Clause 47
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)
I have a significant degree of sympathy with the points that have been made. The hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford said earlier in our proceedings that time is money, and he is right about that. Time is money for businesses and there should not be undue delay in responding to a request for a completion certificate to be issued. We are talking about a situation in which a person on whom a stop notice has been served may apply for a completion certificate and the regulator must decide whether to issue one within 14 days. The clause requires the regulator to issue a completion certificate once they are satisfied that the business has taken the steps specified in the stop notice. That allows the business to carry on its activity as before, with the problem having been rectified. I would expect that to happen as soon as is practical for the regulator. It is important that the Committee understands that 14 days is a maximum. The clause says “within 14 days”, so 14 days will not be the norm.
The procedure in clause 47(2)(e) allows a business to request a certificate from a regulator confirming its compliance. It is a safeguard intended to ensure the ongoing monitoring of the operation of the stop notice. The amendments suggest either a seven-day limit, or the insertion of extra words to ensure that 14 days is seen as a maximum. Although I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point—he is right to say that time is money—we believe that on some occasions it could cause difficulties. A seven-day limit might not always provide the regulator with sufficient time to assess fully whether a business has complied with the notice.
I will continue with the example that I used in relation to clause 46. A business might, for one reason or another, have been releasing some kind of toxic substance into the land. It could then have had a stop notice imposed on it for the leaking pipe that was emitting the waste, and the regulator might need to test whether the toxins had returned to an acceptable level, below which there was no danger to public health. In such a case, the regulator might have to wait for test results to be returned from a lab before it could confidently say that the business was complying. It might also have to contact a third party that might be involved, and ensure that that third party did not continue to suffer the harm that the original instance had caused to it.
I do not believe that such situations should be allowed to carry on for ever. There has to be a limit, which is why there is a limit in the Bill. A maximum limit of 14 days strikes the right balance between providing a safeguard for business, where time is money, and allowing regulators sufficient time to assess whether the business has complied.
Amendment No. 51 accepts the 14-day limit but seeks to add extra words. I have sympathy with that, but I do not feel that those extra words are needed to stress that 14 days is a maximum. The clause says “within 14 days”. Perhaps I can offer additional comfort to the hon. Member for Solihull, as I am happy to confirm that we will amend the guide to the Bill so that it states explicitly that 14 days is a maximum period, and that in practice we expect certificates to be issued as soon as possible within that.