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Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

My Lords, I support Amendment No. 5. The principles of better regulation—proportionality, accountability, consistency and transparency—are well targeted in terms of broad policy development. I apologise for not being here for the Committee stage of the Bill when I might have understood this better, but as I understand it, it proposes that they should apply at the level of the individual enforcement officer. I declare an interest as a board member of the Food Standards Agency and deputy chair of the Meat Hygiene Service. In both organisations, the Bill would seriously hamper how our regulations are enforced. Regulators could not enforce against one individual or business to make an example but would have to enforce against every recalcitrant individual business. That is obviously impractical and would not help us to move towards better regulation. We are less fussed about the code but would be very concerned if we lost the capacity for modifications to be laid before Parliament, as might well be suggested in the noble Baroness’s later amendments. We support Amendment No. 5.