Clause 28
Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [Lords]
4:00 pm
Mark Prisk (Shadow Minister, Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform; Hertford and Stortford, Conservative)
I will discuss amendment No. 31 in a moment, as it is distinct. The first three amendments seek to return greater flexibility of power to primary authorities—something that was in the Government’s first draft of the Bill. There are three amendments to subsection (2) on page 13, and rather than deal with them individually, to aid members of the Committee I will read how the new subsection would read once amended, so that the picture can be seen in its entirety:
“If a primary authority determines within the relevant period that the proposed enforcement action is inappropriate and that compliance could be secured by alternative enforcement action, it may within that period direct the enforcing authority not to take the originally proposed action and to take the alternative enforcement action mentioned above.”
That would be the net effect of the three amendments, although I stress that they are probing amendments and seek to understand the subsection.
As currently drafted, the clause is much narrower than in the original Bill as presented to the other place. As such, it limits the primary authority to intervening by preventing one form of action by an enforcing authority. The amendments, which have the support of the British Retail Consortium, seek to re-establish a wider remit so that where better alternative actions exist, the primary authority can direct the enforcing authority to implement them. That would enable the primary authority to act more positively, and not be negative in its activities.
I fully accept that the wording that I used is not perfect—that is my error and not that of the Clerks. However, I wish to consider the practical issues and perhaps the Minister could focus particularly on why the Government decided to change the original wording. Secondly, does the Minister recognise that more flexible powers would better enable primary authorities to fulfil their role? That is the heart of the amendments.
Amendment No. 31 relates to subsection (9) on page 14. It defines the relevant period within which a primary authority must decide whether enforcement actions can or cannot proceed. Subsection (9)(a) specifies that that might be
“the period of five working days”,
which for most companies is a normal working week. It means that during that time the business is in limbo about whether it will face a sanction, fine or whatever. In business, time is money and that is particularly the case for small businesses who may be affected by such legislation. The matter should be hanging over them for as short a period as is reasonably possible.
Subsection (9)(a) is good, because five working days is perfectly reasonable and sensible. My problem is that paragraph (b) then states that “relevant period” can mean
“such longer period beginning with that day as LBRO may direct.”
Why does the Minister believe that the LBRO should need any longer than five working days? That would cause difficulties for smaller businesses. Rather than the major organisations with large legal departments, this concerns the smallest family businesses that have only two or three people who are just trying to get on with their job. They have a personal sanction and are waiting to know what will happen. Is not five days enough? I look forward to the Minister’s response.