Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20
- 38)
TUESDAY 9 MAY 2000
MR GRAHAM
STRINGER, MR
NICK MONTAGUE
AND MR
PHILIP BOVEY
20. The Committees would have a right, as the
Minister said, of expressing a view if they felt it was opening
a door which could be used in an inappropriate way?
(Mr Stringer) Absolutely. The Committee would have
total power over it and would be able to see the sorts of things
that it could be used for. If they felt that it was inappropriate,
they could limit it on the basis of what they had seen. It gives
the Committee more power.
Dr Naysmith
21. If an amending regulatory reform order dealt
only with the kind of matters you mentioned in the Explanatory
Notes and, Minister, as you were suggesting earlier on, things
like application forms, fees, timing of applications and so on,
have you any reason to believe that it would be difficult to process
them through the usual procedures? If an amending proposal dealt
only with matters like that, would it not be entirely straightforward
anyway under existing procedures?
(Mr Stringer) Part of the main reason for the 1994
Act and this Bill is both to deal with regulations and to do it
via a pathway that does not take as much time as both Houses.
That would be, in a sense, reversing the process on relatively
detailed matters. So the Committee could, when they were considering
this, write it into the relevant standing orders if they wanted
to. I think we are dealing with detailed matters which will change
from time to time. The details of what might be necessary to deliver
that particular regulation or service might change.
22. I agree with what you were saying earlier.
Quite often, when you speak to business people, they talk about
regulations as if they were burdened down by the nitty-gritty.
It is the way these regulations are applied which is much more
of a burden. Is it not possible to think of a much simpler way?
Even this new procedure that we are talking about will still be
quite burdensome, (if I can use that word), for Committee Members
and Parliament. Is there not a quicker way of dealing more straightforwardly
with some of these things that we are talking about?
(Mr Stringer) That is the exact opposite, is it not,
of what most of the debates have been about because we are by-passing
the normal primary legislative process.
23. Sure, I know.
(Mr Stringer) The experience of the Deregulation and
Contracting Out Act has been that the quality of the debate in
these Committees has led to very good deregulation orders. I think
that both Houses would get very concerned if those checks and
balances were taken out of the system. But on the general point
to do with regulation, then I do agree with you that the Government
taking a look at the impact of regulations, as they are enforced
and enacted, is very important. We have produced a forward look
of the regulations and we will be taking some policy decisions
in respect of those, specifically to ease those concerns of business
that you have talked about.
Mr Ross
24. Minister, as you know, at the present time,
the Government proceeds on the assumption, in regard to fees,
that there is full cost recovery. This is indexed annually and
is occasionally looked at to ensure that there is a full cost
recovery. Whenever fees are changed there should be an explanation,
on the face of the amending order, giving an indication as to
the reason for the increase in cost. It does not always happen.
Can you give this Committee any confidence that in future there
will be a fairly full explanation for the reason for the increase
in fees?
(Mr Stringer) May I say that we are in the middle
of a process of improving the quality of regulation. Part of that
process is having regulatory impact assessments, and those regulatory
impact assessments will accompany every regulatory reform order.
Those RIAs do and will take into account precisely the points
you have made. There is a consultation going on at the present
time about the change in the regulations around care homes and
fees and charges that will be made to care homes. The burdens
put on the small businesses that often run those care homes will
be part of the regulatory impact assessment.
Mr Love
25. In an earlier reply that you gave, commenting
on the original Deregulation and Contracting Out Act, you talked
about the concerns that the Opposition had at that time about
the changes that were being brought in about the possibility of
a Henry VIII Act. I think the words you used were "swash-buckling
about the place". Recognising the constitutional delicacy
and the sensitivity of regulatory reform orders, should not all
of those such orders be subject to an affirmative resolution procedure
to ensure that there is proper Parliamentary scrutiny?
(Mr Stringer) As I understand it, they are subject
to affirmative procedures.
26. Not in terms of these subordinate provisions
which would only be subject to the negative procedure. As I understand
it.
(Mr Stringer) Sorry, I thought you were talking about
the general orders.
27. We are still specifically on the subordinate
procedures. The concern of this Committee, as expressed in the
past, has been that we should always use the affirmative procedures.
Indeed, there was considerable concern expressed in previous reports
about the use of the negative procedure, where we think the additional
safeguard of that affirmative procedure is necessary, even for
this subordinate measure.
(Mr Stringer) I would have thought that, in effect,
the Committee has a veto on what goes into the subordinate legislation.
That that might be sufficient. I will certainly look at that point
about whether an affirmative procedure might give more protection
than a negative procedure. I will write to you on that, Chairman.
