Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

It might be appropriate for me to say at this stage that a government amendment tries to answer this point and the point made by both the noble Baroness and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. I shall answer the noble Baroness’s amendment by speaking to my Amendment No. 16. Then, of course, other Lords will no doubt join in and, if necessary, I will come back, as we are in Committee. The amendment and its associated Amendment No. 62 would implement the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee on Clause 4 directly. I hope that, in the light of the explanation that I am about to give on the approach taken in our Amendment No. 16, the noble Baroness will eventually feel able to withdraw her amendment. The Bill does not list the many relevant regulations that have been made under the European Communities Act 1972 but instead, in Clause 4, gives a list of those categories of regulation that will be considered to be in scope. The committee questioned the treatment of these directions in the Bill and recommended that specific ECA regulations should be listed individually, either in the Bill or by secondary legislation. Listing all the regulations that exist, whether in the Bill or by statutory instrument, would frankly be impractical. Regulations under the ECA 1972 are made frequently and any list would quickly be out of date; we would have to lay an order practically every day. Regulations under the ECA—particularly on agriculture, food safety, consumer protection and environmental health—are made in large numbers: 3,000 statutory instruments between January and October 2007. They generally, but not always, list the subject in the heading. Our approach in the Bill makes it clear which regulations are in scope. In the majority of cases, it will be clear whether particular ECA regulations fall within the category headings in Clause 4(3), as they generally include the relevant subject heading—animal health, consumer protection and so on—leaving no room for doubt. However, cases of doubt may arise and the committee questioned the appropriateness of the provision in Clause 4(7) that allows the Secretary of State to specify by direction whether specific regulations fall within one of these headings. It will be important to maintain the flexibility of the approach to listing the orders that we have taken in the Bill, but we accept that the process for clarifying the position regarding particular regulations should be subject to parliamentary oversight through the negative resolution procedure. That is what Amendment No. 16, which I will move in due course, seeks to do.