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Points of Order
12.31 pm
Mr. Julian Brazier (Canterbury): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I would be grateful if you could inform me how best to set the record straight, because the House appears to have been inadvertently misled. The Prime Minister said that the new applicants for work orders were all being individually vetted for their specialist skills, but that does not accord with the answers given to me by the Department over the past few weeks. Many are completely unskilled.
Mr. Speaker: We do not need to prolong Prime Minister's Question Time.
Mr. Oliver Heald (North-East Hertfordshire): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As recorded in column 58 of Hansard on 28 January, the then Minister for Pensions, the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney), assured the House that there would be a full debate on the pensions Green Paper, but we have not had it. Ahead of tomorrow's business statement, could you, Mr. Speaker, make inquiries as to whether the reason for the hold-up is the fact that there has been no Pensions Minister since 4 April, seven weeks ago? If so, is not that a bad reason for holding up an important debate on pensions in this place?
Mr. Speaker: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman might try to catch my eye at business questions. That would be the right occasion.
BP Grangemouth
12.32 pm
Mr. Michael Connarty (Falkirk, East): Under Standing Order No. 24, I ask that you, Mr. Speaker, grant an emergency debate on the health and safety impact of BP's demand for 240 new redundancies at Grangemouth in my constituency. Those are additional to the 700 redundancies agreed in 2001–02, which are still being implemented. I am deeply concerned about the employment impact and the impact on the local and Scottish economy. I am also concerned about the diminishing local and Scottish spend by BP in Grangemouth.
The impact on health and safety is the most urgent, important and specific reason for calling for a debate. I am sure that you will recall, Mr. Speaker, the seven major health and safety incidents at Grangemouth between 1998 and June 2002—including a major fire and an explosion. BP management were heavily fined on several occasions for safety breaches and a major health and safety taskforce imposed a Health and Safety Executive improvement notice on the plant, which ran until May 2002 and led to a major upgrade of safety and maintenance. An important aspect of the problem is that the A904 Bo'ness road from Grangemouth runs through the middle of the BP complex and an explosion took place only 10 minutes after a woman and her dog had passed the pipe that exploded on the main road.
The 700 redundancies are not yet fully implemented. Some people are still to leave the plant; some are still in training to run the plant with 700 fewer staff; and the health and safety control of major accident hazards certificates have not yet been granted for running the plant at the operating levels that will result from having 700 fewer workers. The manager of the plant, Colin Maclean, is basically a BP hit man. He has been around the world—particularly in Brisbane and America—taking people out of plants. He now wants 66 per cent. of the health and safety department out; a further 70 to 80 plant operators out; the engineering maintenance section out—the engineering fabrication section out, even though the ink is still to dry on the agreement that he signed. He also wants management supervision levels out, thereby placing dangerous work loads on front-line plant operators.
The BP plant in Grangemouth made a $71 million operating profit in the first quarter of this year. There was a 94.1 per cent. availability of plant—and every 1 per cent. increase in availability is worth £10 million to the company. The manager seems determined to turn back the clock to a time when the plant was not properly maintained, there were not enough staff and lives were endangered in the plant and in my community. We must not let Colin Maclean, who is the man responsible, risk health and safety and endanger lives in the community of Grangemouth in my constituency, for the sake of corporate greed. I ask that we debate the issue now as a matter of urgency.
Mr. Speaker: I have listened carefully to what the hon. Member for Falkirk, East (Mr. Connarty) has said, and I have to give my decision without stating any reasons. I am afraid that I do not consider that the matter that he has raised is appropriate for discussion under Standing Order No. 24, and I cannot therefore submit his application to the House.
BILL PRESENTEDDraft Constitutional Treaty on the Future of Europe (Referendum) Bill
Mr. Frank Field, supported by Mr. Graham Allen, Tony Wright, Mr. Geoffrey Robinson, Kate Hoey, Alan Howarth, Mr. Graham Stringer, John Cryer, Mr. David Drew, Mr. Ian Davidson, Denzil Davies and Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody, presented a Bill to make provision for a referendum on the draft Constitutional Treaty on the Future of Europe: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 11 July, and to be printed. [Bill 114].
European Communities (Regulations)
12.36 pm
Mr. Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster): I beg to move,
- That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision in respect of the effects on persons and businesses of regulations made under section 2 of the European Communities Act 1972.
The irritation of business is encapsulated in the phrase "a level playing field". Whether it is the much publicised prosecution of a food producer or regulations that drive road hauliers out of business, it is the inequity of the British approach that so often generates the headlines. Although it is necessary to scrutinise all existing regulations to see if they can be sensibly simplified, a deregulatory approach on its own will not reduce the total net amount of regulation because new regulations are continually being promulgated in great detail.
The EU treaty sets out the legitimate extent of business regulation in article 36 and implementation nearly always increases business costs. The UK procedure sets out clear and well rehearsed reasons why different EU nations may have different approaches to the development of national legislation. Here in the UK, the impact of national legislation is normally much more rigorous than in several other European countries.
