Member

On Amendment 63, I begin with a point that goes to the heart of responsible policy-making and lawmaking. The Regulatory Policy Committee is the independent body tasked with scrutinising the quality of government impact assessments, and it has chosen to deliver a damning verdict on the Government’s own assessment of these proposals. The RPC gave the Government’s impact assessment on the guaranteed-hours offers a red rating under two critical categories: “Identification of options” and “Justification of the preferred way forward”. In plain terms, that committee has judged the impact assessment to be not fit for purpose. The Government have failed both to explore alternative approaches and to provide a sound evidence-based rationale for the one they have chosen.