I was on the Joint—or pre-legislative scrutiny—Committee, and it was quite evident that there has been a lack of consultation with the people who will be involved in the Bill’s multitude of changes to regulations.
The Committee wondered whether there would be much opposition to the Bill as a whole and whether it would go through Parliament without any difficulties. When we look at the variety and the wide range of what the clauses are about, we can see that the Bill may contain problems. It moves from health and safety to driving instructors, and from sellers of knitting yarn—nearly every speaker has mentioned them—to child trust fund transfers. It is a mishmash of clauses about regulations, but the reality is that each one is important to somebody: each of these pieces of legislation is there for some reason.
The Minister for Government Policy made light of the Bill, which I am not sure is right, because it embodies plenty of important issues. The Bill is a package of measures, so for it to get the consent of the House, there need to be big changes. He mentioned Charlie Chaplin and children’s liqueur chocolates, for example, but we have concerns about safety and health, and others that I will come on to. I have grave concerns about clause 1 on “Health and safety at work: general duty of self-employed persons”, and clause 2 on the “Removal of employment tribunals’ power to make wider recommendations”, as well as clauses 61 to 64 on the “Exercise of regulatory functions”.
Clause 1 is a particular concern, because it serves no purpose other than to confuse. The hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) said quite the opposite, but we are entitled to take different views. That is the sort of thing that the Bill will invoke. The clause will take those self-employed who pose no risk to others out of the scope of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 by restricting its coverage to a self-employed person
“who conducts an undertaking of a prescribed description”.
At this point, we are not even sure what the prescribed descriptions will be. They will be determined by the Secretary of State in regulations. The clause is therefore problematic because we are not sure what the regulations will say or mean.