Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Bill [HL]

This takes us into the area of certification and regulation, and I am grateful to have the opportunity to discuss this in Committee. We have referred to ““enforcement agents”” because we are trying to develop a new approach to debt and the collection of debt and to bring under one set of rules, guidelines and regulations those affected, not least to protect the vulnerable by making it clear what people can and cannot do. We use ““enforcement agents”” to cover bailiffs, tax collectors, civilian enforcement agents and so on. A lot of the people involved are not technically called bailiffs any more, and never were. It is as good a name as any—people felt it was an appropriate name for the work they do. Three or four key issues have been raised under the amendments. If we are to have a certification process, as proposed in Amendment No. 98 and others, why are Crown servants not included within that? County court bailiffs and civilian enforcement officers are subject to Civil Service recruitment procedures; the Civil Service Code governs their behaviour. There are strict controls over their conduct and discipline under Civil Service disciplinary procedures, and complaints against them can be made to the court manager. They are also subject to continued training and development provided by the department and subject to compulsory criminal records checks. For those people, there is already a huge amount going on. I will leave for a moment the subject of moving away from certification to regulation. We feel we have a very good process in place for those people. I do not want to spend £22 million—which it would cost to develop a certification process—that I do not have available and on which I have many demands, because we think that those people are already covered. Yesterday I met representatives from the Enforcement Services Association and the Association of Civil Enforcement Agents. They were incredibly generous with their time and we had a good discussion. They met the noble Lord as well and found that meeting extremely valuable, and I think he agrees that there is a very good debate to be had with them. I am keen that we think about the industry in an overarching way while recognising that there are different people working in different places. I do not have a problem with the principle of one industry and one approach. The problem at the moment is that we have one system which is well covered and another area where there are real issues, particularly in terms of complaints, that we need to address. The industry is mindful of these concerns and is keen to address them. Leaving aside regulation for a minute, I hope noble Lords will accept that as the reason why I have not moved to try to get certification in both areas. I make no apology for the fact that I cannot spend the money in that way. Turning to Amendment No. 103, I do not want to make failure to comply with regulations a criminal offence. As I understand it, applications are made to the county court on standard court forms and the content of those forms is sworn on oath. Therefore the examination of applicants is carried out, under oath, by a judge. We think that a contravention of that procedure amounts to contempt of court, which is probably the right sanction for dealing with contravention rather than making it a criminal offence. I shall be happy to discuss that in more detail if noble Lords wish.