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Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [Lords]

It is a pleasure to follow that experienced business man, my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone) and my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard), as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly), who spoke from the Front Bench. It is noticeable that only Conservative Back Benchers are speaking in today's debate. I hope that the historic commitment of the Conservative party to small business in particular and business in general, as the generators of wealth on which our public services depend, is reflected not only in this debate but in a forthcoming change of Government. It is good to see the Minister for Employment Relations and Postal Affairs back in his seat. If the Bill succeeds, I hope that he will be as successful in eliminating unnecessary regulation as he has been in eliminating so many post offices. The Bill represents the third time in six years that the Government have attempted to reduce the burden of regulation. I welcome any opportunity to discuss the burden of regulation—a burden that, according to the British Chambers of Commerce, has cost business £66.99 billion since the Labour Government came to power. The Government have proved unable to put the brakes on the proliferation of unnecessary regulation and the Bill is an admission of that. After two failed attempts to legislate to cut the number of regulations, we now have a Bill aimed only at curbing the activities of over-zealous men with clipboards. Gone is the promise to cut regulations. If one needed evidence of the fact that if there is a simple way to do something the Government will find an ineffective and needlessly bureaucratic way to do it, one need only look at their ham-fisted attempt to kick their habit of over-regulation. The Government began with a flourish in 1997 by abolishing the Deregulation Task Force and replacing it with the Better Regulation Task Force. That did not mean that the job of deregulation was considered complete. In its 2001 Manifesto, Labour pledged to ““cut red tape””. Later that year, the Government introduced the Regulatory Reform Act 2001, which produced just 27 deregulations in four years. Does the Minister accept the British Chambers of Commerce's findings that in the same period 600 new regulations were created? In April 2007, the right hon. Member for North-West Durham (Hilary Armstrong) said that it was not possible to calculate how many regulations had been repealed in each year since 1997. The effect, it appears, was too small for Ministers to measure. Whatever the exact number of new regulations heaped on business, it is clear that the Government did not regard the 2001 Act as a complete success. It was intended to provide"““a major tool for this and future governments to reform entire regulatory regimes and to tackle unnecessary, overlapping, over-complex and over-burdensome regulation””." Regulatory reform orders were introduced as the legislative vehicle for amending primary legislation without the need for a Bill. By the end of 2006, 34 RROs had been introduced. In 2001, 63 deregulatory opportunities had been identified, and the Cabinet Office said that the overall outcome was disappointing—a great bureaucratic word. The 2001 initiative was reviewed by the Cabinet Office in 2005, and it concluded that the Act had simply not been implemented. When businesses listen to Ministers' fine words today, they will be forgiven for wondering whether they will be translated into effective action to reduce unnecessary burdens. The Government decided to try again, and hailed 2006 as the ““year of delivery””. We were presented with the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill—another Government attempt to regulate their way out of regulation. The Minister who opened the debate today said at the time that the Bill would"““reduce the administrative burdens of regulation, consolidating and simplifying the legislation to make it easier to understand and work with, and deregulation””.—[Official Report, 15 May 2006; Vol. 446, c. 719.]" However, the reality turned out somewhat different from the grand ambitions expressed by the Minister that day. By the end of 2007, with the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006 having been in force for a full year, the Financial Times reported that it had still to cut or even amend a single regulation. According to the Better Regulation Task Force, the Government's own quango on regulations, the annual burden of regulation on UK business is £100 billion, or 8 per cent. of our gross domestic product. It should be noted that a British Chambers of Commerce study found that that figure was ““suspiciously rounded””, and probably too low. I hope that the Minister responding to the debate will answer those charges. No one can say definitively what benefits the UK taxpayer gets from restricting business in this heavy-handed way. The Competition Commission does not know the impact of regulation on innovation, competition, competitiveness or productivity. We do know that at least 14 new regulations are introduced every day under this Government. Businesses tell us that, if there is one thing that annoys them as much as regulation, it is chopping and changing. When he sums up, will the Minister offer some assurances that this Bill will get things right this time? Could it be third time lucky for us, or does he intend to continue to attempt to regulate his way out of trouble? Can we expect to see the same Ministers who are presenting this Bill today suffering the humiliation of returning with yet more legislation before the Government come to their sad end in a couple of years?