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Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 79: 79: Clause 62, page 28, line 41, leave out paragraph (a) and insert— ““(a) a Minister of the Crown and the Welsh Ministers must publish guidance about the use of the sanction,”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, at this late hour I will try to be as quick as I can. The Minister could of course help me in that by immediately intervening as soon as I start speaking to give me what I want. The amendments ensure that national guidance can be issued about the appropriate use of civil sanctions by the Ministers with responsibility for the legislation under which the penalties can be used. I apologise; I meant to say that I am speaking to Amendments Nos. 79 to 92. We on these Benches still feel that a requirement for every local authority and every national regulator to have to issue its own guidance about its use of civil sanctions for the same pieces of legislation is unnecessary and could promote inconsistency. The Bill requires every national regulator and every local authority to issue guidance, which is not only time-consuming and hideously bureaucratic but is a system that could also lead to inconsistencies. The amendments that we have proposed would ensure that national guidance could be issued about the appropriate use of civil sanctions by the Ministers with responsibility for the legislation under which the penalties can be used. That would mean there would be a single set of national guidance on how civil sanctions should be used for a specific piece of legislation. As your Lordships will of course be aware, this is an amendment that my noble friends have previously laid and discussed in the Moses Room. I am insisting on this group of amendments again because we feel that our justifications were not fully understood before by the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Vadera, when she said: "““Where there is no national regulator, such as on environmental health or trading standards, we would expect the LBRO to take the lead in preparing guidance””.—[Official Report, 6/2/08; col. GC 591.]" I hope that next time the civil servants brief the Minister better with what ““environmental health”” and ““trading standards”” services do and what their full remit encompasses. Sometimes, some parts of environmental health legislation and some parts of trading standards legislation are led by a ““national regulator””; for example, the Food Standards Agency or the Office of Fair Trading. This raft of amendments has been suggested by LACORS, the Local Authority Coordinators of Regulatory Services, which is an instrument of local government that has been around for 30 years and hence has huge authority in the regulating business. The Minister would be wise to listen to its proposals. The amendments deem it apt and appropriate for councils to produce an individual enforcement policy setting out the general circumstances in which they will take enforcement action. The majority of councils already have an enforcement policy; indeed, regulators should publish an enforcement policy under the regulator’s compliance code that comes into force in April 2008. There is always a government department or agency responsible for all environmental health and trading standards legislation, and sometimes a national regulator as well. We feel that the appropriate Minister should have responsibility for issuing guidance. It is a good idea for councils to have regard to national guidance issued by the Minister. It is appropriate for every council to issue its own guidance on how it specifically intends to use the civil sanctions in relation to every piece of legislation. I cannot believe that a national multisite business will want to read several hundred individual sets of guidance, for each piece of legislation. Surely the Minister cannot find fault with amendments that would reduce costs for local authorities, assist regulated persons and entities, particularly multisite businesses, and help ensure consistency in approach—which is, after all, a stated aim of the Bill.