Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Will the Secretary of State give the House categorical assurances that this House and the other H...

I can give a categorical assurance. Of course, as the report has now been published, the hon. Gen...

I am concerned that the Secretary of State could bring forward proposals in the Beecroft report t...

We do see that as part of our mandate; indeed, it is the first item that I will discuss in detail...

Does the Secretary of State accept that copyright is the legal expression of intellectual propert...

Yes, I can give assurances on that. We will deal with this subject later, but I totally accept th...

rose—

rose—

Let me finish, and then I will take interventions.

The bank will also demonstrate the Gover...

The Secretary of State may be aware that a number of months ago the Deputy Prime Minister committ...

I am aware that the team currently working on this, UK Green Investments, has been looking at the...

Will the Business Secretary confirm that the green investment bank will be able to raise funds fr...

It has been described as a bank by the Financial Services Authority, which is the relevant regula...

Is it not the case, though, that without the certainty that it will be possible for the bank to b...

The bank will have the certainty of knowing that it has £3 billion committed to it from the Gover...

I welcome the establishment of the green investment bank in Edinburgh. What measures are the Gove...

I do not think a specific procurement code is required for this institution, though of course Gov...

Will the Secretary of State confirm that not only are the Government committed to the green inves...

My right hon. Friend is right. We have the Green Economy Council, which is an over-arching body r...

If the referendum on Scottish separation is successful, will the Secretary of State relocate this...

I have every confidence in the sense of the Scottish people, and I have every confidence that the...

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his introductory comments on this important Bill. Governme...

My hon. Friend makes the point in a fair and balanced way, and he defines exactly what we are try...

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for saying that he will have no truck with compensated no-f...

I am happy to go back and look at the correspondence, but the Federation of Small Businesses, as ...

When the Secretary of State says that a great number of people have made representations about em...

I think the hon. Lady is referring to a survey of small business that my Department did. Indeed, ...

rose—

I will take one more intervention, then I will move on.

Does the Secretary of State agree that the Beecroft proposals about no-fault dismissal amount to ...

That is going rather further than I would want to go with the argument or the evidence.

The Bill does not contain measures on some of the matters on which the Government are consulting ...

I have no such proposals. There is nothing stopping the hon. Lady proposing amendments for us to ...

In 2004 Germany exempted micro-businesses from unfair dismissal-style protections. Has the Secret...

As it happens, I was in Germany a few weeks ago—I unfortunately had to miss Business, Innovation ...

I had hoped to see in the Bill further measures taken from the German book, particularly the excl...

We will obviously look at any proposals on their merits, but our current regulatory system does h...

Does the Secretary of State agree that the current employment tribunal system is not simple, tran...

I totally agree with my hon. Friend, who anticipates many of the things I will say. He is absolut...

May I say how welcome the Secretary of State’s balanced view is, in contrast to those of some Mem...

My experience is that colleagues behind and beside me have a very balanced view of this question—...

I welcome the decision to move forward with settlements and compensation, which is a really good ...

I thank my hon. Friend for his positive response. The Under-Secretary of State for Business, Inno...

Of course, if an employee and an employer have “without prejudice” discussions that involve an of...

If the dispute is then unresolved, which is the implication of the last phrase in the hon. Gentle...

Does the Secretary of State agree that the rapid resolution scheme will make it quicker, cheaper,...

Yes, and I thank my hon. Friend for making that important point. It is not simply employers who h...

On the point about business confidence and taking on new staff, having worked as a freelance soft...

I am tempted to engage in a long disquisition on that subject, having been involved in the debate...

What consideration has the Secretary of State given to creating remuneration bodies that include ...

That is an issue on which we have frequently exchanged views across the House, and we do indeed w...

This is one of those issues that the Government inherited. It is the scandal, left by the previou...

There are separate developments taking place that do not require primary legislation, and they wi...

How does the strength of law on copyright compare with that on patents? I am thinking of the inte...

