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Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

My Lords, I do not want to make any criticisms. On Amendment No. 44, I just want to say a word of gratitude to the Minister. There are two lessons to be learnt from this amendment, which the Government, at my suggestion, have been good enough to accept. If one knows the criteria in advance, whereby some particular function will be used, one does not need delegated legislation. We have far too much of it. Just look how easy it is to put it in the Bill. I am very grateful to the noble Lord for ensuring that this will be in the Bill and that we do not have to endure even more subordinate legislation. My other point relates to what the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said. Paragraph (b) in the amendment is quite important. I do not mind whether it is ““wholly disproportionate”” or just plain ““disproportionate””. If it does not matter, there is no point in involving massive bureaucracy. There is a great advantage in the noble Lord bringing forward an amendment that ensures that there will not be an imposition of bureaucracy on local authorities for quite minor matters, so I want to say thank you.