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Government Regulation

That is an extremely good question and I hope that the Minister will respond. Much of the regulation of the public sector distorts professional judgments and does damage to the public services that people are trying to run. The education and health targets substitute political priorities for the things that teachers and doctors would do based on their professional judgment. In hospitals, we need to trust the professionals to assess clinical risks and to make their own decisions within the resources available. In the education sector, we need to trust teachers rather more. Instead, a whole army of targets pours forth from Whitehall; there are endless advice notes and guidance notes making it extremely difficult for people to do the job on the ground. Local government is tied up in knots by the Government. They sometimes say that they like the idea of more devolved local decision making but in practice they take power to the centre. We should like to see the end of the best value and comprehensive performance regimes, which would save £1,000 million in unnecessary overheads and free our councils to get on with the job and answer more directly to their electors. That should be an important part of any deregulation Bill that comes before the House, and if by any chance it has escaped the Government’s attention, I trust that we shall be able to move an amendment to give them the chance to include such provisions, which would be much welcomed by Labour as well as by Conservative and Lib Dem councillors. In the case of village halls, many people who would like to work for community purposes find it too daunting due to the 18 health and safety regulations and the new difficulties over drinks licences. One modest proposal from the village hall movement is to double the number of temporary entertainment events notices that they can hold, to allow alcohol to be used on village hall premises. Without some flexibility and common sense from the Government, village halls face a bleak future. Surely, the Government can give us some hope tonight about some sensible deregulation to help important community facilities run by volunteers. Finally, in my deregulation list, we come to the Financial Services Authority and City regulation. We learn that the Prime Minister seems to be in disagreement with the Treasury—nothing surprising there, then—on the question of how good the FSA is and whether it is too intrusive. Recently, I saw the City of London corporation’s interesting piece of research on the implementation of the money-laundering regulations in the UK, which we had to implement in line with other European partners. Overseas territories outside the EU implemented something similar based on the original G7 agreement. The independent judgment commissioned by the corporation found that it cost twice as much in relation to gross domestic product to implement the regulations in Britain as in Germany. That is a huge over-reaction by Britain. The report goes on to say that the regulations do not make the UK safer from money-laundering than Germany, they are just a costly way of doing it. So, we have a paper chase where people have to take gas bills, electricity bills and passports to their building society just to pay in £100, even though they may have been banking there for many years. Surely, something can be done to relieve all that. I hope that when the Minister responds he will propose some virile, strong and sensible deregulation. I hope that he will tell us what the Government plan to do during their EU presidency. I hope that he will put reform of the CAP and the common fisheries policy at the top of his list. I hope that he will have something to say about vitamins and food supplements, to bring relief to those who value those products and want to carry on buying them. I hope that he will tell us that there is to be real deregulation in his deregulation Bill and not just a lot of mumbo-jumbo and promises to do better in the future, and I hope that he will announce tonight that the Government have seen enough of the public reaction to ID cards and that they will not go ahead with that massive, expensive and over-the-top regulation in search of a problem. Our economy needs less regulation. Our businesses need less regulation. Our people and families need greater freedom. Will the Government give it to us?