Examination of Witness (Questions 20-33)
Mr Jim Murphy MP
10 JUNE 2008
Q20 Lord Wade of Chorlton: You tell
me.
Mr Murphy: I think it is proportionate regulation—
Q21 Lord Wade of Chorlton: Proportionate
to what?
Mr Murphy: —by which I mean on occasion,
no regulation is sometimes proportionate. On occasion we should
accept that we live in a world that will never be risk-free, and,
therefore, we should not have risk-averse regulation because a
risk-averse business world and, I would argue, on occasion a risk-averse
public sector, ends in the public sector having a degree of mind-numbing
uniformity and in the business world a stifled creativity, so
proportion is what I would argue for. I think I have shared with
your Lordship's Committee before my thoughts on being a better
regulation minister or the proportionate regulation minister in
Government a number of years ago, and I was asked about this in
one of the sub-committees in your Lordships' House last week:
I think the European Commission is making progress on better regulation
but what progress does it have to make further? Its consultation
has to be wider: it has to consult small businesses much more
effectively: it has to ensure that impact assessments are the
norm, I think there has been about 300 in recent years: and then
they have to have post-implementation assessments of the accuracy
of the impact assessments because it is well known to your Lordships
that impact assessments are a prediction of what the best assessment
is as to what should happen, but these things gain by being revisited
after three or five years to see whether they were accurate predictions,
because one can never make a judgment as to whether these predictions
are worth investing political capital in and whether they are
accurate. I agree to monetarisation on the impact assessments:
"This proposal will cost X euro or X pounds". That is
what I would encapsulate as "better regulation".
Q22 Lord Wade of Chorlton: Do you
think there is a further role that our European Committees could
play in helping you to do a proper analysis?
Mr Murphy: Undoubtedly. Without question. A
change has begun under the present Commission which has to continue
under the new Commission when it takes up office next year. As
I referred to earlier when I was asked for my priorities, the
United Kingdom government, along with a number of other Member
States, is genuinely passionate about this, not in and of itself
because in and of itself it is often a relatively dry subject,
but a better regulation agenda helps United Kingdom plc achieve
so much else and can help Europe as well achieve so much more,
which is why three weeks ago now I travelled to Prague and along
with the governments of the Czech Republic and four other Member
States we signed a declaration of continuing commitment on better
regulation to continue to push the Commission and other Member
States.
Q23 Lord Wade of Chorlton: I think
you will agree that the use of the word "better" suggests
it can be done differently than it has been done in the past,
so clearly there is room for improvement and, clearly, that means
room for a better understanding of what has taken place and how
that can be amended?
Mr Murphy: All of that is true.
Q24 Chairman: Maybe what we need
is for the better regulation portfolio to be handed over to a
British commissioner. We seem to be the ones with our focus on
this issue. The results have been pretty disappointing so far.
Mr Murphy: They have made, from a very low base—and
I think it is important to reflect that it was from a very low
base—progress, but not enough yet. With this Commission,
from the President downwards, there is a determination to make
progress but I think I have reflected with your Lordships before,
and certainly I have with the sub-committees, that the Commission
is a reflection on occasion of the demands of Member States and
the "something must be done" tendency. We see a problem
and "something must be done". Now on occasion nothing
should be done.
Q25 Lord Mance: In the sub-committee,
Sub-Committee E, you mentioned last week the subject of "less"
Europe. Can I ask you about the main interest of that Sub-Committee,
the area of freedom, security and justice? I think you indicated
that this might be regarded as one of the priorities after climate
change, but our sub-committee's comment was that it did not seem
to be from reading the annual policy strategy, and I wanted to
ask you some questions about the rather general and vague nature
of what is said. At paragraph 2.4 we have "Work on the creation
of a common area of justice will continue, in particular by ensuring
the mutual recognition of judgments ... and by improving access
to justice ..." Is there a problem in those areas, particularly
in mutual recognition of judgments? There is a reference later
in this strategy to modernising the Brussels regulation but I
was not aware and I do not know whether the United Kingdom government
has taken the view that there is a problem or who has suggested
that. Access to justice is extremely broad. Then there is a reference
in paragraph 2.7 to communicating better governance and policies
in the area of freedom, security and justice, and I am a loss
I am afraid as to what that might mean, and then there are the
two specific references I mentioned in the annex, page 17, to
Brussels regulation being modernised, which I think everyone would
approve of but which is quite technical law, and simply a communication
on the attachment of bank accounts, which is a pretty limited
area. There is nothing on another area which has been in the news
generally, that is the common frame of reference in relation to
contract law, where nobody knows whether what is aimed at is some
sort of draft Code or whether it is simply a toolbox for legislators
in courts, and I am a little, therefore, puzzled as to where the
input comes and whether there is any focus in the area.
