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Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

My Lords, I believe that the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, and I have largely the same intentions in our amendments. We are both trying to facilitate discussions between enforcing authorities and primary authorities before an inspection takes place; to give primary authorities the opportunity to share with enforcing authorities their knowledge and expertise; to give primary authorities the opportunity to inform the approach taken by an enforcing authority to an inspection; and to allow primary authorities to demonstrate, where appropriate, that an inspection is just unnecessary. We do not think that primary authorities should be required to consent to inspections proposed by an enforcing authority, because inspections can be triggered by a wide range of factors, including a complaint that must be followed up and recurring management failings within an outlet that must be addressed. We do not think that an inspection plan can take into account all these factors. If an enforcing authority has to seek the consent of the relevant primary authority before undertaking an inspection, the result will be a deluge of notifications to the primary authority, bogging down the primary authority’s system as a whole and preventing quick inspections when these are needed. To avoid this outcome, primary authorities would naturally be likely never, or very rarely, to contest proposed inspections. Primary authorities would also draw up high-level inspection plans hedged with so many caveats as to render them meaningless. We do not think that disengagement between a primary authority and an enforcing authority would benefit anyone, particularly not businesses. The noble Lord asked why there are different provisions for inspection and enforcement. Inspection is a different animal from enforcement. It imposes far fewer burdens on the business than an enforcement action does and we think that it would be disproportionate to require anything more than informing the primary authority. We do not think that consent is necessary. We fear that, although these are well intentioned amendments, their tendency would be to undermine the expected benefits of inspection plans. For that reason, I urge the noble Lord to withdraw them.