The body of domestic regulation that currently exists is a result of the consensus of all of the pressures that apply within our constitutional framework. In a democracy, the people who would stand to lose as a result of any proposed change in the law tend to shout a lot louder than those who stand to gain, and the former will often appear on the broadcast media and in the newspapers to set out their case. Those who should benefit from such changes are normally much more reticent and consequently the case for maintaining, or extending, existing regulations is invariably broadcast more forcefully.
Accordingly there is little chance of rolling back legislation through parliamentary means unless, unusually, there has been a massive shift in popular sentiment as a result of technological or similar change. Even apparently simple deregulation changes take much time and effort and, as someone who has recently devoted dozens of hours of time to the scrutiny of the Licensing Bill, I can confirm that to be the case. Likewise, Sunday trading was only finally approved in the mid-1990s, having initially come before the House as long ago as 1986.
Our political system has a much greater tradition of wider consultation, with draft proposals being sent to the broadest range of bodies for comment. That leads special interest groups to lobby hard for their particular concerns in using the proposed legislation to maximise
their individual requirements. In contrast, British business organisations, such as chambers of commerce, are often significantly less important and well organised than the equivalent organisations in continental Europe. Commercial and trade bodies in other member states often have a far stronger tradition of business involvement at the senior levels of government and the civil service.The tradition of UK parliamentary democracy also ensures that Ministers can be easily called to account, although perhaps less easily than many of my hon. Friends would like to believe. However, such lobbying is much more likely to be by an MP on behalf of a disgruntled constituent and rarely on account of a complaint from business. Even in my constituency—which is unusual, as some 950,000 people a day come to work in the Cities of London and Westminster and I have a slightly pastoral role for the vast number of businesses based there—I am very conscious that relatively few businesses seek to take up their concerns with Ministers. Officials in Departments are acutely conscious of that imbalance and, as a result, regulations tend to be couched in such a way as to protect the public, rather than the interests of business.
All Members know that parliamentary time is scarce and, as a result, it is difficult for Departments to claim more than a handful of legislative slots each year. The main opportunity for departmental initiatives is therefore through statutory instruments. The policing of British regulations is well established and comprehensive, with a culture that is both local and non-corrupt, but inevitably, each local inspector is appraised on the number of prosecutions that he achieves, rather than on the overall competitive success of the sector for which he may be responsible. As I have mentioned, much of that contrasts with a more lax enforcement regime on mainland Europe.
Many Members will have expressed concerns about gold-plating—where the UK goes beyond the minimum required by a European directive—and although there have been umpteen initiatives in the past decade or so to try to stem the tide of regulation, the burden on British business continues and the prospect of a level playing field with the rest of the EU seems, I am afraid, as elusive as ever.
The legislation that I am proposing, whereby a provision of UK domestic law made by statutory instrument under section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972 in purported implementation of an EC legal obligation could be attacked in the courts if it were shown that the UK legislation involved burdensome regulations not required by Community law; or, where member states had a choice about how they implemented the relevant EC law, the UK had not chosen the least burdensome method of
implementation; or if one or more of the other member states did not have in their law provisions equivalent to those imposed by the UK regulations—or, indeed, if they did not effectively enforce their laws.In short, I seek to ensure that the lowest rather than the highest burden would be placed on UK businesses and that the courts would have the power to grant a declaration to that effect, so the relevant UK regulation would cease to have effect to the extent that its provisions went beyond the basic minimum required by Community law. Businesses, affected individuals and bodies, such as trade associations, could go to court to apply for such a declaration. I should emphasise that such a defence would not apply where the EC law obligation had been implemented subsequently by Act of Parliament, but only to the gold-plating that I earlier described.
The consequences of the Bill would be completely to turn the tables for legislative priorities. Civil servants and officials, rather than being motivated to increase regulatory requirements, would in fact be keen to ensure that their proposals could not be overturned in court because they went further than those in other EU states. I hope that, similarly, UK embassies abroad in each EU member state would be obliged to discover more about the status of legislation in that country and feed back that information for the purposes of our good governance. Rather than Ministers having to defend European-derived legislation, any business that was prosecuted could argue its case for fair treatment in the courts.
May I take this opportunity to thank Sir Paul Judge, the businessman and philanthropist, for his work in promoting this initiative? I am also delighted to have received the endorsement of Ruth Lea of the Institute of Directors and John Blundell of the Institute of Economic Affairs, both of whom support the ideas in the Bill. Ideally, this small piece of legislation would have the effect of diffusing all the issues relating to that ever-elusive level playing field, which I understand to be the main regulatory complaint of British business.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Mark Field, Mr. Richard Bacon, Gregory Barker, Mr. John Baron, Mr. Adrian Flook, Mr. Boris Johnson, Mr. George Osborne, Mr. Mark Simmonds, Mr. Nigel Waterson and Mr. Bill Wiggin.
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