Clause 46
Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [Lords]
9:00 am
Pat McFadden (Minister of State (Employment Relations and Postal Affairs), Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform; Wolverhampton South East, Labour)
In some ways, the hon. Lady has answered her own question. As she rightly pointed out, subsection (4)(b) states that there is a case when
“the regulator reasonably believes that the activity as carried on by that person is causing, or presents a significant risk of causing, serious harm”.
The provision is onerous in some ways, but we are talking about serious and significant harm. The hon. Lady asked for an example. Hazardous material or toxic substances could be leaking on to land or into the environment, and of course that is serious. A stop notice being issued in those circumstances could mean that the business closes down completely until the problem is sorted out. If someone is wielding a power that can cause a business to close down, it is right that the threshold at which that happens should be high. That is why, in some ways, the threshold is higher for stop notices than for some other penalties under the Bill.
Stop notices will not be an everyday occurrence when a breach might have happened. I use the word subjectively—the breach could be minor, or it could be fixed with restorative action by the person or business concerned. There could be breaches of regulations that are not in themselves a danger to human health or the environment, so there could be another sanction in such circumstances. However, given the seriousness—I intend no pun—of stop notices, the use of the words “significant” and “serious” probably set the bar at the right level.