Clause 54 - Site waste management plans
Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Bill
3:00 pm
Mr David Ruffley (Assistant Chief Whip, Whips; Bury St Edmunds, Conservative)
I have one question about red tape, about which I hope all hon. Members on either side of the party divide are concerned. I am mindful of the fact that one would not normally want too much detail about the length and type of regulations that will dictate how site waste management plans should be produced. I do not expect the issue to be dealt with in the Bill, but it would nevertheless be useful if the Minister could share some of his thinking about paragraphs 171 and 172 of the explanatory notes.
Small businesses play a large role in the vibrancy of wealth creation, certainly in my constituency. People running small businesses—and, incidentally, there are a lot of building and contracting small businesses in my area—consistently tell me that the amount of time that they spend on paperwork and form-filling that they consider unnecessary is time not spent on creating jobs, employing people and growing their business.
A phrase in paragraph 172 of the explanatory notes really does require explanation by way of an example. It states that the regulations that will arise from the clause
''may be restricted to projects over a specified value''.
That is music to my ears, because it prefigures some caveat or exemption for small businesses. Will the Minister suggest the specified value below which the regulations would not apply?
The regulations seem rather detailed, because they may specify when the plans must be prepared, the contents of such plans, the enforcement regulations, the offences and penalties that may apply and the possibility for discharge of liability for an offence by payment of a fixed penalty. Alarm bells ring when one sees a description of what may be included in a site management plan, because of the tendency of officials at local and national level to gold-plate regulations.
We should have a better understanding as to whether small businesses will be protected and what specified value officials have in mind. They must have something in mind, otherwise they would not have used the phrase ''over a specified value'' in the explanatory notes. Will the Minister assure me that the reference will, in due course, protect small businesses, and if so, what size of small business?
As the departmental Minister, will he also assure us that he will do what he can to ensure that the regulations, which will bring into life site waste management plans, will not be another example of useless red tape and will be only as long as is absolutely necessary? They should not be so long as to incommode small business men and women who want nothing more than to run and expand their businesses in Britain and employ more people?