Health Bill

Amendment No. 44 would require enforcement officers to communicate the consequences of providing false or misleading information when issuing fixed-penalty notices. I understand the reasoning in putting forward this amendment, but I am not sure that it is necessary to make such provision in the Bill. From the legal perspective, I am not convinced that the amendment achieves a great deal. Clause 11 clearly provides that an offence is committed if a false or misleading statement is provided to an enforcement officer. Nevertheless, enforcement officers may wish to make clear the consequences of making a false or misleading statement when serving a penalty notice. We will ask stakeholders involved in enforcement whether providing such advice is felt to be necessary. I can reassure the Committee that, if it is necessary, we will look to include advice in guidance and training that will be developed for enforcement authorities. Certainly, in consultation with the relevant bodies, enforcement officers will be offered training in the enforcement of this legislation because as the noble Earl, Lord Howe, said, this type of work is different from their other duties. In the event that an enforcement officer believes that an individual might be providing false or misleading information, for example a false name and address, paragraph 2 (e) of Schedule 2 provides that an enforcement officer can,"““require any person to give him such information . . . as he considers necessary””" to exercise his functions under the Bill. In such a situation, an enforcement officer could require sight of a form of identification when serving a fixed-penalty notice if he were concerned that misleading information might be provided. The noble Earl may say that the person might not have a form of identification, but most people turning up to an event have some means to demonstrate who they are, particularly when going into a club, and for a variety of other reasons. To some extent, we would have to see how things go, but we believe that there is provision in the Bill which makes Amendment No. 44 unnecessary. The noble Earl touched on Amendment No. 45; I note that the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, is not in his place to move it at the moment. However, in the hope of being helpful to the Committee, I shall make clear that it is the Government’s intention for local authorities to have responsibility for enforcing smoke-free legislation. In practice, it is intended that enforcement officers will be mainly local authority environmental health officers, but others such as trading standards officers may also be appropriate to act as enforcement officers. Nevertheless, it will be up to the local authority to identify and appoint the most appropriate staff to act as enforcement officers for the purposes of this legislation. The noble Earl mentioned costs. He is quite right: the regulatory impact assessment talks about figures ranging from £4.5 million to £13.3 million. I understand that that was based on figures given to us by the local authorities themselves, which explains the range. We are committed to agreeing with local authorities what funding will be needed to conduct the enforcement. That is a matter for negotiation, on which we have now embarked. We are not in any way trying to do people down in having proper funding for enforcing this legislation. Provisions relating to enforcement have been left to delegated legislation to enable flexibility to amend arrangements, if need be, without the need to amend primary legislation. That might be required if, for example, local authorities were re-organised, or responsibilities for environmental health were changed. I hasten to add that the Government do not have any plans for local re-organisation to which that relates. From time to time, re-organisation does take place. We believe that it is more appropriate for the determination of enforcement arrangements to be included in regulations, given the technical detail likely to be covered. Amendment No. 46 would require the national authorities to consult with persons considered appropriate before regulations are made. I am not sure whether, realistically, this amendment would have any effect at all, as I am certain that the appropriate national authority would always consult on such matters with persons considered appropriate before any decisions were made. Amendment No. 47, to which the noble Earl spoke, would remove subsection (4) of Clause 10. Subsection (4) has been included to enable the appropriate national authority to discharge enforcement functions under this legislation in place of an enforcement authority. While such provision is unlikely to be used, the power is provided as a fall-back, in the case that an enforcement authority, for whatever reason, is unable to discharge its enforcement duties, or where an enforcement case is particularly large and cuts across the responsibilities of a number of agencies. These powers are not new. Precedent for the inclusion of powers to enable the appropriate national authority to take on enforcement responsibilities exists in other recently enacted legislation, including the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002, the Food Safety Act 1990 and, in different fields, the Weights and Measures Act 1985, the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 and the Consumer Protection Act 1987. I hope that that reassures the noble Earl, Lord Howe, that we are not creating a new precedent; it is drawn from provisions in other legislation.