28. I was going to say that would be very helpful
because I do think there are sensitivities here, which you expressed
about the 1994 Act, that we do need to maintain. We would certainly
ask that you look carefully at that.
Chairman: Turning to Clause 6, Mr Cotter wants
to ask a question on this.
Mr Cotter
29. You have just now drawn attention to the
importance of regulatory impact assessments, with particular relevance
to the fact that this has been made before. You will remember
that we had previously urged that there should be, on the face
of the Bill, a statutory requirement to make and lay before Parliament
these rigorous regulatory impact assessments. Your reply so far
has been that the present practice of making such an assessment
will continue, but in evidence to this Committee last week your
colleague, Lord Falconer, did say that he would take away and
consider this matter. I am wondering what, in fact, is your present
view: as to whether you will reconsider, in view of the importance
that we all attach to the impact assessment.
(Mr Stringer) I would give exactly the same answer
as Lord Falconer did. We will consider it. From memory, part of
his answer was that the whole regulatory impact assessment process
has been evolving over the years. It has had three names within
the last three or four years. To write something into the Bill
with a particular title and a particular definition may be too
rigid a process, when all of us who are involved in the regulatory
reform process believe that it can be improved. There may well
be developments. Having said that, I am sure that was Lord Falconer's
answer. We will consider it.
Mr Ross
30. I am just wondering if the Minister would
give an undertaking. We know that lawyers dealing with these matters,
they are large firms which are always aware of the existence of
regulatory impact assessments, but small firms and individuals
are not. Indeed, Committees in the House sometimes allow them
to pass by unread as well. Would the Government be prepared always
to draw the attention of Committees and the general public to
the existence of these impact assessments? It would be very useful
if they did so.
(Mr Stringer) A list of all RIAs is published every
six months. Certainly I will give a commitment to try to increase
the publicity that there is around those RIAs. They are important
documents.
Mr Cotter
31. Just to make a comment to the Minister,
although it may not be relevant here, but the quality in the past
of these impact assessments has been a little bit frayed at the
edges, in the detail and such like. I believe the Prime Minister
himself is very concerned about this. Is the Minister also (hopefully)
concerned that impact assessments are sometimes there, but when
you go into the detail there are exclusions and they are not sure
about this, this sort of qualification?
(Mr Stringer) We are, with regulation, in a developing
situation; and hopefully in an improving situation where RIAs
themselves are improving. The time that they become part of the
policy formulation process could also be improved, so I take the
point very much that they are important legislative tools. They
are a very important part of consideration about whether legislation
should be done at all. If you end up with something that costs
you ten times as much as the benefit, which is the core, (it is
not all of the RIAs), then you have to abort the process at the
very beginning.
Mr Cotter: That is very helpful, thank you.
Chairman: Now if we take the two different proposals
that we make to improve the Bill, which you have not included
in the Bill, we want to ask a few questions on that.
Mr Stewart
32. Minister, I have two questions. The first
question is in two parts. You said before in your comments about
how this 1993/94 legislation had been implemented and how it would
address some of the concerns. One of the areas that has been perceived
to be positive about this work, across all sides of the House,
has been the rigorous nature of the process of deregulation; and
how that has assisted people from all sections of society to explain
the impact of legislation and the regulations on them. Now the
Deregulation Committee made two proposals for improving the Bill,
which you have rejected. The first was that we say that Ministers
should have regard to the desirability of modernising and simplifying
the law. We also suggested that Ministers should make draft legislation
comprehensible that such legislation would affect. It seems to
us that in drafting legislation, that citizens invariably become
the last in the order of priority. Why have these suggestions
been rejected? That is the first part of the first question. The
second part concerns the enlarged powers of this Bill. Our concern
is that those enlarged powers will be as little used as the powers
of the present Act. This Committee, therefore, proposed that Ministers
should have a duty to keep departmental legislation under review,
and that the Minister in charge of the Cabinet Office should report
annually to Parliament. Why has that not been included?
(Mr Stringer) Going in reverse order on those, the
regular review. There is a paradox here, is there not, about wanting
to put regulations on the deregulatory process, that you can end
up by saying, "This will happen in this particular way,"
but ossify the situation, as I went through the process before,
of having a Panel for Regulatory Accountability, regulatory reform
Ministers, and regular departmental reviews of what is going on.
That is a relatively recent innovation. The Panel, announced by
the Prime Minister in 1999, had its first meeting in December
1999. It is a process which is constantly improving. I think to
put it into a rigid format may not be the most effective way of
dealing with it. Having said that, the Government is obviously
sympathetic and welcomes the support and the thinking behind what
the Committee is saying on that particular issue. It may well
be that there are other ways that we can look at reviewing what
is going on and finding out how much is going on in Departments.
