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Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [Lords]

As I was listening to the previous speeches, I could not help thinking that this is perhaps the first time I have debated something other than post offices with the Minister. Therefore, this must be a moment of light relief from his usual diet of at least six post office Adjournment debates a week. As the Minister said in his opening remarks, this Bill was born out of the recommendations of two reviews. The Hampton review focused on the need for regulation to be risk-based and proportionate and looked at the scope for reducing regulatory burdens on business, and it identified the need for better co-ordination between regulators and for less duplication. Of the two reviews, the Macrory review, if fully implemented, will probably have the greater impact on the practice of regulators. It recognised that much current enforcement is not effective in changing the behaviour of businesses and recommended a shift to the use of civil sanctions, including fixed penalty notices, as well as many more innovative ideas such as restorative justice and new criminal sanctions. Inasmuch as the Bill recommends greater co- ordination between regulators and the use of civil sanctions as a quicker means, in certain circumstances, of changing the behaviour of businesses than lengthy processes through courts, I and my party will support it. We support the premise of the Bill; we are signed up to the intention behind it, and we will support it on Second Reading. However, we still have doubts about whether all the detail in the Bill will result in the changes of behaviour that the Minister hopes for, whether some of the sanctions proposed will increase or decrease the regulatory burdens on business, and whether there is adequate understanding of the role of local authorities in the prescriptions for the regulator. We will want to explore such matters in Committee—some for clarification alone, and some for amendment. I recognise, however, that the Bill did change during its passage through the other place, which is welcome. The requirement for criminal levels of proof before making civil sanctions is a good step, as is the decision to set out in the Bill a requirement for an appeals procedure, although its full implications need to be further explored in Committee. The agreement that the Minister should satisfy himself that a regulator is essentially Hampton-compliant before it can receive any further penalty powers is also broadly to be welcomed, although I would like to explore in Committee how that Hampton-compliance is to be assessed. Most welcome, however, was the acceptance of a need for a review of LBRO's operation after three years. I hope that this change signals the Government's conversion to the principle of sunset clauses. For some time the Liberal Democrats have argued that one of the most effective ways of ensuring that we do not increase the regulatory burden on business without clear benefits would be to have a sunset clause on new regulations, whereby each new regulation came back to the House to be approved and we decided whether the regulation needed to be in place now or whether its time had passed. The key principle of good legislation is that it should be easy to enact. Those being regulated need to understand why they are being implored to behave in one way or another, and they need easily to be able to find out whether they are operating within the law.