Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

I begin with Amendment No. 21, which would add further criteria to the LBRO’s objective. Of course, the statutory regulators’ compliance code was recently issued under the 2006 Act. The scope of the code coincides closely with that of Parts 1 and 2 of the Bill and the LBRO will naturally take a strong interest in the performance of local authorities in delivering their duties under the code. However, it is unnecessary to include provision in the Bill requiring the LBRO to secure that local authorities act in accordance with the code. Local authorities are already under a statutory duty to have regard to the code under the 2006 Act. The inclusion of a provision to this effect in the Bill would not add anything and might create duplication and confusion where none exists. That is our simple argument against Amendment No. 21 of the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley. On the interesting amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and supported by my noble friend Lord Whitty, he is right: the Government will not accept it. We are more on the side of my noble friend Lord Borrie and the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. It would of course remove the five principles of better regulation from the Clause 5 objectives, and its duty not to impose unnecessary burdens which stipulates that action should be targeted only at cases where action is needed. I go back to the Better Regulation Task Force publication that attempted to describe the principles. It described the attributes of ““targeting”” as follows: first, "““Regulation should be focused on the problem and minimise side effects””;" and secondly, "““Guidance and support should be adapted to the needs of different groups””." We argue that these should remain. They are surely important aspects of any regulator’s work and are critical to the future success of our local authority regulatory services. Indeed, we—the consumers as well as the Government—certainly expect the local authorities and the LBRO alike to live up to them. They add something and should remain.