Mr Murphy: Another one of those questions where
I am invited to "discuss"! It is a remarkably broad
area of work, of course. First, on fundamental rights, I know
there were some observations about this issue and how the Explanatory
Memorandum says no issues arise, but I want to put on the record
that that is because the nature of the document is not a package
of specific legislative proposals. Once the legislative proposals
emerge this year and the first half of 2009, they will be relatively
meagre as a consequence of so much else that is happening in Europe
with a new Commission, a new Parliament, the Lisbon Treaty and
everything else. In terms of this issue of justice and home affairs
and common law and mutual recognition, I think it is a reflection
of a degree of vigilance by Her Majesty's Government which is
continually arguing the case for mutual recognition rather than
harmonisation, and that is the purpose of this statement. It is
not a statement where we detect additional pressure for harmonisation:
it is a fair reflection of the fact that there is an absolute
recognition of mutual recognition rather than harmonisation. On
the issue of fundamental freedoms and justice and home affairs
more generally, the Annual Policy Strategy is relatively light,
I think that is a fair reflection, largely because much of the
work is contained in the five-year Hague programme of work, so
most of the justice and home affairs issues are on-going as part
of the four previous annual policy strategies, and I would be
surprised, and I will happily come back and explain why I am surprised,
if in the first few months of the advance of the Lisbon Treaty
there is a substantial number of new justice and home affairs
proposals, partly because the architecture governing justice and
home affairs changes part of the Lisbon Treaty, and there will
be a sense of let's allow the Lisbon Treaty architecture to bed
down and then test the proposals in the context of that new architecture.
So I think for these fundamental freedom issues and justice and
home affairs it will be a relatively quiet period.
Q26 Lord Blackwell: I wonder whether
in a way we are not all being too polite about this APS. The reality
is that it is not seen as a document that plays any part in negotiating
the Commission's remit or budget, the negotiation on what is in
the programme is all done elsewhere, and therefore to that extent
it is in effect a box-ticking government exercise where they try
to put the minimum in it that will restrain their freedom of action.
Against that observation I was also struck by the lack of any
information about what their future plans were in criminal justice
and civil justice; it may be, as you say, that they are waiting
for the Lisbon Treaty to be ratified before they do that. Are
you aware in that case that there is a backlog of proposals that
they would want to bring forward once it is ratified? It does
seem rather odd that they are saying how important it is to have
these provisions in the Treaty if they do not have a long list
of things they want to use them for once they pass the Treaty.
Mr Murphy: I think a lot of the energy and time
over the next few years on justice and home affairs issues will
be about taking existing policies from Pillar Three governance
and transposing them into the Community Framework. If noble Lords
wish to reflect on where is the substantial amount of future work
planned perhaps over the next five years on justice and home affairs
issues, a very good starting point I think would be the fact that
50[1]
or so Pillar 3 policies areas currently have to be transposed
over to a Community method; that is the substantial job that has
to be completed over the next few years. Now, the important caveat
I have to offer every time I say that is that, of course, the
United Kingdom has its opt-out on each of those measures as they
transpose over to the Community method, but alongside that there
is a plan of work on the Hague programme, and I think your Lordships
have previously had evidence about the work that is on-going in
the Hague programme on counter-terrorism and on managed migration,
so a lot of that work is on-going, but in terms of new energy
I think it will be about transfer from Pillar 3 over to Community
method on existing policies on justice and home affairs issues.
