Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2007

rose to move, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2007. The noble Lord said: The draft regulations are being made to streamline and simplify our arrangements for environmental permits by integrating the systems for waste management licensing and pollution prevention and control. In doing so, they cut red tape and provide an easier and more flexible permit. They allow regulators and business to focus on protecting the environment at a lower cost. The regulations provide an opportunity to reduce administrative burdens on business and regulators and are consistent with the Government’s better regulation policy. They respond to various drivers to review the different approaches to environmental regulation and to establish a more efficient regulatory system. In 2005, the Better Regulation Task Force challenged Defra to improve our environmental permitting regulations. The Hampton report the same year challenged us to take a more ‘risk-based’ approach to regulation. Later that year we responded to these drivers by launching the Environmental Permitting Programme, with the Environment Agency, the Welsh Assembly Government and other stakeholders. The aim was to reduce administrative burdens on business, in particular through a single permit system. The Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations are the result of this initiative and close consultation with industry and other stakeholders. The regulations replace and simplify more than 40 pieces of law with one set of clear regulations. I understand that if one adds up the pages in the 40 pieces of law they come to over 500 pages. Noble Lords will see that this document is just over 120 pages, so they are reduced to less than one-third of their length, but they still deliver the environmental protection that we care about. They deliver a single permit system for waste management and industrial pollution by streamlining and combining the two separate systems that are currently running. A single system makes it easier when it comes to applying for a permit, changing it and ultimately surrendering it. These changes will have benefits for a wide range of businesses, but particularly smaller enterprises which often have limited time and resources to spend on form filling. It is anticipated that this simplification will bring cost savings of around £76 million over 10 years through administrative burden reduction and wider economic benefits. I am not just tossing that figure out. We have a system for making sure that we monitor the savings gained through the regulations to gauge their effectiveness, and we can report on that. The new permit system will make it easier for regulators to do their job of protecting the environment and easier for business to comply. These regulations have been widely welcomed by industry and have been consulted on more times than I can ever recall happening with a set of regulations. There have been five consultations on the programme. It is worth putting that on the record, because enormous work has gone into making sure that we can get the savings. The first public consultation took place between February and May 2006, before I turned up back at Defra. The second took place between September and December 2006; the third between January and April earlier this year—I can give details of what each concerned if required—the fourth, relating to the guidance to local authority regulated sites, took place from June to September this year; and the fifth took place between July and October this year. So there has been full consultation through the process. There was the initial push to get something done. Defra wants to cut regulation. People think that we wake up each morning considering that if we can introduce a new regulation that day we will have done our job. That is not the case; it is the other way round. That mindset and culture pervades the department. We are trying to simplify. This is a classic example of being able to simplify regulations and ease the burden on industry without—I emphasise this—sacrificing our environmental protection. Moved, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2007. 27th Report from the Statutory Instruments Committee.—(Lord Rooker.)