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Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

I am grateful to the Minister for the consideration that he has given to the amendment. I hope that he is right that primary authorities will adopt a selective mailing policy, as he described it—that is, they will mail only in cases where it is needed. I have an awful fear that, over time, in order to avoid risk, they will mail everything because that will be an easier way of covering all the points. Therefore, receiving local authorities will be faced with a deluge of information coming from primary authorities around the country seeking to be risk-averse. I wish that I could be as confident as he is that they will do it on a lean and mean basis. As for the Minister's second point about the ““on request”” nature of my amendment, I accept that, but you can bet your bottom dollar that the business in the subordinate local authority, faced with the fact that it is not getting the guidance from the primary authority through to it, will go to the relevant local authority and say, ““Listen to me. There is this stuff from the primary authority. I want to hear about it””. I would prefer to see a more causative, interactive process, rather than what I fear will become a blanket flood of irrelevant and duplicative information flowing between primary authorities and local authorities across the country. I hope that before we reach the next stage, the Minister can give some further thought to the practical operation of that. In the mean time, I am grateful to the Minister for the thought that he has given to the amendment and I beg leave to withdraw it. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.