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Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

I welcome the noble Baroness’s positive approach to the Bill, which is in sharp contrast to some other contributions that have been made this afternoon. I welcome the fact that the amendment focuses on those who consider that they are suffering from disproportionate burdens and the way in which it questions the Government’s management of representations from those who believe that to be the case. The intention behind the amendment is entirely laudable and praiseworthy, but perhaps a fraction misdirected. I shall explain why we think it is unnecessary. The noble Baroness drew attention to the Better Regulation Task Force report, brilliantly entitled Regulation—Less is More, published in March of last year. She quoted the chunk of the report which I, too, was going to quote in advancing the Government’s case, so we will not bother with that. But suffice it to say, there is clearly agreement across the Chamber on these issues. In September last year, the Government put in place the better regulation portal. As I have described to the noble Baroness and others outside the Chamber, it is an online mechanism for those regulated to submit simplification proposals. The better regulation portal is but one method that can be used by stakeholders for the submission of simplification proposals. Stakeholders can simply submit proposals in a number of other ways—by letter, e-mail, through existing contact with departments and through the industry-wide and government fora that exist. All departments are committed to responding to these simplification proposals within 90 working days, setting out and justifying the course of action they propose and, if possible, a time limit for delivery. The scope of the initiative includes all existing regulations which affect the private, public and voluntary sectors across domestic and European issues. So far we have received 330 proposals—121 through the portal, 38 by e-mail and 171 by correspondence. Of these proposals, 28 reforms are being taken forward by the respective departments responsible for the policy and 50 have been declined. The remaining 252 proposals are still under active consideration by departments and are in the process of being responded to. One example of a measure received through the portal process and acted on by a department relates to form 42, a report on employment-related securities—any transfer or issue of shares—required by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. That form was causing annoyance to small and medium-sized enterprises; the cost to businesses has been estimated at £200 per form. Acting on this suggestion, the Chancellor announced in the 2005 Pre-Budget Report the removal of the requirement for over 90 per cent of UK companies to fill in form 42. I understand that this burden has been removed from more than 300,000 companies, saving them £200 per form—an estimated saving to the UK economy of £60 million. I accept that this is one example of the successful approach of using the portal, and I am sure that there will be occasions on which proposals are not taken forward. That might be for a number of reasons. In some cases, proposals are based on a misunderstanding of the regulation, and responses clarify the fact that there is no legal requirement to undertake a specific training course on portable appliance testing, for example. In others, it is hard to see the benefit of changing legislation to, for example, make tax discs square rather than round. Departments will also need to consider proposals in context and may need to weigh up a number of factors before deciding whether to go ahead with a particular reform. Given the volume of proposals received it would be impractical to lay a report before Parliament setting out the reasons why a proposal to make an order was declined, which is at the core of the amendment. Civil servants should use their finite resources to root out unnecessary bureaucracy rather than invest more of their time in producing lists and writing more reports for Parliament. Of course, we need to identify those who suffer a disproportionate burden from legislation. We are the first Government in the UK to face up to the challenge of identifying and measuring the total administrative costs placed on business, charities and voluntary organisations by government regulation so that we can take action to reduce them. The noble Baroness asked about the requirement placed on departments to publish detailed information on both the administrative costs of complying with government regulations and plans for reducing these costs and other regulatory burdens. I cannot give a definite time for the publication of that information, but it will be later this year. Departments are also obliged to report on their better regulation work as part of their annual reports, as they have done for the past two years. Reporting requirements, therefore, are already in place. The Better Regulation Executive is developing proposals to improve the effectiveness of regulatory impact assessments. The aim is to improve the clarity with which costs and benefits are presented and to streamline the RIA requirements to make them easier to use throughout the policy development and implementation cycle. The Better Regulation Executive intends to consult on its proposals shortly. We must not lose sight of the fact that there are sometimes valid reasons why some activities receive a disproportionate burden from legislation. An example would be the introduction of more targeted, or proportionate, risk-based burdens, such as a more efficient, risk-based inspection regime, where the burden of inspection on those judged to be low risk is reduced at the expense of more onerous inspections for those judged to be high risk. The Government make no apologies for targeted regulation that improves standards in public services, promotes competition, ensures fairness at work, helps industry, provides protection for consumers and the environment, and strips away unnecessary or outdated regulations, both here and in Europe. These amendments are unnecessary for the reasons that I have just set out. I therefore suggest that the noble Baroness, having heard about the work that is going on, the timetables for reporting and our commitment to continue consultation with those parts of industry to which a regulation is relevant, withdraws her amendment.