Mr Tim Loughton (East Worthing & Shoreham, Conservative)

I beg to move amendment No. 14, in page 7, line 15, leave out subsection (1).

Mr Roger Gale (North Thanet, Conservative)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 15, in page 7, line 19, leave out

`by officers of local weights and measures authorities.'.

No. 30, in page 7, line 21, at end add—

`( ) The Secretary of State shall provide resources to cover additional training and operational requirements that local weights and measures authorities may require for the enforcement of this Part.'.

Mr Tim Loughton (East Worthing & Shoreham, Conservative)

The Minister's final comment on the previous amendment reminded me of the old saying by a Member of this House that now is not the time for cliches, but I feel the hand of history on my shoulder.

Clause 9 deals with the enforcement of the penalties that the Government seek to impose on innocent house sellers, who are to join the ranks of people who pursue country sports as criminals. The amendments would decriminalise the faults specified by the clause and take the weights and measures trading standards officers out of the equation. Amendment No. 30 represents a fall-back position. If the Government insist on making such behaviour a criminal offence, with the full force of the trading standards officers to enforce their diktats, we want at least to ensure that those officers are suitably resourced to carry out their duties.

Conservative Members are surprised that the Government are relying on weights and measures officers to carry out their bidding—one would have thought that they already have their work cut out in pursuing sellers of bananas in imperial measures. The metric martyr, Steven Thorburn, will no doubt be the first of many honest tradespeople in this country whom the Government intend to fine and give a criminal record.

Mr Roger Gale (North Thanet, Conservative)

Order. I have a vivid imagination, but, try as I might, I cannot link metric bananas with the sale of housing.

Mr Tim Loughton (East Worthing & Shoreham, Conservative)

The point is not as distant as you might have been led to believe, Mr. Gale. It is essential to the clause that the enforcement procedure is carried out by weights and measures staff. Those same staff are, as we speak, having their resources pressed to the limit by the pursuit of wrongdoers in the shape of purveyors of bananas and assorted loose fruit in imperial, rather than metric, measurements.

Mr Chris Mullin (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions; Sunderland South, Labour)

The regulation that the officers are enforcing, on whatever grounds, was introduced by the Government whom he supported.

Mr Tim Loughton (East Worthing & Shoreham, Conservative)

Yes, indeed. However, by pursuing such people the Government are failing to use common sense.

Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)

Two wrongs do not make a right.

Mr Tim Loughton (East Worthing & Shoreham, Conservative)

As my hon. Friend says, two wrongs do not make a right.

Mr Chris Mullin (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions; Sunderland South, Labour)

The hon. Gentleman should not pay any attention to his hon. Friend.

Mr Roger Gale (North Thanet, Conservative)

Order.

Mr Tim Loughton (East Worthing & Shoreham, Conservative)

Let me try another angle. The weights and measures staff who are hiding themselves in piles of bananas in greengrocers up and down the land are also having to deal with the problem of cowboy builders, which the Minister's scheme singularly, and abysmally, fails to address. Despite warnings from Conservative Members, building practitioners and those who look after the victims of cowboy builders—including an effective operation in my constituency called First Checkpoint, of which I am a trustee—the Minister went ahead with a scheme for a quality register mark for builders, but in the entire country two firms only have registered. Meanwhile, cowboy builders are let loose to carry out their cowboy activities. Again, they will have to be checked by overworked, under-resourced members of weights and measures departments.

A solicitor in my constituency commented on weights and measures staff enforcing the extra legislation:

They are grossly overworked and unable to fulfil their existing commitments satisfactorily.

Indeed, it is worth reminding ourselves for what weights and measures officers are already responsible: weights and measures, fair trading, product safety, food standards, consumer credit, business advice, animal health and welfare, licensing, underage sales of alcohol, consumer advice, consumer education and road traffic functions. Policing the sale of 1.5 million British properties each year, which is a large commitment, is to be added to those weighty responsibilities.

There are inadequacies and variations in the weights and measures system, as last year's Audit Commission briefing on the best value agenda for trading standards services pointed out:

In some places, high-risk premises have a less than 1 in 10 chance of being visited each year.

