Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

I, too, am sympathetic to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who mentioned more than once the need for people with real experience of local government. She did not say it, but I think that she would agree with me that that experience should be of both officials and elected members—she is nodding her head to that. I know that she will have looked at the current list of members. It is of some significance that the chairman is a former chief executive of a local authority and the chief executive is a former trading standards chief from Staffordshire. They are very experienced in local government. There are other people, but I know only their names so I am not sure what their provenance is—perhaps the Minister will enlighten us. Given the significance of this Act, as it will be, in relation to local government, I find it difficult to imagine that the Minister’s choice will not inevitably include people who have experience of local government. However, like the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, I feel that other people who are regulated—businessmen, commercial people and people from businesses of all kinds—probably ought to be represented. In addition and—if I may be forgiven for saying so—perhaps even more important are people who can be said to represent the public, in whose interest the regulatory scheme is meant to be. Those who are being regulated may be represented, but it is important that people representing the public in general should also be on the LBRO. The wording of the amendment is surely much too prescriptive and restrictive in its approach. It is perhaps difficult to follow the sense of ““recent””, ““direct”” and ““significant””; lawyers such as the noble Baroness and I could argue for a long time over whether anybody came within those interesting categories. That emphasises that the wording is too restrictive. There must be an element of trust in those who make the choices. It is inconceivable that local government, both elected and official members, would not be well represented not just now but into the indefinite future.