That is the point, is it not? The beauty of the existing legislation is that it is very clear. Even a former bricklayer like me can understand it. We know that everybody is covered by it. The Government are saying, “We are the great deregulators and we want to free up the self-employed to become great entrepreneurs”, but the reality is that they are creating a huge amount of confusion and putting people at risk, which will put a greater burden on our national health service. The reality is that more and more people who are forced into bogus self-employment schemes will find themselves at much greater risk.
I mentioned in an earlier intervention the concerns and fears of an individual setting up a business for the first time about the impact of health and safety obligations. The Government had the opportunity in Committee to do something that would have genuinely benefited those considering setting up in self-employment for the first time: reviewing the plethora of licences—150-odd—that local authorities are responsible for. I gave the example of a restaurateur, who must comply with eight or nine licensing regimes. Yet the Government had no sympathy and I believe they even voted against the proposal. I actually tabled another amendment, which regrettably has not been selected, to increase the period in which a review could take place, which we initially called for in Committee.
The Government try to give the impression that they are on the side of entrepreneurs and the self-employed, but the reality is quite the opposite because they are putting people at greater risk. The race to the bottom reduces people’s terms and conditions, and this all has a negative impact on the wider economy. There are 4.2 million self-employed people in the country, but instead of its being a cause for celebration I am concerned that many of them are earning very low incomes. That has a negative impact on the wider economy, because they have less money in their pockets to make a difference. The Prime Minister constantly goes on at PMQs about the number of new jobs being created, but he is silent about the fact that many of them are part time or involve zero-hours contracts, and self-employment comes into that. Many people are forced into self-employment because they have no alternative. They are forced to accept a pittance of a wage.
We also know from recent statistics that there has been a huge increase in the number of people who cannot afford to pay their rent because they are on such low incomes and so are having to claim housing benefit.
As my hon. Friends the Members for Chesterfield and for Hayes and Harlington have made clear, the amendment is absolutely sensible. The Government have been singularly incapable of providing any legitimate justification for their proposal. They are going to create a lawyers charter. The most significant growth that will come out of this is for lawyers, because it is bound to lead to challenges through the law courts. Is that what we really want? I would suggest not. What is wrong with the existing legislation? It is straightforward and simple. We are not all lawyers like the Solicitor-General; perhaps he can understand it with his great intellect. As I said, I am just a simple bricklayer, and I can understand the current legislation, but I cannot understand what is before us today.
4.15 pm
The list is certainly not exhaustive. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington said, if we are to have a list of what is included, we also need a list of what is not included. I challenge the Minister to give us some indication of what would not be included. He would not be able to tell us, because that will be discovered only through case law. That is a very regrettable state of affairs, and it is not a direction of travel that we should be taking in this country.
Of course we want to liberate people to be able to become self-employed if that is what they want, but we must create the right environment—the right conditions—so that they can make a good, decent living out of it. This most certainly will not achieve that goal. It will confuse matters and make them worse, and it will have a very negative impact on the wider economy and on our already pressured national health service. I therefore hope that the Minister can find it within himself to acknowledge that he has made a mistake and that the Government have got this wrong. They need to listen to the sensible words of my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield and the wise and sage words of my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington.
I do not think the Government conceded anything in Committee. For all the sensible amendments that we proposed, I do not think they accepted any of them. They conceded very little, if anything at all, certainly on the days that I was there. I missed a couple of sittings at the end when I was visiting Qatar and looking at the horrendous health and safety in that country, with the 1,200 workers who have already lost their lives building the infrastructure for the World cup. That seems to be the direction of travel in which the Government want to take the United Kingdom.
In a spirit of cross-party consensus, I call on the Minister to reflect on what has been said and to make the right choice in the interests of self-employed people, health and safety, and our wider economy.