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Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

I support these amendments wholeheartedly, but in particular subsection 7 of Amendment No. 119 because the information that is being made available to the regulators is often false. They do not collect it properly. In almost every item of government legislation we could have something that means there are mitigating circumstances: the decision was based on an error of fact, was wrong in law or was unreasonable. I have always liked the phrase, ““may not unreasonably be withheld””. There are mistakes in identities—the noble Lord will forgive me, but he has been kind enough to promote me to being an earl; I wish it were so. Mistaken identity happens often. The word ““unreasonable”” should be incorporated in almost everything because the mistakes that are made by regulators and local authorities are not usually intentional, but are often based on misinformation or misunderstanding, so I support the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Goodlad and the noble Lord, Lord Razzall. It might help to correct a Bill that could possibly be unwittingly unjust.