Deregulation (Hansard, 18 May 1993)

§ 9. Mr. Pickles
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans he has for encouraging deregulation within his Department; and if he will make a statement.

§ Mr. Aitken
My Department is enthusiastically supporting my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's deregulation initiative in a number of ways.

§ Mr. Pickles
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that answer. Does he recognise that small firms competing for bids face a disproportionate burden under regulations? Will he give an undertaking that, in considering deregulation, the special needs of small firms will be borne in mind?

§ Mr. Aitken
My hon. Friend makes an entirely good and valid point. We wish to encourage small businesses to win defence contracts from the Ministry. We are simplifying our contracts procedure and the form filling that sometimes must accompany it, and I can tell new business seekers from the small business world that the small business group of the new suppliers' service exists to deal with their inquiries and to facilitate their efforts to win our contracts.

§ Mr. Cohen
What regulations will be deregulated? Will they be the low-flying regulations, the disciplinary regulations or the command structure regulations, or is this only an attack on low-paid workers such as the Ministry's cleaners and an attempt to replace guards at our defence establishments with those run by Group 4—in which case, God help our security?

§ Mr. Aitken
The hon. Gentleman's lack of enthusiasm for defence matters is such that he might be the sort of Minister who would like to deregulate our disciplinary regulations and make our armed forces undisciplined. When I referred to deregulating, I was referring to business regulations and restrictions. The Ministry is not a regulator of business; nor are we responsible for any primary or secondary legislation. We are entering into the spirit of the deregulation initiative by getting rid of a number of over-complex, over-bureaucratic systems, such as unnecessarily irksome contract procedures, and are simplifying forms and so on. We are not entering the fantasy fields that the hon. Gentleman suggested.