I do not think that there is any link between patents and copyrights in this case; they are separ...

The Secretary of State will be aware that in the Hargreaves report a number of the proposals rela...

I am not going to give the hon. Gentleman a very precise answer because I will need to check on t...

How will the provisions of clause 51 on repealing some of the provisions of the Equality Act 2010...

I was going to mention that measure at the end of my speech. We see it essentially as a bit of le...

On reviewing regulations that have already been passed, one regulation that springs to mind is th...

This would not be the context in which to do it, because it is, of course, now part of the law. W...

I understand that the TUC and the CBI, as European social partners, were very involved in the neg...

I have an open mind if the hon. Gentleman has good ideas as to how that can be done. We have comm...

Has the Secretary of State given any further thought to including EU directives and legislation i...

The Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk), who has d...

Following the dialogue that has just taken place, I am left unclear whether the Secretary of Stat...

As I said, that case has been strongly made to us by people in the business community. I also sai...

I am still left unclear about the meaning of gold-plating, which, in my view, is a phrase that is...

What small businesses usually mean by gold-plating is that they spend a great deal of time fillin...

rose—

I am coming to the end of my speech.

I have acknowledged that legislation by itself will no...

I beg to move,

That this House, whilst supporting the principles of the Green Investment Ba...

I challenge the hon. Gentleman’s point that Labour left the country in a good regulatory state. T...

What I cited was the World Bank’s assessment of the state in which we left the environment for bu...

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I will make a bit of progress, because I want to ensure that there is time for others to get in.<...

I am listening carefully to the shadow Secretary of State’s comments on the green investment bank...

We will wait to see the detail that the Government come forward with in Committee. We are clear t...

To go back one step, what my hon. Friend just read out about the need for borrowing powers was ex...

I will be happy to do that. My hon. Friend is, of course, the Chair of that Select Committee.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the green investment bank must not be a bank of last resort that s...

I could not agree more. The Government have committed to additionality and we will look to ensure...

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I was wondering when a Government Member would seek to intervene. I will give way shortly.

...

Absolute nonsense!

I say to the hon. Member for Bedford and to the hon. Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley), wh...

There is a fundamental misunderstanding here. It is a misrepresentation to say that any conversat...

Order. A lot of Members are waiting to speak, so interventions must be brief.

I will expand on that point in more detail later, but what I can tell the hon. Gentleman now is t...

I know that the shadow Secretary of State admires experience. He knows that I founded two compani...

I acknowledge the hon. Gentleman’s great wisdom and experience, but I respectfully disagree with ...

May I point out that this is the Secretary of State’s Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, not ...

I am not sure exactly which proposal the hon. Gentleman thinks it is worth having a look at. If h...

Will my hon. Friend give way?

I will give way shortly.

The Secretary of State has quite rightly said that it is not the j...

No it isn’t.

Yes it is: it is precisely what they have been doing with the promotion of the Beecroft report by...

I assume that the hon. Gentleman, as a former employer lawyer, was involved in negotiating compro...

No, the hon. Gentleman is wrong. As things stand, the position in law is that if a pay-off offer ...

As far as I am aware there are none, but the hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Beecroft repor...

I am slightly surprised by that answer because of the equivocation. The Secretary of State commis...

Does the shadow Secretary of State think it reasonable that, in 1999, the compensatory award leve...

I think it is reasonable, when people have been treated in an appalling and unfair fashion by the...

Is my hon. Friend aware that, in Wales, 70% of procurement goes to small and medium-sized enterpr...

I certainly agree that we should increase the procurement opportunities for our SMEs. When we wer...

Further to my hon. Friend’s point about the additional costs and duties that will descend upon th...

First, I thank my hon. Friend for that update from the European championship—

Full time!

I stand corrected. On my hon. Friend’s point about the resourcing of ACAS, we do not know what it...

rose—

I will make some progress, so that the hon. Gentleman will have more time to speak later.

