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Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [Lords]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt), who throughout today’s debate set out reasoned arguments that I was very surprised the Government did not accept. I am also delighted to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Prisk), who has led so well for Her Majesty’s Opposition. I notice that he entered the realm of fictitious characters, but I think he chose the wrong one for the Minister. A much more appropriate character would be Jim Hacker, whom I will mention later. I must declare my interest in the Register of Members’ Interests and the fact that I am a director of a small family company and a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. The Bill is not a minor measure; it is a major shift to centralisation by the Government. As my hon. Friend mentioned, 27 regulators are affected by the Bill, excluding local authorities which are all affected. It would be helpful to read out the list of regulators. They are the British Hallmarking Council, the Charity Commission for England and Wales—one can imagine the potential impact on local authorities—the Coal Authority, the Competition Commission, the Countryside Council for Wales, the Environment Agency, the Financial Services Authority and the Food Standards Agency, which raises another issue. If one of the regulators has a prime authority in one particular area, that could be very damaging. The list continues: the Football Licensing Authority, the Forestry Commissioners, the Gambling Commission, the Gangmasters Licensing Authority and the Health and Safety Executive, which is an extraordinary regulator to be included in the list. I say that because the Government, through the local business regulatory office, will be controlling what the regulator does, as we will see later. That will be extremely damaging to the Health and Safety Executive, whose independence I would have thought ought to be most important. The list continues: the Hearing Aid Council, the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England, or English Heritage for short, the Housing Corporation, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the Human Tissue Authority, the Information Commissioner, local fisheries committees, Natural England, the Office of Communications, the Office of Fair Trading, the Office of Rail Regulation, the Pensions Regulator, the Security Industry Authority and the Statistics Board. That is an extraordinary list, but why pick those and not other regulators? The Government did not comment on that at all in the debate on Second Reading, to which I both listened and contributed. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to be a member of the Public Bill Committee, which I regret, as there was competition to serve on it. Third Reading is therefore my only opportunity to comment on the Bill as a Back Bencher.