Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

The first three amendments in the group, Amendments Nos. 13, 14 and 15, require that any orders in respect of LBRO scope must address equally authorities within a category in Clause 3(1) and do not allow differential provision to be made in respect of authorities in England and Wales within the same order. The fourth amendment requires that the guidance given to more than one local authority is given to all local authorities within the same category in Clause 3(1). For example, guidance given to one county council in England would need to be given to all county councils. Our view is that the first three amendments are not necessary, although we are very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for having spoken to the Bill team about them. The second part of the group—Amendment No. 28—would significantly hamper LBRO’s ability to respond appropriately to issues that may affect only smaller groups of local authorities. Dealing with Amendments Nos. 13 and 14 and 15 first, the relevant subsection simply allows for orders under Clause 4 to make different provision for local authorities in Wales and those in England. These orders can amend the scope of Part 1 of the Bill by allowing enactments to be added or removed from Schedule 3. That reflects the devolution settlement and the fact that Welsh Ministers may take a different view on the extension of LBRO’s work into the new areas. The orders may specify enactments but may not pick and choose particular authorities to which they should apply. On Amendment No. 28, Clause 6 specifies that LBRO may issue guidance to one or more local authorities, guidance to which they will, in the words of the clause, have to have regard. This ability to specify groups of authorities gives the organisation the flexibility to respond to particular regional or sectoral issues without the need for all local authorities—frankly the guidance will be irrelevant for many as they will already be following best practice and implementing the better regulation agenda—having to access it, study it, review it and then look at their procedures against it and possibly, we believe, reinvent the wheel unnecessarily. We believe that to accept Amendment No. 28 would cause considerable unnecessary bureaucracy for those local authorities which, frankly, are not concerned. That is our argument against Amendment No. 28. The noble Baroness asked about the expression, "““different provision for different purposes””." That will allow the same order to be used to add an enactment to Schedule 3 and perhaps to remove an enactment from Schedule 3, which will avoid the necessity for separate orders for each separate purpose.