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Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [Lords]

It is beginning to sound like I could have done with being at yesterday's sitting of the Regulatory Reform Committee. I certainly endorse the idea that Britain is a leading force in that agenda throughout the world. As we know, success in today's economy is increasingly driven by better informed customers, empowered employees and enlightened companies that value their reputation across the world. To continue to create jobs and wealth for our country, UK businesses must be able to compete in that environment. One of the other features that the Hampton report highlighted was businesses' frequent complaint of being undercut by rogue traders who flout regulatory rules. As a result, the Government asked Professor Richard Macrory to review the regulators' enforcement regimes. Professor Macrory found that most regulators were over-reliant on the single weapon of criminal prosecution, which he found was a potentially disproportionate response to cases where there is no real wilfulness or intent on behalf of the business concerned and, paradoxically, led to a compliance deficit, whereby breaches of regulation go unpunished because a regulator lacks alternative methods of enforcement. To address that deficit, part 3 will introduce new civil sanctions the better to target rogue traders and deal more appropriately with well-meaning businesses that find that they have contravened regulations in one form or another. The Bill enables Ministers by order to select options from a range of new civil sanctions. They include: discretionary requirements to allow the regulator to require the business to take steps to put right a situation that has followed from a breach of regulation; and monetary penalties, so that regulators can impose financial sanctions, if appropriate, at various levels.