Given that background, the Opposition must ask, regardless of how proper, watertight and effective the Government think their legislative recommendations, whether the weights and measures system can cope with such an additional burden on its time and resources.

As laid out in the legislation, trading standards officers will have the discretion to decide action to be taken when a suspected offence is reported and investigated. They can give advice, issue a warning, offer a formal caution, serve a fixed-penalty notice or, ultimately, commence a prosecution in the magistrates court. Much additional training will be required to help trading standards officers decide which course of action to take, because they will have great discretion in interpreting how the breach of the regulations should be tackled. For example, they will have to work out who constitutes someone acting as an estate agent beyond the conventional estate agent working in an office. That relates to our earlier discussion about the man operating through the man in the pub.

There is also a problem with keeping up with the estate agency business; because estate agents do not have to be licensed, anybody can set up as one. There is a proper trade body called the National Association of Estate Agents which has a code of practice. It has 10,000 members, which is the majority, but not all, of the industry. Of course, they are wholly voluntary members, so adhere to the code on a voluntary basis. Only one third of estate agent firms in this country support the voluntary ombudsman for estate agents scheme, which has been in operation since 1990.

My point is that many estate agents fall outside the trade-body net, and even more fall outside the ombudsman net. The estate agents most likely—it is not inevitable—to transgress the terms of the regulations will surely be those who are not members of official trade bodies or who are not prepared to sign up to ombudsman schemes. It will be much more difficult for hard-pressed trading standards officers to keep tabs on such people, particularly if they do not have obvious offices in the high street. Interestingly, the ombudsman for estate agents specifically is not able to deal with disputes over surveys and formal valuation, so that is a weakness in the system as it stands.

Let us take the example of the trading standards office in my constituency—one of three offices covering the county of West Sussex. West Sussex has eight constituencies and a population of just under 750,000. For the entire county—and I am told that we are relatively well provided for—there are 65 staff. Around half of them are involved in enforcement. Seven give advice, and they are the ones who tend to receive complaints at the sharp end and judge whether there is a case to hand over to enforcement officers or the legal department. West Sussex trading standards receive 16,000 complaints and inquiries a year which, as I said, tend to be filtered through the advice team.

The first problem concerns a general awareness that trading standards will have a role in the proposed provisions. Will members of the public automatically ring up trading standards if they are not satisfied with the seller's packs or the way in which a sale has taken place? They are not the obvious first port of call if something has gone wrong with a house sale. As I said earlier, West Sussex has good provision relative to other authorities. Many authorities have no advice department. That is particularly so in London weights and measures offices, and may be in the Minister's constituency in east London. Therefore, any complaints are referred purely on an inspection basis, often with spot checks from enforcement officers. Many of those departments are completely overwhelmed already.

It is interesting to look at the example of the working of the Property Misdescriptions Act 1991, which was mentioned this morning. As we heard earlier, the Act was introduced after lengthy consideration on rectifying glaring gaps in the previous Labour Government's legislation in 1979 and, before that, in 1968. From talking to trading standards officers, it seems that it has proved fiendishly difficult to secure prosecutions under the Act. Up to 1996, when a five-year review was held—and bearing in mind that there are currently 1.5 million property transactions a year—there had been only 60 convictions. As it is difficult to get convictions under the Act, there is little case law. Typically, cases hinge on disputes over garden size and the nature of leasehold and freehold, for example.

It is almost impossible to secure a conviction for failure to reveal by an estate agent. Failure, either by the seller or the estate agent, to reveal certain defects which then become apparent after the sale has gone through is not unusual, but prosecuting it is highly difficult. Therefore, the experience of trading standards officers in pursuing house sale legislation in the form that has been on the statute book for almost 10 years is not good. Any trading standards officer will say that, despite their current resources, they are not able in practice properly to bring to bear the full requirements of the legislation.

