Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for tabling this amendment, although she will not be surprised that the Government do not agree with her. Perhaps I may explain why. As she acknowledged, the directors who have been appointed so far bring strong local government experience to the table. I was asked by my noble friend Lord Borrie to say a bit more about them. They cover—the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, I think, will be particularly delighted about this—business representation and Welsh representation in the figure of one member; namely, the chairman of the board, who apparently meets those qualifications admirably. The other eight, plus a chief executive who is also a member of the board—I shall not go through this in detail—include a member of the Security Industry Authority; a senior partner at Global Consulting; someone with Scottish Executive health department experience; someone who was an important member of the Department for Transport; the chief executive of the London Borough of Enfield; a commissioner with the Independent Police Complaints Commission; and a justice of the peace, who was formerly head of legal services for Sainsbury’s. The chairman, to whom I have already referred, is a company director and was until three years ago director-general of the Audit Commission in Wales. Moreover, the chief executive was, as has been said, a distinguished head of trading standards and community safety at Staffordshire County Council. So the board has a broad scope at the moment. Of the nine directors, six have experience of local government, while two have recent or current experience of local government. I remind the Committee that the directors were appointed in full compliance with the recommendation of the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments. In practice, that means that the current board has been appointed using a process with the agreed higher standards. It is our intention that this would allow the current directors to transfer to the new body, which the Bill will form, without a further appointment process. The Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments has specifically confirmed that that is an appropriate step. It is not the Government’s intention that the LBRO board be representative of all the groups with an interest in its work, nor do I believe that members of the board should represent particular interest groups. The board should be made up of those people most capable of ensuring that it achieves its objective while taking into account the opinions and expertise of all its key stakeholders. For those reasons, we disagree with the noble Baroness in suggesting that a specific percentage of the board should come from local government. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell, raises an important and interesting point, to which I think we will return in Committee. I shall try to start the ball rolling on this issue. We do not agree that the LBRO is a kind of centralising force. It is about consistency where appropriate. I emphasise to the Committee that it will remain for local authorities to decide whether and when they should take regulatory action, and what that action should be, subject to this sensible requirement for some consistency. Macrory was not really about bigger penalties; the report was about targeted, flexible and appropriate enforcement, with lighter enforcement and penalties where appropriate. It was not about having people convicted of offences where that was completely inappropriate. I know that we will have interesting debates around Part 3 and Macrory. I say that just as a starter in reply to the noble and learned Lord and I look forward to the continued debate on that point. As far as reassurances going ahead are concerned—the noble Baroness was concerned about that—the problem of a representative board is that, frankly, the LBRO has too many stakeholder groups. They involve business, small business, consumers, professional organisations such as the Trading Standards Institute and devolved Administrations. There are other stakeholders, too, for want of a better word. Where do we stop with appointments to the board? We firmly believe that the LBRO cannot function without a lot of input from the sector. That will be as important with future appointments as with the current board. I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.