GovWire

The Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill proposes to introduce a range of measures to reduce geographic inequalities in the UK by setting in place the legislative framework to meet the Governments levelling-up ambition.

As originally submitted for RPC scrutiny, the IA was not fit for purpose because it had not assessed, in line with Better Regulation Framework requirements, all of the impacts associated with the Bill. In particular, the IA provided insufficient justification for the classification of direct and indirect impacts on businesses and did not cover all of the measures covered in the Bill. Furthermore, there were a number of weaknesses in other key areas, including the assessment of impacts on small and micro businesses.

The revised IA now includes details of all measures associated with the Bill and has improved on the key areas identified previously by the RPC as being weak.

Following the RPCs initial review, the discussion of direct and indirect impacts has now been sufficiently evidenced, and several benefits have now been correctly reclassified as indirect impacts. As a result of the amendments made in the IA, the EANDCB estimate has reduced from -225.7 million to -203.8 million (2019 prices, 2020 present value). In addition, the small and micro business assessment has also been strengthened. The IA now includes more details on the number of small and micro businesses in scope, and a new section on exemption and mitigation has been added.

There are, however, still some areas where the IA could be improved further. In particular, the IA would benefit from a more comprehensive assessment of wider impacts and the potential risks and uncertainties for the key assumptions. The IA could also be strengthened by considering a wider range of mitigation actions to prevent disproportionate impacts on small and micro businesses. Further details on the areas for improvement are set out in the opinion.

The IA explains that implementation of many of the measures in the Bill require secondary legislation and the RPC expects the Department to submit further IA(s) for EANDCB validation.

The IA and RPC opinion should both be published alongside the proposed legislation to assist parliamentary scrutiny. In this case, however, the Department has not yet published the IA despite the Bill being at committee stage in the Commons. The RPC has, therefore, decided to publish its opinion in the absence of a published IA to assist remaining parliamentary scrutiny.