There is a very interesting case from 1997 that went to the Court of Appeal: McCullagh v. Lane Fox and Partners. Lane Fox was instructed to sell a five-bedroom house in 0.48 of an acre of land for £850,000, but owing to a mistake by the agent in reading the measurements, the plot was recorded as 0.92 of an acre—almost double its actual size. The particulars included a standard disclaimer. Will the Minister to take up the point of whether standard disclaimers on estate agents seller's packs will have any bearing in the matter? Although the judge ruled that Lane Fox and Partners owed a duty of care to Mr. or Mrs. McCullagh in respect of the negligent mis-statement, he said that there had been no financial loss and therefore dismissed the action. That is just one example of how difficult it has proved for trading standards officers to bring convictions under the 1991 Act.

Opposition Members do not believe that, despite the exemptions on which the Government have sought to reassure us at various stages, not providing all the necessary component parts of a seller's pack, for whatever reason, should be a criminal offence. Earlier legislation deals with fraud , but the worst cases could be pursued under the Bill. There may be a case for fines, the threat of fines or penalties, but to make the offence criminal is to go over the top.

We believe that the provision is unworkable. The practice of using trading standards officers to enforce previous legislation connected with house sales has clearly proved unworkable. At present, trading standards offices are overworked. They are being asked to take on increasing amounts of work to impose the Government's will and are given precious few additional resources for that increased work. They are also having to undergo a harsh best value audit. Therefore, in the best interests of the Bill, the omission should not be deemed a criminal offence and weights and measures officers should not be required to enforce it. Related legislation has not worked over the past 10 years, so why should the Bill?

Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)

My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham gave an excellent exposition on amendments Nos. 14 and 15, but rather glossed over amendment No. 30, although the compliance costs of the Bill are highly germane to the clause. Will the Minister tell the Committee exactly how many extra weights and measures officers he expects will be needed to police the Bill and who will be responsible for training them in their new duties? They will have no experience in property matters. Presumably, therefore, their existing work will have to be covered while they are being trained.

How much will the extra officers cost and will local authorities be fully reimbursed for that extra cost? Might we find, as on so many occasions, that local authorities are given an extra statutory burden but are not fully recompensed by central Government for it? If so, the extra burden will fall on council tax payers, many of whom are likely to face a settlement this year that is way above inflation and who will be howling from the rooftops at the Government's treatment of them even before additional costs are imposed by the Bill. So that local council tax payers may have an idea of what the Bill will impose on them, the Minister should give the answers to my questions.

Mr Chris Mullin (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions; Sunderland South, Labour)

As the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham says, amendments Nos. 14 and 15 would remove the references in the clause to local weights and measures authorities, but would leave intact the associated provisions relating to fixed penalties. The amendments would remove any practical means of enforcing the seller's pack obligations. We have not chosen to impose a criminal sanction lightly. We believe that that is the only truly effective way in which to ensure that everyone complies with the new requirement. The vast majority of people abide by the law, but there will always be some who seek to take advantage if given half a chance. That is why effective sanctions are necessary.

Under our proposals, local weights and measures officers will be responsible for enforcing the seller's pack requirements. The hon. Member for Cotswold said that they have no experience of property matters, but that is nonsense. They are ideally placed to carry out that function. As has been noted, they are already responsible for enforcing the Property Misdescriptions Act 1991 and parts of the Estate Agents Act 1979. Enforcing the seller's pack obligations is in many respects complementary to the activities of trading standards officers under those Acts. Our proposals will therefore provide an experienced and cost-effective means of enforcement. I shall discuss in a moment some of the details to which reference was made.

Some Opposition members of the Committee have tried to paint a lurid picture of sellers being dragged through the courts by jackbooted trading standards officers on the basis of a casual conversation in a public house, in which they happened to mention that their house was up for sale. To be fair, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham has not drawn that comparison on this occasion, but on two others he has used the word ``Gestapo''. Trading standards officers are public servants who do a very good job, so perhaps the hon. Gentleman might like to take this opportunity to put on record an apology, or at least to make it clear that he was talking about someone else. I can think of no other candidates, so it seemed to me that he was indeed referring to trading standards officers.

