Joint Committee On Draft De-Regulation Bill Call For Evidence

Joint Committee On Draft De-Regulation Bill Call For Evidence

Executive Summary

The new Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Draft Deregulation Bill has published its Call for Evidence.
 
The Committee, comprised of Members of the House of Commons and House of Lords, has been formed to scrutinise the Government’s Draft De-regulation Bill and make recommendations for its improvement.

The draft Bill proposes new powers for Ministers to abolish regulation "no longer of practical use" and a requirement for regulators to have regard to the impact on economic growth when proposing new regulation.

 The Committee is inviting evidence on the Bill, which is intended to reduce the burden of regulation on business, civil society and individuals.

The National Association’s Policy Committee considered the Draft De-regulation Bill under Item 7 (b) of its session on 16 July, 2013.  It considered (after officer recommendation), that the below three clauses of the draft Bill were the most relevant to local councils;

• 12 - Recorded rights of way: additional protection – surveying authorities may not in this clause - make amendments to definitive maps and statements under section 53(2)(b) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 if modification might affect the exercise of a protected right or the only reason for the change sought was that a right of way did not exist before 1 January, 1949;
• 13 - Unrecorded rights of way: protection from extinguishment – this clause seeks to insert clause Section 56A of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 to enable the Secretary of State by regulation to allow a surveying authority to designate, at any time during the period of one year beginning with the cut-off date, public rights of way in their area that were extinguished immediately after that date; and
• 34 - Exhibition of films in community premises – this clause seeks to amend the Licensing Act 2003, Schedule 1 (provision of regulated entertainment), Part 2 (exemptions) – by exempting the provision of entertainment consisting of the exhibition of a film at community premises from being defined as the provision of regulated entertainment for the purposes of this Act (if certain conditions are met).  This clause is the most incisive as far as National Association policy is concerned as it adopted a position in summer, 2005 from the Herefordshire Association asking the National Association to lobby Government to increase the number of annually permitted events in community and village halls under current licensing laws. 

•    The web-link to the main consultation document is
http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/joint-select/draft-deregulation-bill/written-evidence/submit-evidence-form/ .
 
The National Association is minded to support two of the draft Bill’s main principles - the general provision for the repeal or revocation of legislation which a Minister considers to be “no longer of practical use”; and the introduction of a duty on persons exercising certain regulatory functions to “have regard” to the desirability of “promoting economic growth”.
 
The final deadline for receipt by the Joint Committee for the Draft Deregulation Bill, of  responses to the Call For Evidence, is 16 September, 2013.  The National Association welcomes responses from local councils and County Associations to inform its own submission and asks for them to be submitted to chris.borg@nalc.gov.uk by at the latest Noon on Friday, 6 September, 2013.