Other instruments of Interest
7. The Ministry of Defence (MOD) have laid the
draft Armed Forces (Redress of Individual Grievances) Regulations
2007, and the draft Armed Forces (Service Complaints Commissioner)
Regulations 2007. These Regulations (under the Armed Forces
Act 2006) implement a new service complaints system for the armed
forces in recognition of the need for members of the armed forces
(who have no contract of employment and no system of collective
bargaining) to have an effective way of obtaining redress for
grievances. The Committee has been advised by MOD that the possibilities
for redress provided to service personnel by these Regulations
are already available to civilians employed by MOD.
8. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs (DEFRA) have laid the draft Environmental Permitting
(England and Wales) Regulations 2007. The draft Regulations
introduce a single streamlined environmental permitting and compliance
regime to apply in England and Wales, by integrating the existing
regimes covering waste management licensing (WML) and Pollution
Prevention and Control (PPC). DEFRA carried out consultations
with a wide range of interested parties between early 2006 and
autumn 2007, and have said that respondents were generally supportive
of the ideas and aims of the initiative. However, the Explanatory
Memorandum (EM) states that industry expressed concern at the
proposal that the due diligence defence currently available under
the WML system should be dropped, at the same time as the emergency
defence, available only to waste operators at present, is to be
extended to PPC. We felt that the EM did not deal fully enough
with the proposed removal of the due diligence defence. At our
request, DEFRA have now provided more information to explain their
proposal, which is printed at Appendix 2. We trust that, while
DEFRA view strict liability as "an important tool to secure
convictions of corporate entities", they will see as the
prime objective of the new regime not the achievement of such
convictions but the maintenance of environmental and human health
standards, as stated in the EM.
9. The draft Legislative and Regulatory Reform
(Regulatory Functions) Order 2007 and accompanying draft Regulators'
Compliance Code have been laid by the Department for Business,
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR). Under the Legislative
and Regulatory Reform Act 2006, regulators specified in the Order
must have regard to the Code in exercising regulatory functions.
We considered that the Explanatory Memorandum to the Order and
Code did not provide enough information about the changes which
DBERR made to the Code in response to concerns expressed by certain
regulators. We received further information from DBERR, printed
at Appendix 3. We welcome the Code as a clear written expression
of the "better regulation agenda" in the context of
regulatory activity, but it will be important that the Government
monitor what it in practice achieves, not least in the face of
competing legislative requirements.
10. HM Treasury have laid the Social Security
(Contributions) (Amendment No. 9) Regulations 2007 (SI 2007/2905)
which revoke the disregard in respect of National Insurance Contributions
(NICs) for holiday pay for all but the construction sector. The
construction sector will be allowed a further five years of the
disregard before it is withdrawn completely. The Chancellor of
the Exchequer announced these changes in his statement on the
Pre-Budget Report and Comprehensive Spending Review, on 9 October
2007. The Impact Assessment submitted by HM Treasury states that
the cost of the additional NICs at risk if the disregard were
not restricted in this way would be £1.2 billion by 2012-13.
11. The Department for Children, Schools and
Families (DCSF) have laid the Education (Pupil Referral Units)
(Management Committees etc.) (England) Regulations 2007 (SI 2007/2978)
and the Education (Pupil Referral Units) (Application of Enactments)
(England) Regulations (SI 2007/2979). The main purpose of
the Regulations is to make it mandatory for local authorities
to establish management committees for their pupil referral units
("PRUs": schools run by local authorities for pupils
who cannot attend mainstream schools). In the Explanatory Memorandum,
DCSF state that they carried out a consultation from December
2006 to March 2007, and sought the views of local authorities,
members of existing management committees, staff and teachers
in charge of PRUs, head teachers and governors of schools, and
national organisations with an interest in pupil referral units.
DCSF have told the Committee that they did not consult young people
or organisations representing them because they saw the making
of management committees mandatory as a technical change impacting
mainly on PRU governance. We note this reasoning, but consider
that direct consultation of young people or their representative
organisations can often provide useful input, even to the formulation
of technical policy.
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