Mr Tim Loughton (East Worthing & Shoreham, Conservative)

I am delighted to put it on the record that we do not intend to insult or besmirch the names of any of the hard-working, hard-pressed and under-appreciated members of trading standards offices throughout the country. In the heat of Second Reading, perhaps the word ``Gestapo'' was taken out of context. I might say instead that the tactics that we will debate in respect of schedule 1—the powers that will be given to trading standards officers—at the very least have something of the night about them.

Mr Chris Mullin (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions; Sunderland South, Labour)

I am not sure to what extent that constitutes an apology. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman's remarks were made in the heat of the moment. I accept that explanation in relation to Second Reading, but his repeating them in Committee rather suggests that they were premeditated. If a Labour Member were to make such a comment, mass hysteria would be organised by the Opposition. As on many past occasions, the Prime Minister would be asked to dissociate himself from the Member concerned. We have been through this many times before—it is a little game called ``denounce'', which the Opposition when in government used to play often and with considerable success.

Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)

The Minister is playing a very mischievous game on my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham. He used the term because Conservative Members wholly deprecate the giving of yet another group of criminal sanctions to civil servants. Criminal sanctions are unnecessary, because the civil procedure of fixed penalty could perfectly well be adapted for the Bill.

Mr Chris Mullin (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions; Sunderland South, Labour)

It is possible to make that point without calling trading standards officers gestapo, as the hon. Member for Cotswold—although not his colleague, unfortunately—has demonstrated. I am sure that you do not want me to labour the point, Mr. Gale. I thought that I should give the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham the opportunity to apologise, but it is clear that he does not want to.

The truth is less sensational. In most cases, no offence will have been committed, as there will have been no marketing to the public or a section of the public. However, even if a technical offence is committed, enforcement officers will have a range of options to go through before anyone is taken to court. In the vast majority of cases, in which someone has made an honest mistake in marketing a home without a seller's pack for example, trading standards officers will be able to provide advice or a warning, which will be the end of the matter.

The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham said that there had been only 60 prosecutions under the Property Misdescriptions Act 1991. Incidentally, hon. Members may be interested to know that there are criminal sanctions attached to the legislation, and I think that it was introduced by one of the hon. Gentleman's former colleagues. The reason for the small number of prosecutions may be that trading standards officers have employed the large range of other sanctions, ranging from advice to slightly more direct measures, and it has not been necessary to go round prosecuting lots of people. Trading standards officers are sensible people, and they do not prosecute lightly. They may have managed to enforce the Act without difficulty.

Mr Tim Loughton (East Worthing & Shoreham, Conservative)

To use the phrase used by the Minister for Housing and Planning, if the Under-Secretary gets out into the real world and talks to trading standards officers, he will find that they are frustrated, although not because they have mitigated criminal proceedings to the lesser course of action that they are allowed to take. They are frustrated about the impossibility of making convictions stick so that cases never get near a court in the first place. I was making the point that that is the real weakness with the Act.

Mr Chris Mullin (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions; Sunderland South, Labour)

Of course one needs evidence to make a prosecution stick, but in the overwhelming majority of cases of infringements that I anticipate under the Bill, prosecution will not be necessary. In cases in which the offence is considered to be a little more serious, trading standards officers may issue a formal caution. The next option is a fixed penalty. We have it in mind that that penalty will be about £150 to £200, in line with the general level of fines commonly imposed by magistrates courts for offences under the 1991 Act. That form of sanction may be considered if someone continues to market a property without a seller's pack, despite receiving a formal caution. Payment of a fixed penalty does not mean that someone will have a criminal record, which is a rather important point.

The ultimate sanction is a summons to a magistrates court. A court will hear a case after service of a fixed penalty notice only if a person chooses not to pay the fixed penalty. That may happen if the person believes that they are not guilty of any offence. It is an important provision, which means that everyone has an effective opportunity to challenge the service of the notice. In other cases, proceedings may be started without the service of a fixed penalty notice. That option may be considered if an estate agent has consistently flouted the law by continuing to market properties without seller's packs, despite repeated warnings and fixed penalties.

We want to avoid unnecessary court proceedings and avoid unsuspecting home owners being caught up in sanctions. The Bill gives local weights and measures authorities considerable leeway to exercise discretion in the use of the sanctions available, and I have every confidence that they will do so, especially where private citizens are concerned.

