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Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 64: 64: Clause 41, page 18, line 17, at end insert ““subject to a maximum amount to be laid down in the order”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, Amendment No. 64 seeks to bring the penalties in the discretionary regime into line with all other penalty provisions. While I am grateful to the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Bach, for his response to my letter of 3 March and to the Government for their amendment in this group, it does not go far enough because—and the noble Baroness may put me right on this—if an offence is triable summarily only, it is unlikely to involve a large fine. We are concerned with a situation where a regulator can levy an unlimited fine. It would be inequitable if a regulator which was—as we have repeatedly said—policeman, judge, jury and even initial appeal court had the capacity to set the maximum level of fines. Even the Office of Fair Trading, I believe, can set the level in a competition case at only 10 per cent of turnover. In general the courts have to set penalties in accordance with the terms laid down by Parliament, so they are not unfettered. A business cannot have confidence in a system where the enforcer has the ultimate power to fine that business to the extent that it is put out of business. None of the mitigating factors in Section 45 of the guide to the Bill, to which the Minister kindly drew my attention in his helpful letter, dealt with that point at all. The amendment does not seek to reduce the level of fines or to make them ineffective. It restores to Parliament the right to determine the maximum level. I beg to move.