I thank noble Lords for their amendments in this group. I am grateful for the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson’s introduction. In the interests of time, I suggest I respond constructively over a drink to some of his more philosophical points. Yesterday, the World Bank published its Doing Business 2016 report and ranked the UK as sixth-best country in the world for ease of doing business—something to celebrate. This is partly due to the work on the regulation stock and the regulation flow that we are all trying to make a success. This Government want to make the UK the best place in the world to start and grow a business, and the Bill is a step towards achieving that. So there is more to do, and I believe that adding regulators to the purview of debate on regulation will help to reduce burdens on business. I commend the RPC for its independence and honesty, which is well illustrated by the comments that have been made.
6 pm
Amendment 48A would amend the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act so that the business impact target automatically included all EU-derived legislation that required the UK to implement regulations. It would also include all regulations agreed by the affirmative resolution procedure. To answer the point
that was made, Section 22(6)(b) of that Act includes secondary regulations within the scope of the target, so they are there.
There is a clear need for regulatory reform in Europe and the best way of achieving that is to tackle it at source, securing in Brussels controls that match those we have here at home. Our influence is beginning to pay off in this area. In May the Commission published better regulation proposals, which I do not think many people know about but include greater independence for the Commission’s regulatory scrutiny board, a renewed commitment to lighter regimes for SMEs—small business, which we are caring about today—and a commitment to embed better regulation across three EU institutions in an inter-institutional agreement. We welcome this. We want the Commission to go further, which is why at my urging last December the Competitiveness Council unanimously asked the Commission to bring forward proposals for EU burden-reduction targets and an independent expert system of assessment like that of our RPC.
Meanwhile, this Government are working on the principle that it is right to be transparent about everything but target only what we can control. So we are transparent but, as the noble Lord has said, in the context of EU measures that means counting not all the EU burdens but the domestic decisions where we overimplement or gold-plate, where obviously we have full control over what we are doing.
The Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act already requires transparency in our EU-derived legislation, but it gives the Government of the day discretion about what to target so they can decide to target some or no EU-derived legislation. The proposed amendment would remove that discretion and instead require the target to include all EU-derived legislation. I believe that that approach is too prescriptive. We decided to exclude EU-derived legislation from the target. Under the reporting requirements in Section 23, we will still be required to report transparently on the quantity of our legislation and on any instances where gold-plating occurs. So the sauce Anglaise, in the elegant words of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, is being addressed.
Amendment 48A would oblige the Secretary of State to include in his target all secondary legislation made by affirmative resolution. Section 22 of the Act, as I have said, currently requires the choice around the scope to be made in a transparent way and provides clear legislative parameters within which that choice has to be made. However, it also provides flexibility to ensure that the scope can be set in a way that reflects the policy objectives of the Government of the day while avoiding unintended consequences.
I turn to the amendment from the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull. I agree with him about the importance of enforcement and a level playing field across the EU. Enforcement is a key aspect of the new single market proposals produced today by the Commission and a focus of work there. He is right that the coalition did a lot of work on eliminating new gold-plating, but of course there is historic gold-plating to look at. The amendment would create a one-off reporting duty on regulators in scope of the growth duty to publish a report on historic gold-plating.
This Government already have a process in place to deliver that outcome. We are working with departments, and with regulators now—assuming this Bill is approved—and business on a series of “cutting red tape” reviews to identify opportunities for regulatory reform, improved enforcement and implementation practices and savings to business from all those sources. The involvement of departments as well as the regulators is important. They have a responsibility for removing gold-plating wherever it lies.
We welcome evidence from everyone on gold-plating. I have noted carefully the noble Lord’s remarks about the insurance mediation directive. We will look at the scope for doing something about that under the current system.
Amendment 48B talks about tax administration. However, in the interests of time, I will move on and if there are questions on that aspect I am very happy to discuss them with noble Lords.
The final question that was asked was: why has the statement of regulation stopped? The answer is that this will be replaced by the annual report on performance under the business impact target, which will be published in due course. I am not sure of the exact timing. But that is why, as it were, the figures have not been published in the way that noble Lords would expect. Transparency is important but we have slightly changed the system.
The Secretary of State is required to report his decisions on the content of the business impact target by May, but in fact I am sure he will do it rather earlier than that. We will listen to the arguments noble Lords have made, but in the mean time we should not reduce the flexibility which the SBE Act gives to the Government of the day to meet the challenges of the day. I hope that, with that explanation, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment. I have not sought to respond on the details of the £200 million to £300 million over the last five years, but again, I am very happy to have a discussion on that outside the Room.