For instance, there is no policy or statutory requirement at the
present time to put a review of the regulations in a Department
in the Department's annual report and it might well be that is
a simpler and less rigid approach to achieving the same end side
by side with increasing the rigorous look at regulation that we
are taking, so that is why we have not put that particular clause
or that particular decision into the Bill. On clarity, there is
a much simpler answer to that and perhaps my answer in an Adjournment
debate two or three months ago I dare say would be more precise
than what I say now, but the issue really is having precision
and making sure that the Bill and the Act have the meaning that
is intended and common English usage that you and I will use on
a regular basis may, when put into a Bill, not work. In everyday
language, we use all sorts of devices for reinforcing what we
mean. That is not possible in legislation and it becomes even
more difficult when the legislation refers to other Acts of Parliament,
which is sort of what makes the Monty Python jokes out of this
situation. That, I think, is the answer and it is the right answer,
but that does not mean to say either that one should not strive
for clarity on the face of the Bill, although having precision
and accuracy is more important, or that we should not try to do
what we have done in this draft Bill and has been done with other
Bills which is to have explanatory notes so that anybody can go
and see them, so that is two of the three points. The first point
was?
33. The desirability of modernising and simplifying.
(Mr Stringer) We thought when it was redrafted effectively,
and the modernising clause was taken out from the 1965 Law Commissions
Act, as is the reform process, that it seemed that nothing was
lost by dropping that. The Bill is about regulatory reform and
that was a precise way of putting it.
34. My second question is much shorter, you
will be happy to know, and that is that really we would like to
know what measures you propose to ensure that Departments will
take seriously their duty to reform legislation for the better.
(Mr Stringer) Well, I hope I have already given the
answer to that question by talking about the regulatory reform
Ministers and the meetings we have had. I have not talked very
much about the Better Regulation Task Force which is an independent
body chaired by Lord Haskins, but it is obviously set up by the
Government and that body is regularly reporting and putting pressure
on Departments and the Government to improve its performance on
regulation. So that is part of it, but it has to be a core part
and it is a core part of the Government's policy to improve its
regulatory performance. Regulation is often seen as a side issue,
but it is actually at the core of the economic competitiveness
and efficiency of this country. Not that we want to wipe away
all regulations. There is no society, there is no country that
is affiliated to the OECD which is following that path. All those
countries actually, as they liberalise their economies, are increasing
the amount of legislation and regulation. What the Conservatives
often forget is that in the 1980s when they were privatising and
liberalising, they passed more regulations than had been passed
before. What is important for the competitiveness of the economy
is that that regulation is high quality and this Bill is really
part of a process of where regulations have become outdated, burdensome,
need to be changed, they can be improved quickly, but with a thorough
quality look at what is going on when there is most unlikely to
be legislative space. It is very simple: a Government gets elected,
it has manifesto commitments, it is going to devolve power to
Scotland, Wales, London and it takes a lot of space, and some
of these issues which are very important for business, very important
for the economy find it difficult to get into that legislative
space. This Bill will help to do that, to relieve the time on
the floor of both Houses and to improve the quality of the regulation.
Really what you are asking is what I get asked when I go around
chambers of commerce, which is, "Is this Government serious
about regulation?" The Government has to be serious about
regulation if it wants to continue to make this country economically
competitive.
35. Chairman, it would be good if the Minister
could keep this Committee informed because some of the answers
that the Minister gave were on a developing basis, so it would
be good if the Minister could keep this Committee informed of
the developments.
(Mr Stringer) I am very happy always to work with
the Committee Chairman and it gives me the opportunity to apologise
to the Chairman as well for not keeping him informed of the list
of potential deregulation orders that the Government is considering.
I apologise, Chairman, and that letter will be on its way.
Mr Love
36. If I could just press the Minister a little
on this particular aspect of the Bill, I take on board the points
that you made about not having a rigid format to work to and certainly
I understand the work that the Task Force is doing and indeed
the Small Business Service which has been set up with a role in
relation to regulation. However, coming back to the point you
made right at the end of your comments about the Government being
serious about dealing with the issues of regulation, can I press
you about whether you think there is a role for a co-ordinating
Government Department to look across Departments about this issue,
but perhaps even more importantly whether there ought to be some
form of parliamentary scrutiny in the terms of a report which
could be debated on the floor of the House which could show that
Parliament and indeed Government was taking seriously the need
to look continuously at regulation. I accept what you say, that
Government needs to get regulation right rather than needs to
take a quantitative view about how much regulation there is, but
if small businesses, if the people out there who are concerned
about the level of regulation are to be satisfied, do we not need
to institutionalise some measures in order to reflect that?
