Clause 72
Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [Lords]
1:15 pm
Pat McFadden (Minister of State (Employment Relations and Postal Affairs), Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform; Wolverhampton South East, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman is right to suggest that regulatory budgets are much discussed and have significant potential in this field. They will focus people’s minds not only on what is coming in, but on what could be taken out. I think that that would help in a regulatory budget environment, because there would be a duty on regulators constantly to have an eye on the stock, as it were, as well as the flow. I do not see a contradiction between the two elements; in fact, I think that they go well together.
The power is an important addition to the suite of provisions that are designed to embed this agenda within the group of regulators operating in this country. I stress that it is not new or unheard of; it is similar to the duty in the Communications Act 2003 that requires Ofcom to keep its functions under review, with a view to ensuring that unnecessary burdens are not imposed or maintained.
The clause also provides an avenue for implementing the recommendation by the House of Lords Select Committee on Regulators in its recent report, “UK Economic Regulators”, that
“economic regulators be statutorily required to facilitate the competitiveness of UK firms by...removing regulatory burdens from firms wherever possible.”
The clause is in line with that recommendation.