Clause 65
Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [Lords]
10:00 am
Pat McFadden (Minister of State (Employment Relations and Postal Affairs), Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform; Wolverhampton South East, Labour)
My concern is with reputational fairness for the business. I do not think that saying that it is a bit of both is a bad thing. There is a perfectly fair dual purpose to publishing information. It will show those looking at the regulator how the regulator is using the new suite of powers, and it will serve the public interest to know about those who have contravened the regulations. That can be fair, provided it has reached the end of the process.
The point that my hon. Friend is making is, in a sense, a generic one. It has been raised in other situations. My Department has sometimes been asked, “Shouldn’t those accused of something be named on some list, even if it isn’t proven?” I am not sure that that is fair. Subsection (3) is intended to deal with that situation.
My hon. Friend’s final question concerns subsection (4) and the phrase,
“where the relevant authority considers that it would be inappropriate to do so”.
I should make it clear that the relevant authority and the Minister are the same thing under that provision. The relevant authority will not be the regulator. Subsection (4) will allow the Minister to exempt certain cases from the publicity requirement, and is intended to capture cases that may have data protection implications or other grounds for exemption.
I must be careful how I put that. What other grounds might there be for exemption from the requirement to publish information about enforcement action? The regulated person or business may be in a particularly sensitive area. It may be that if information about the address of the premises came into the public domain, it could be a danger to those working there. I know that we can think of examples where that might be the case. There are some among the population who object fiercely to some business activities, research activities and so on, so it is prudent to give the Minister the power to say in those circumstances, “We don’t want that information released, because we could be putting someone at risk by publishing it.”