(Mr Stringer) I hope the Cabinet Office is that co-ordinating
body. The Prime Minister, the Cabinet has given Dr Mowlam the
responsibility for looking across the board at both future regulatory
programmes and the current regulations that are in place which
might now be inappropriate or burdensome. The Cabinet Office issues
guidance on how that process should take place. On the second
point, this is difficult for a Minister to say, but parliamentary
scrutiny is up to Parliament really. I would not dare to suggest
to this Select Committee or any other Select Committee what they
should do, but having that as the core issue in Select Committee
work when it is obvious from the comments which have been around
this table that other Members of Parliament share my experience
when they speak to businesses in their constituencies and elsewhere
that there is a problem with regulation and that it can be improved,
then it is up to you and it is up to Parliament and it is up to
other Select Committees how you deal with that process. We are
trying to improve the performance by the process I hope I have
described to you.
Mr Cotter
37. We could go on a long time, Minister, because
we obviously have come to the kernel of the whole thing really,
but certainly I would reiterate what other Members have said,
that some form of annual reporting or annual commitment to keeping
us abreast is probably very important in all sorts of different
ways from the Government. You mentioned the Better Regulation
Task Force and also the Small Business Service has been mentioned.
As I say, we could go on for ever about these things, but we do
have a lot of different organisations, if you like, or set-ups
which are looking at this and, for example, the Better Regulation
Task Force, as you mentioned, is an organisation going into Departments
and so on, but it is a little bit ad hoc, so is the Government
intending perhaps to give it a more definite role because it goes
in different directions very effectively, but it cannot cover
everything, can it?
(Mr Stringer) Well, the nature of an independent body
is that it is not controlled by the Government and Lord Haskins
insists that he is, and he is, independent and he listens to what
business says, he has access to the Prime Minister and he talks
to the Secretaries of State, and he has just issued a report which
the Government has to respond to, so he will choose and the Task
Force will choose what they look for. I think it would lose a
lot of its credibility, particularly in the business community,
if the Government told it what to do, but in terms of reviewing
future and current programmes, then the Panel for Regulatory Accountability
in the Cabinet Office is regularly talking to Departments and
asking them to review their progress. The Regulatory Impact Unit
is talking to them and it is just looking at those programmes.
I repeat what I said to Mr Stewart, that we respect and have a
lot of sympathy with the view that there should be annual reports,
but we think it is just a bit too rigid. But there may well be
a process where we ask departments to put that into their annual
reports, what they are doing about their past and future regulation.
Dr Naysmith
38. It is an interesting point to pick up really
and it is to do with the credibility of this whole process and
the credibility of the commitment of the Government really to
sharpening up regulation. It is not something that would necessarily
be in this Bill directly, but it relates to once a Bill becomes
law how you would operate it, and I am sure the Minister remembers
that we have quite recently considered a proposal to permit charging
for admission to public dances on Sunday evenings and to allow
the issue of Special Hours Certificates to allow such premises
to sell alcohol. We had a fairly extensive consultation on this
and we took evidence on the matter and just a few days before
the end of the consultation period the Home Office published a
White Paper on general licensing which really rolled up everything
we had talked about, and I think the Committee was a little bit
miffed about that when we had spent all this time unnecessarily,
or we were more than a bit miffed according to Mr Stewart. How
do you propose to stop repetition of that kind of thing in the
future?
(Mr Stringer) I certainly think that the timing of
announcements and scheduling is something that all Governments,
both from a PR point of view and from a regulatory point of view,
strive to get on top of. I can understand the annoyance of the
Committee, but when the purpose of the Home Office's White Paper
was and is to improve regulation, which is a very appropriate
discussion really for what we have been saying because it is regulation
that is enforced and administered by magistrates' courts and by
local authorities and it causes all sorts of problems, it is ideal
for simplification and improvement, so I am sure that the Committee
would not criticise the Home Office for trying to get on top of
that particular issue, but I take the point about the scheduling.
When part of the problem is the squeeze that there is on the floor
of both Houses for legislative space, getting things through early,
albeit in this case Sunday dancing, I do not think is necessarily
a bad thing. I think what is interesting, and it is taking your
question a bit further, Dr Naysmith, is that this Committee and
the Lords Committee have got slightly different views on how that
should be taken forward and I think there might be some interesting
developments in how the two Committees communicate with each other
and with Government about how we proceed to the next stage.
Chairman: Well, can I thank you, Minister, and
your two colleagues for coming along. I think it has been a very
useful session for the Committee Members this morning and I hope
you found it useful as well. Thank you very much.
|
