Health Bill

I am most grateful to the Minister for his reply. I am sorry that he thinks my Amendment No. 44 does not achieve a great deal. Nevertheless, I am glad that he recognises that there is a substantive point here and that there could be a case for including suitable advice in the guidance that is eventually promulgated. That would certainly fit the bill as far as I am concerned. I was also glad to hear what the Minister said about training, because it is an important aspect of proper enforcement. On identification and whether people will run rings around the legislation by producing false details, I hope that the Minister is correct. Time will tell on that one. We know from what the Local Government Association has said that this is not a familiar area for its members’ employees. Even when environmental health officers become more familiar with issuing these notices, however, I wonder how much effort and how many resources a local authority will devote to chasing up non-payers. My suspicion is that, in practice, they will not be able to afford to. Beyond a certain point, fines will be deemed uncollectible and written off. It concerns me that, if we are not careful, we may be setting up a penalty system that is likely to fall rapidly into disrepute. I note what the Minister said about my Amendment No. 47, on subsection (4). If it is to be a fall-back power, I have no problem with that in principle. It is not so much a question of whether there is legal precedent for a fall-back power—I am certain there is—rather, it is whether such a fall-back power is necessary. We know that the Health and Safety Executive is to be given enforcement functions under the regulations. If a local authority, let us suppose, has consistently failed to perform its enforcement functions, one must ask why the Health and Safety Executive should not be brought in to do the enforcement. Why do the Government or the National Assembly have to assume enforcement powers directly? I am still not convinced that this provision is necessary. If the Minister can now furnish me with further and better particulars, it would be helpful, but I shall not, of course, press him on that point.