. That Bill spent 16 hours and 11 minutes on the Floor of the House and another 92 hours and 56 minutes in Standing Committee. Among other things, it established the Select Committee on Deregulation--a fast-track system by which secondary legislation could be repealed, which has never been done before in the life of this Parliament or of this institution.
In 1994, the Government promised that they would refer one deregulation order a week to that Select Committee. Unfortunately, 100 orders never materialised. Instead, we have had to be content with 25 orders to date. They favour people who want to go greyhound racing, to go dancing on Sunday--I have nothing against that--to change the length of the school day and to sell salmon on Sunday in open markets in Scotland, and they allow local authorities to use their pay-and-display parking meters more flexibly. The Deregulation (Gun Barrel Proving) Order 1996 saves private business £200 but--wait for it--cost £10,000 to draft and print. To achieve all that, the Deregulation Select Committee has sat 34 times for more than 50 hours.
Deregulation has spawned an entire new layer of bureaucracy, created new buzz words and produced a new layer of Government. The Leader of the House, a Cabinet appointee and the Prime Minister are all concerned with deregulation--without it, some might not even have jobs. There is a deregulatory Minister in every Department.
Pamphlets, circulars, booklets and departmental reviews are churned out. Experts and advisers are to be found in local government, and even the Institute of Directors has deregulation advisers. The cost is enormous.
The Select Committee is just one deregulatory initiative. Lord Sainsbury's task force, which has been taken over by Francis Maude, is another. The task force suggested that 605 pieces of legislation were ripe for repeal, and the Prime Minister added another 400. Of more than 1,000 measures identified, 643 have been repealed--but few have had the impact that Conservative Members would like. Comparing that figure with the 7,845 statutory instruments added to our legislation since January 1994 puts the matter in perspective. Admittedly, many of those instruments correct complicated or inadequate primary legislation such as the Jobseekers Act 1995 and the Children Act 1989, but that does not explain the need for 3,243 new statutory instruments already this year.
The volume is reaching such a level that it is impossible for Members of Parliament or Ministers to scrutinise them properly. Why, despite Parliament's intentions, and the commitment by the Prime Minister and the Cabinet to deregulation--which I whole-heartedly support as a number one priority to help industry--is deregulation not happening? It is not an absence of intention or good will on the part of Ministers or officials, but a question of the long-standing culture and ethos of the country, whereby Ministers and Whitehall see their modus vivendi as passing bigger, better, longer and more complicated laws with cleverer and more experienced officials drafting, amending and improving them. The culture is not to repeal laws, reduce the volume of legislation, or cut the number of bureaucrats or red tape--although one would have thought from all the speeches and good intentions of Ministers that a great deal more was happening. Regrettably, there is a deep shadow between intention and action.
The problem is in the public psyche, which has been conditioned to believe that rules and regulations solve problems, when they do not automatically do so. All of us receive letters from constituents demanding that we introduce new legislation. How often do Members of Parliament receive letters demanding the repeal of laws? The public have been conditioned into believing that they are better off taking less responsibility. They suffer from the illusion, and the erroneous belief, that life is better being hemmed in by a false sense of security created by additional rules and regulations.
There are also the buzz words of safety, security and hygiene. One cannot change anything in legislation covered by those three words because they are sacrosanct and have a mystique with which nothing must interfere. If that perception is to change, rewards for goals achieved must be reversed. In future, civil servants should be promoted not for proposing and drafting new legislation but for finding a way of reducing the number of laws on the statute book.
Deregulation is unachievable until the root cause of regulation is tackled, which means a culture shock of gargantuan proportions. Inaction in legislative terms must no longer be viewed as sloth, but as prudence. Ministers should be judged not by the number of statutory instruments that emanate from their Departments but by
the paucity of legislation coming from their offices. If the Government's aim is to lift the burden off the backs of the people, a stick and carrot approach must be introduced--a carrot for those who implement deregulation and a stick for those who do not.
Consider, for instance, the deregulation order--one of the 25--on building certificates. It is said that the saving to business will be £68,000; but only recently it has emerged that there will be an additional cost of £350,000 for employing more local government officials to take over the administration. So the money saved to private business is simply transferred, six times over, to local authorities. The stick should have been used in this case.
The cost compliance assessment is another example of the shortcomings in this process. The Government rightly insist that such an assessment accompany every piece of legislation, highlighting the additional burden on private industry imposed by the legislation. Unfortunately, the compliance cost assessment does not highlight the additional costs to Government and local government. That excellent idea--emanating, I think, from the Prime Minister--is thus defective because it deals only with the additional costs for private enterprise, not with those for the public sector.
The culture shockwaves must not stop at Dover: they must cross the channel to Brussels, from which directives, rules and regulations are spewed out at an alarming rate. The number of directives, to be sure, has declined, from 66 in 1993 to 19 this year, but the number of rules and regulations has otherwise continued at nearly 1,000 a year. They are so dispatched that most manage to avoid scrutiny by the European Parliament, the Council of Ministers or Westminster Members. Commission officials are using a procedure that denies every Parliament in Europe the opportunity to challenge the Commission's official view. Bureaucracy in Brussels has found a device in the treaty of Rome enabling it to erode the fringes of our lives, but with no accountability.
"We spent hours that morning discussing the matter with scientists"--
I can vouch for that, because I attended those meetings--
"before doing what he"--
that is, the Leader of the Opposition--
"would have condemned us for if we had not done--coming straight to the House to report on precisely what was happening".--[Official Report, 21 May 1996; Vol. 278, c. 103.]
If the Government had sat on the information for any great length of time, the hon. Gentleman would have made the worst kind of rabble-rousing speech from the Opposition Dispatch Box accusing the Government of a cover-up, of failing to provide information and of misleading the public. I shall not listen to too much more about that.
12.30 pm
"The amount of regulation which new and established firms face acts as a brake on enterprise and the wealth and job creating process."
By January 1994 a deregulation task force had been established, headed by none other than Lord Sainsbury. Contemporaneously, another White Paper, "Cutting Red Tape", was published. In addition to the deregulation task force, which consisted of dozens of committees and hundreds of captains of industry, a special deregulation unit was established within the Cabinet Office, employing 43 officials especially chosen for their deregulatory fervour. The cost was £1.3 million per annum.
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