We have consulted the Local Authority Co-ordinating Body on Food and Trading Standards, and the only concern relates to our decision to impose the seller's pack duty, backed up by criminal sanctions, on home owners who market their own homes. As the vast majority of homes are marketed through estate agents, we considered restricting the seller's pack requirement to people marketing homes in the course of a business. However, there are fundamental drawbacks with that option. Sellers seeking to avoid the cost of an up-front seller's pack would be tempted to market their homes themselves, rather than through an agent, to avoid the seller's pack requirement. That would lead to the two-track system and the chain problems mentioned earlier, and would undermine the Bill's objectives. People are naturally worried that imposing on private individuals criminal sanctions that are enforced by local trading standards officers will have a detrimental impact on public perception of those authorities and hamper their efforts to ensure the adequate protection of consumer interests. That is not our intention, as my Department has made clear to LACOTS.

In enforcing the seller's pack duty, trading standards officers will have extensive discretion within the principles of good enforcement detailed in the enforcement concordat. We shall consult LACOTS and others on the best means of ensuring that trading standards officers can provide effective help and advice to consumers and avoid unnecessary sanctions. We envisage the trading standards officer's role as protecting the interests of consumers, by which I mean responsible home buyers and sellers.

Amendment No. 30 would require the Secretary of State to provide the resources that local weights and measures authorities need to carry out their enforcement duties—additional resources to cover the additional training and other operational requirements imposed by the Bill. The cost implications of enforcing the duties will be considered, and the additional funds that are considered necessary will be taken into account in the appropriate local government financial settlement. My hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning has already been in touch with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and the Regions about the matter.

Bids for additional resources will be treated in the usual way, but to return to the point made by the hon. Member for Cotswold, preliminary signs from LACOTS suggest that such bids are unlikely to be significant, given the complementary nature of the work and trading standards officers' existing duties under the Property Misdescriptions Act 1991. When the matter arose a few days ago, the hon. Member for Eastbourne described our figure of £5,000 as the average cost per authority—what we believe is likely to be the increase in cost to each authority on average—as ``amazing''. The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster), who is not now present, also queried it.

I emphasise that the estimate was not ours but was provided by LACOTS, which has since confirmed it. It is totally bogus to suggest that the proposals will cost too much money, that no one will be able to afford to implement the proposals and that overworked trading standards officers will simply not have the time. The estimate was made by LACOTS, which says that the proposals are liable to cost an average of £5,000 per authority. That body represents the interests of trading standards officers, and is responsible for, among other matters, consideration of issues arising in connection with consumer protection matters. If, however, hon. Members have a more reliable source of information than LACOTS, perhaps they could share it with me and, indeed, LACOTS, as I expect that it would be interested.

Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)

The Under-Secretary is once again being rather mischievous and cursory in his remarks. Does he agree with the LACOTS estimates? Does he believe that they are too large or too small? Will he give the Committee a cast-iron guarantee that, whatever costs local authorities incur—they will incur different costs, as some will have more difficult cases with which to deal than others—those costs will be met by the Government in full? Otherwise, local authority treasurers will be scratching their heads and worrying about how much provision to make to offset the cost of the Bill.

Mr Chris Mullin (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions; Sunderland South, Labour)

I shall not give guarantees, but I hope that any sensible person will realise that £5,000, in the overall context of a trading standards officer's budget, is a rather small sum. That is not my estimate; I am not qualified to make one, but I believe that LACOTS is. If the hon. Gentleman knows of a more reliable source of information, we shall take it into account. As I said, my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning has been in touch with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and the Regions, and if a bid needs to be made for increased resources, it will be dealt with in the usual way.

Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)

That is simply not good enough. The Government should have produced realistic cost estimates. Do they agree with the LACOTS estimate? Is it too high or too low? As they are imposing obligations on local authorities, they have a duty to tell them what costs they expect the Bill to impose.

Mr Chris Mullin (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions; Sunderland South, Labour)

I have absolutely no reason to doubt the LACOTS estimate. However, if, by some chance, it was 100 per cent. wrong, and the figure was £10,000 not £5,000, that would not devastate local government finance.

