My Lords, in speaking to Amendment 33Q and the others in the group, I think that this is probably again at the low end of the scale. I am again grasping for some sort of assurance from the Minister about where most of this bites. This set of amendments is about the relationship between the work that is going to be undertaken in relation to business impact activity and voluntary or community bodies. The question also arises: what are business activities? In the good old days, voluntary or community bodies and charities did not do business. That was fairly straightforward. They were there for social and other provisions.
However, as we get to a more complex and richer—and I admit in some ways better—set of arrangements under which the work of the state is delivered, whether through public bodies directly or through those commissioned to do it, then obviously we have a much more complicated set of bodies and organisations involved. As is listed in the Bill, they range from charities through to community interest companies, trade unions, voluntary bodies and various other groups. They are all involved in delivering public value of some kind, but not all of them are going to be classified as business activities. The choice of the definition, which takes a rather theoretical point of view that a body is not undertaking business activity if it is in some way controlled by a public body, seems to me very tight.
The purpose of this group of amendments is to try to flesh this out and to get the Minister in her response to explain why she has approached the matter in this way, to understand the limitations on that and to give us a better understanding of how small businesses can operate within this environment. I am sure that all Members of the Committee and the wider community are aware of charities and others who have taken
corporate forms that would make them very similar to small businesses. They may, indeed, be small businesses in terms of the definition. They may not be profit seeking, but that in itself is not now a consideration. They may not be profit distributing, but they may still have activities. While it might be comfortable to think of trade unions as being truly business activities—because they probably are a contribution to the national business activity—it does not necessarily imply that they are easy to understand in the same scope as, say, a small business trying to undertake work regulated in the energy area that is suffering from decisions that are going to cause it difficulty in trying to formulate a business plan to operate its activities and make a profit, which is what it will be there to do. So I am confused. I would be grateful, when the Minister responds to these amendments, if she could set out in a bit more detail where this bites.
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The purpose of the amendments relates to the fact that we are thinking about an independent verification body, which will be set up as a separate quango to operate and relate to this whole area of work. It will be a duty of the Secretary of State. It is obviously important to have a body that will verify the estimates of economic impact on all measures in scope and the classification of the regulatory provisions as qualifying regulatory provisions, which are all specified in the Bill. In some senses this is the codification and placing on statute of the existing Regulatory Policy Committee. I understand that, but we are short of detail, unless it is in regulations that I have not yet seen. Will these appointments be gazetted in the normal way, through the Civil Service Commission, or through some other body? Are they public appointments in that sense? Will they be paid? If so, what salary are we talking about? How will the chair be chosen? Will that be from within the body or by the Secretary of State? I would again be grateful to have more focus on this.
We are still talking about small businesses, but across a very broad canvas. We are not necessarily talking about those defined as small businesses, because we are talking about smaller businesses, which, in some cases, seem to be quite big businesses. Indeed, they may even be international businesses. What expertise will be required in appointing and staffing the group? Might they be people who have served on the RPC or who are likely to be part of it? I obviously do not want names, but it would be helpful to have some sense of people’s backgrounds.
Three things seem still to be elusive. Where do we find the best definition of what constitutes “business activities” for the bodies concerned? Where does the Bill relate to the activities that they are doing? To limit people simply based on ownership structure seems to be a rather uncertain leg on which one would build a set of regulations. How will the necessary expertise and knowledge of the quango be properly found and how will it be assessed and organised through the systems that will be set up? I beg to move.