P...

Current thinking—we are yet to report back to the House formally on the consultation—is that ther...

I am glad to hear that, but I wonder where all the briefing in the Sunday newspapers yesterday, i...

rose—

Order. Before I call the next speaker, I must inform the House that all Back-Bench speeches will ...

It is always a pleasure to listen to the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), who invariably ma...

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No, I want to make some progress.

Part 5 deals with legislative burdens more generally. Cla...

Several weeks ago, the Business Secretary revealed publicly to The Guardian something that the co...

I welcome the many excellent measures in the Bill that lay the foundations for a low-carbon econo...

I think my hon. Friend gets an extra minute for taking my intervention. Does she agree that there...

My hon. Friend makes a good point. The problem is not just the cost of defending claims, but the ...

Will my hon. Friend give way? She will get another minute if she does.

I will give way once more, but I will not take all the extra time.

I am most grateful. Does my hon. Friend recognise that, for some small businesses, two days and t...

rose—

Order. It is quite true that the hon. Lady gets extra time for taking interventions, but of cours...

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am conscious of that and I will not take all the additional ti...

I rise to support the reasoned amendment. I consider that the appropriate course, because althoug...

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

All right. I will try not to use my full time.

The hon. Gentleman is making an interesting point, but surely he must accept that the fact that £...

I accept that that is better than nothing, but it falls far short of the Ernst and Young assessme...

As our national economy searches for growth, we look for direction. As our small businesses, our ...

Interestingly, the OECD has the UK as the second worst country out of 36 in the developed world f...

I appreciate the intervention, but I am not as clear as the hon. Gentleman is about those particu...

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Very briefly; I, like others, will not then use up more time.

Statistics are extremely interesting, but what is the connection between what the hon. Gentleman ...

Many people look at the “dismissal” part of no-fault dismissal, whereas for Government Members an...

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller), although I do not agree ...

I congratulate the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne) on a forceful defenc...

Given what the hon. Gentleman has said, would it not be more sensible for the Government, instead...

I consider the hon. Gentleman to be a friend, and our views meet on a number of issues, particula...

I agree with 99.9% of what the hon. Gentleman is saying, especially about small and medium-sized ...

I agree entirely, and I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point much more su...

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley), provided tha...

Will my hon. Friend give way?

No, I want to be very brief.

We are being offered a marginal increase in shareholder rights...

Will my hon. Friend give way?

No, I am finishing. The Bill is a rag- bag. I agree—

Order.

8.17 pm

I welcome the Bill and commend my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for his opening speech...

The hon. Gentleman and I agree on many things when it comes to promoting enterprise. Does he agre...

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s comments. We want to get the economy moving across the whole co...

One of the concerns that the Federation of Small Businesses raised about the conciliation proposa...

I know, but I think and very much hope that the FSB is wrong on this. We need to look after both ...

I want to speak about the proposed changes to employment legislation, an area in which I have man...

On that basis, how come it is a German GM factory, not a British one, that is closing?

The Minister gives one example, and we could collectively give many examples in which the opposit...

Does my hon. Friend agree that it was Beecroft who suggested that it was fine to sack someone if ...

I agree with my hon. Friend that the Beecroft proposals are appalling as they relate to the right...

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling), who chairs the all-pa...

rose—

Before I call the next speaker, I am going to drop the time limit to seven minutes. It is only fa...

Like everybody else in this Chamber, I represent a diverse community that is not just based on bi...

Does my hon. Friend share my experience of never having met an employer who believes that this Bi...

It is clear from our discussions that nobody who represents employees believes that the Bill will...

I will restrict my comments to the regulatory aspects of the Bill.

The Government were left...

As a Member who is due to give evidence to the commission on the West Lothian question later this...

rose—

A number of Members wish to contribute, so I shall lower the limit to six minutes.

9.5 pm