We are serious about enforcing the Bill. If compliance is optional or extremely difficult to enforce, not many seller's packs will be used. There is no middle way—one is either in favour of enforcement or against it, and we have sound reasons for favouring it.

The hon. Gentleman's argument is undermined by the fact that the previous Government introduced several pieces of property legislation—including the Property Misdescriptions Act 1991 and the Estate Agents Act 1979—which contain precisely the same sanctions enforced by precisely the same people.

Mr Tim Loughton (East Worthing & Shoreham, Conservative)

It is a shame that the Minister dismisses so complacently the points that we have made, which are perfectly genuine and were made to us by the people who will have to enforce the regulations—some of which are highly unenforceable—regardless of whether they have the resources to do so. We did not invent these objections to undermine the Bill; they are based on the comments of council employees in our constituencies who will have to enforce it.

I have provided perfectly feasible examples of problems arising from existing legislation in terms of property descriptions that fail to have the effect that the 1991 Act was fashioned to achieve. The Minister acknowledged that only 60 prosecutions were made in its first five years, but he does not care about that. On top of the failure properly to execute the terms of 1991 Act, the entire private residential house selling industry is to fall into the lap of trading standards officers.

The Bill does not merely give staff a little more work to do or a few more areas to regulate. In my county, under the scheme to be introduced in two years' time, 65 staff will be responsible for 1.5 million properties a year. The Minister has not said whether, if more staff are required, additional resources will be provided to enable them properly and adequately, within the letter and spirit of the Bill, to carry out the additional job that has been given to them.

The Minister was woefully complacent in responding to our concerns. Moreover, he completely failed to deal with the point about standard disclaimers on literature that may be included in seller's packs.

Mr Chris Mullin (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions; Sunderland South, Labour)

I am advised that the inspector is liable, regardless of any disclaimer that he places in his literature.

As for the hon. Gentleman's accusation about my attitude to the figures produced by the West Sussex trading standards officers, it is not true that I did not care about them. Indeed, I acknowledged the figures in my remarks, but interpreted them less extravagantly than he does.

Mr Tim Loughton (East Worthing & Shoreham, Conservative)

The Minister danced around the gestapo issue, which he regularly regurgitates to deflect attention from the serious shortfalls in the Bill. If he thinks that an apology is necessary, I unreservedly apologise for any misrepresentation that he sought to make of my earlier comments. However, my postbag and telephone have been bereft of communications from trading standards officers. Many trading standards officers are more sensible than the Minister thinks, because they know not to take those comments personally or professionally. If anyone is acting like the gestapo—whatever that may mean—it is the Government, who give trading standards officers their orders. They are only obeying orders that the Minister gives them through the legislation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold put his finger on the key issue, namely, that the existing civil penalty procedure can deal with the problems that the Government are trying to address. The Minister is right to say that this argument goes to the heart of the legislation. In many cases, he could achieve more on a voluntary basis. We certainly do not need the full criminal law coming down on people who are going about the legitimate business of trying to sell their house. On that basis, I urge my hon. Friends to support the amendments, which go to the core of whether the problem should be treated as a criminal matter, to a vote.

Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)

My hon. Friend has heard the Minister's replies to my questions about the costs that will be imposed on local authorities and how many extra trading standards officers will be needed to police the Bill. We have an estimate from a body that the Government do not control, so we do not know whether they have any idea what the costs are. Furthermore, we have had no information as to how many extra officers will be required to police the Bill. Given those circumstances, the Government are not living up to the standards expected by the House. They have introduced a Bill, but they are unable to answer basic questions about it—all that we get is snide comments from the Minister.

Mr Tim Loughton (East Worthing & Shoreham, Conservative)

I fear that my hon. Friend is right. I fear that the standards that the House expects from the Government have been on a slippery slope since 1 May 1997. The complacency with which the Minister treated these important points, which will affect people in the Government's employ who will have to enforce these unenforceable provisions, is scandalous. On that basis, we shall press the amendments to a vote.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 3, Noes 9.