The HSE does not regulate training for mountain guides. As with any risk assessment, the responsibility for risk assessment, given that there is a
health and safety duty, lies with the individual. That is the basis on which the voluntary organisations across the world and in this country that oversee health and safety standards operate. The duty to need to have that risk assessment, and that health and safety duty, is just as applicable for the self-employed as it is for those employing others, so there is no difference in that example.
Let me cite another example of how good regulation works. The Minister said that there were hundreds of pieces of European legislation that should be removed, but he could cite none of them. In our business we worked all over Europe. We had to drive lorries across Europe before good regulation came in. If we did a job in Hungary, we had to drive through France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria and Hungary. There was different regulation for lorries and heavy goods vehicles in each of those countries at that time, and some of the differences were huge. For example, we could not drive on certain roads in Austria. There were different speeds and different specs covering what kind of vehicle was allowed. In terms of free trade, that was a lot of regulation in many countries, and I would suggest that there is now sensible regulation.
Virtually all the regulation emanating from Europe is to do with the single market. The figure that I have read is 90%, but the Minister without Portfolio is a greater expert on this than me, so I am sure that he can confirm that. A single market requires regulations so that products can be sold on an equal basis, and they are counter to import controls. Import controls and regulation do not go together; they are polar opposites. If the Conservative party is saying—it would be useful to have this clarification—that it intends to remove a lot of European legislation on the single market, which import controls would it bring back in? Many economists and others would say that import controls are a cost on business, just as civil litigation costs, as the mining industry found, are a cost on business. Good regulation, especially on health and safety, protects the position of the self-employed and the employer. It is not a burden on them, but a protection to them, as well as the worker concerned.
There is some good stuff in the Bill. The provisions on rights of way may well speed up a long drawn out process and ensure that they are brought in properly, appropriately and speedily. That may well be a very good thing, but it would have been useful also to have dealt with regulation on health and safety in graveyards. They are the perfect example: there was no regulation, and 3 million gravestones, due to what many people described as health and safety, were staked. There was no regulation for that; it was precisely the absence of regulation that led to 3 million gravestones being staked. The House may recall that I am a qualified topple tester in graveyard health and safety. What happened was due to the same problem that the mining industry faced: insurance risk. Insurers demanded action, but there was no coherent regulation that said, “Here is what the health and safety standard should be.” Faced with pressure from insurers, people did their own thing—they made it up as they went along—but that is precisely what the Bill proposes should happen in many areas. That is the principle behind what Ministers are proposing, but the Bill will shift the burden on to insurance companies and the courts, and that is not protection for the employer.