Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

That is where British leadership could come in. We should try to persuade like-minded member states and in due course the Commission that the European Union needs a way of death for bad legislation, just as surely as it has an effective way of birth for new legislation. It would be better if we paused for reflection and had a year with no new legislation in the EU, other than perhaps amendments to existing EU regulations where they are not working. A period of reflection would create more space and allow the removal of some of the unnecessary burdens. The Under-Secretary began the debate by saying that the problem is not hugely serious, because Britain is still high up the competitiveness league. As my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire pointed out, we have slipped from fourth to 13th in less than a decade since this Government came to power. Ministers should be very worried about that—in some rankings, we are down at No. 22. I do not want my country to settle for being 13th or 22nd, because if one is 13th or 22nd, one does not even get on the list of locations when people decide where to put a new car plant or steelworks. There is a lot of chunky, footloose investment around the world, of which Britain used to get more than its fair share because it was more competitive than other countries. Over the coming months and years, Britain’s share will fade, because we have slipped too far down the competitiveness league. The subject of today’s debate—too many clumsily enforced regulations—is one reason why we have slipped down the competitiveness league, and we need legislation to tackle that important issue. The Bill is silent on tax regulations. We need a method of reforming our tax codes and reducing the burden of some of our taxes, which would contribute to restoring competitiveness. The famous IR35 was an attack on self-employed people, particularly in the computer industry, and it did a lot of damage: some people gave up, while others were driven offshore. Why have the Government not done something about that decision, which should be reversed? If the Bill is not amended, it cannot be used to achieve that result, because it does not involve tax. Why have the Government not done something about the deferment of national insurance? If my constituents have more than one employment and if their situation has not changed, they must go through an elaborate administrative ritual every year of tabling information in order to get so-called deferment, whereas in practice they do not have to pay any extra national insurance if their main employment involves paying the full amount under the law as it stands. Why do they have to go through that complicated administrative ritual? That is a little example, and there are hundreds more throughout our tax codes. The Conservative party would like to see substantial deregulation of local government, because there has been too much centralisation and too many burdens have been placed on it. We would love to see the fair value and comprehensive performance assessment regimes scrapped in their entirety. We have taken outside advice on the matter, which has told us that that would save £1 billion. That money could either be returned to council tax payers at a time when they are not getting good value for money and are paying too much or—this would be a choice for elected councillors—it could be ploughed into front-line services to strengthen any areas in which they are deficient. The Government could use the Bill as a vehicle to change the rules affecting local government. Regulations bear down much more heavily on small businesses than on large businesses—naturally, because large businesses can afford the extra cost of compliance workers and specialists who can lobby Government to try to move regulation in the direction that they wish, and then to employ specialists to avoid the worst of the impact of the regulation when it is in place. Small businesses do not have that luxury. In a small business employing five or 10 people, the one or two people at the top do not have time to lobby Governments to try to move things in their direction; they scarcely have time to implement regulations fully and often have to spend a lot of money on expensive outside consultants to tell them what they mean and what they have to do to get up to speed. We heard the estimate—it was a good guess—that regulations effectively cost a small business five times as much as a big business because of the impact on its fragile cost structures and stretched management resources. We should institute a review of all the small business exemptions with a view to levelling them up so that more businesses can be taken out of the scope of many of these regulations. We will then have more small businesses and more jobs, with all the associated benefits. The issues before the House are straightforward. I get the feeling that there is agreement across the parties, and on the Treasury Bench, that we need to deregulate because there are too many unnecessary regulations, and that while some may be desirable, the costs are not proportionate to the beneficial consequences. I would add that many regulations achieve precisely the opposite of what they set out to achieve. If we had a system of review, as many Members would like, more of that would become obvious, and the case for removing or amending the harmful regulations would, in turn, be more obvious. We would welcome a Bill that made it easier to cut the burdens and to repeal regulations that are having unfortunate consequences. This Bill, however, allows the Government to re-regulate without reference to the House in a way that is the opposite of deregulation. Given that Ministers have failed to provide clear examples of how they are going to use these powers, I fear that they will find among Labour Members, as well as elsewhere, that it is difficult to make the case for the Bill as it stands. I have given a few ideas out of my list of 63—I will not bore the House with the whole list, but Ministers have it—of regulations that could be stripped out to the benefit of this country’s economy, leading to the creation of more jobs, an improvement of our competitive position, and a lightening of the burden on many individuals who are frustrated by heavy-handed and excessive regulation. Will Ministers listen and come up with a practical programme? Will they understand that grandstanding with these rather crude bits of legislation is not the same as running a deregulation programme? Can we soon have a Cabinet Minister who means business and cuts through the jungle?