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Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am glad to see Amendments Nos. 4 and 5 and grateful to the Minister for moving the amendment and for his remarks. He was sympathetic to amendments along these lines both in Committee and Report. I was not the first to put forward this point; the noble Lord, Lord Haskins, made it at Second Reading. He said, rightly, that this aspect of the LBRO’s work will be one of its most useful functions as time goes on. I also welcome the new clause in Amendment No. 6, as far as it goes. However, I have two questions with regard to that amendment. The review, as the noble Lord, Lord Bach, said, must take place after a period of three years. Is that when it is expected that the LBRO will have achieved its objectives? The Minister will recall that at Second Reading the noble Lord, Lord Jones, who was then leading on the Bill, said that it would be wound up when it had achieved its objectives and implied that that would be in the not too distant future. Is three years the Government’s estimate for when that may happen? I was surprised by the remark at the time and have referred to it a number of times in the intervening period in our debates, without ever really getting a satisfactory answer. Will the review include the functions under Part 2 as well as under Part 1? I have two reasons for a slight doubt on this point, which is why I would like the Minister to clear it up. First, subsection (3)(b) of the new clause refers specifically to the earlier parts of the Bill—to Part 1, effectively. Secondly, this is being inserted at the end of Part 1 and not Part 2. That made me wonder whether Part 2 was included. The Minister will know that I am rather cynical about the desirability of some aspects of Part 2. I do not want to develop the general argument again at Third Reading, but I am cynical about making compulsory what now takes place voluntarily by way of co-ordination, and about taking the powers away from local authorities and giving them to a quango. Will the functions of the LBRO under Part 2 also be encompassed in the review?