Q27 Lord Blackwell: If I could just
follow on, if that is likely to be the priority area of activity
here in the freedom and security and justice area over the next
couple of years of the Lisbon Treaty the Government obviously
will have to take a view on each one of those on what the position
is and whether it is going to move the measure into the Community
method. Is that an area that the Committees of this House and
the other House with the Government should be thinking about and
scrutinising in advance?
Mr Murphy: Absolutely, and Baroness Ashton is
reflecting on this, with your own Committee and on the floor of
the House of Lords. It is a new decision-making process that we
are embarking on on the grounds of subsidiarity and other important
matters, and I repeat this afternoon what I have said in the House
of Commons, that it is important that we get it right from the
beginning and that does mean an important role for the Select
Committees of both Houses in the policing of these opt-in decisions,
certainly.
Chairman: We had a lot of that yesterday, as
you may know, in the Chamber.
Q28 Lord Tomlinson: I was very interested
in the Minister when he was talking about better regulation, talking
about revisiting some of the regulations every three and five
years, that is a principle I am very, very strenuously in favour
of, but I would like to see it applied in other areas as well.
In budgetary terms, does the Minister perhaps sometimes favour
getting the Commission to pledge itself to revisit budget lines
on the basis of zero-based budgeting periodically, so that we
can revisit them not necessarily every three to five years, a
little less frequently, but taking a sample of budget lines which
may well have outlived their utility if they are properly and
objectively examined?
Mr Murphy: Without wishing to pre-empt the discussions
that are going to take place on future budget perspectives, that
is generally much of the approach the United Kingdom is going
to take on this comprehensive review of the budget in advance
of the next financial seven year perspective.
Q29 Lord Tomlinson: Well, I am prepared
to leave it until you come back on that.
Mr Murphy: In seven years' time?
Lord Tomlinson: I am still planning to be around
even if you are not, Minister, but warn your successor that the
question will be there!
Q30 Chairman: Minister, one last
question and then we will let you go. In two or three weeks' time
I will be going to Edinburgh to talk to representatives of the
devolved parliaments, and on the agenda is very likely to be the
question of the degree to which they are kept informed of and
consulted on the APS compared to the degree of consultation that
takes place with the Westminster Parliament. It would be helpful
to me if you could tell us to what extent your processes within
the Foreign Office include talking to the devolved parliaments
about the APS?
Mr Murphy: The main way of doing that would
be through the Joint Ministerial Committee on Europe, that is
the informal way as opposed to less formal structures, and the
next meeting of the Joint Ministerial Committee is taking place
within the next week or so. That is the structure and the most
effective way of involving all devolved administrations. If, after
your visit to Edinburgh, you have other reflections on the most
effective way of doing it I, of course, am happy to have a conversation
with you.
Q31 Chairman: But they will get the
EM?
Mr Murphy: I would assume they will. They will
get a package of information in advance of the joint ministerial
committees, a copy of the documents, of the background documents
and everything besides. There is a standing invitation, and perhaps
we do not do this as regularly as we should, for the ministers
in the devolving administrations to meet with myself in advance
of the joint ministerial committees.
Q32 Lord Roper: But is there anything
done at official level as well as at ministerial level in order
to prepare responses to these documents?
Mr Murphy: I believe there is, yes. There is
officials-to-officials dialogue but that is, as I say, a less
formal way of doing it.
Q33 Chairman: At some stage we might
like to learn a little bit more about the degree of consultation
because it does come up all the time when we meet with our counterparts
from the devolved parliaments.
Mr Murphy: It is right to come up, I think,
and it will come up again on the issues of subsidiarity and how
do we ensure there is a voice from the devolved administrations
on subsidiarity issues.
Chairman: And it will also come on the question
of scrutiny of opt-ins.
Lord Roper: Particularly because of the different
systems for legal matters in at least one of the devolved administrations.
Chairman: So we are quite conscious of it. Minister,
thank you for being generous with your time, as always, and thank
you for answering our questions, as always, with lots of information
and, if I may say so, good humour too. It is much appreciated.
1 Subsequently corrected by witness-see supplementary
memorandum Back
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