In moving Amendment 33G, I will also speak to Amendments 33K, 33N, 33S and 33T.
While we are very supportive of this measure, we have an underlying concern about how it is drafted and how it relates to the central driving and important common objective of supporting small businesses. Our contention about the drafting of some of the Bill is that it does not appear to be sufficiently designed to deal with the particular and unique contours of the very many different businesses that comprise the category of small business. Our amendment seeks to try to probe the Government to be more forthcoming about what they are trying to achieve in the clauses. In the current drafting, “business” has a wide definition.
The Bill proposes that a Minister of the Crown can appoint a reviewer in respect of certain regulatory functions. This reviewer must release a report, including an assessment of the extent to which the relevant regulator’s procedures, particularly handling and resolving complaints and appeals made by businesses to the regulator, are accessible and fair to businesses. Does this mean all businesses? As this is the small business Bill, is that rather inappropriate?
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Our Amendment 33G limits the application of this to small and micro-businesses as a means of probing the Government about the wording they have used. The Secretary of State has a duty to publish a business impact target and must, in particular, have regard to the need to minimise any disproportionate impact of regulation on activities carried out by “smaller scale businesses”. Again, in 33N we are probing the use of what we see as vague terminology.
With regard to Amendments 33S and 33T, Clause 25 proposes the creation of an independent body to verify assessments and reports on a range of matters,
from listing and capturing regulatory provisions to providing assessments and economic impacts on the business activities of each of the qualifying regulatory provisions—these include, in the terms, those carried out by “smaller scale businesses”. I would be grateful if the Minister would outline in more detail how this body will operate and how they see its size, scale, governance, recruitment, both lay and professional, budget and the like. Most importantly, it does not seem clear whether it is to protect small businesses from harm, if you like, caused wittingly or unwittingly by Government and their agencies or whether it is to promote the interests of small businesses. If it is the latter, then I am sure the Minister will carefully consider our amendments. If it is not the latter, we would be grateful for more details about how it works and fulfils both tasks concurrently and in relation to all businesses. I beg to move.