---

Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness. I shall try to be succinct and to restrict myself to a small number of points, although she has raised a large number of points. First, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, has completely misunderstood me. That is obviously due to the boring nature of my delivery, because I have never said that Macrory should not apply or that there should not be civil penalties. The issue is the mode of doing it. The noble Baroness said that the structure of the Bill had been consulted on, but I do not think that it has. We consulted on the Hampton report and on the Macrory report. Macrory—as I think he said to a meeting at which I was not present, but it is abundantly clear from reading his report—did not set down the structure of the Bill. My complaint about the structure is that the parliamentary draftsmen have been allowed to give us every power under the sun, including the kitchen sink, and we will have to see what we will do when we have worked it out. I suggested that the citizen should be able to say, ““No, stop. I do not want to pay an administrative penalty. Take me to court and prove it against me””. Most citizens will want to compromise on an administrative penalty, which would be thoroughly sensible. But, to my astonishment, the noble Baroness has been put up to say that we cannot allow the businesses to choose. If we cannot allow the businesses to choose in this Bill, why can we allow them to choose under the Health and Social Care Bill, which is being put through by this same Government in the same months? It is suggested that I have criticised the tribunals. I have not. I am much looking forward to talking to Lord Justice Carnwath. I am sure that he will produce an excellent system of tribunals, but there are far more cases than the Government initially recognised. They thought that there were 15,000. They now acknowledge that there are 36,000, which, on the figures that I gave the Government and which they have now pretty well confirmed, deal only with the 28 regulators covered in Schedule 5. We just do not have a figure for all the other regulators. There are likely to be a large number of cases and it is not clear that the tribunal system has been geared up for that many cases. However, the Government say that 40 per cent of these cases are likely to go to appeal, whereas I think that that is far more than is likely and that many fewer will go to appeal. The bedrock here is that it is the right of a citizen in this country to have a case proved against him. It is worrying to hear the noble Baroness say that what will be available before the appellate tribunal might be comparatively limited. There are important principles in this matter and since, unfortunately, I do not think that I have gained any ground with the Government, I wish to test the opinion of the House. On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 7) shall be agreed to? Their Lordships divided: Contents, 91; Not-Contents, 185. Clause 38 [Fixed monetary penalties]: [Amendment No. 8 not moved.] Clause 41 [Discretionary requirements]: [Amendment No. 9 not moved.] Clause 53 [Appeals]: