Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 22A: 22A: Clause 5, page 3, line 33, after ““out”” insert ““by sufficient numbers of trained and qualified professionals”” The noble Baroness said: This amendment deals with consultation with experienced professionals. If the Bill is to realise its stated aim of regulating better, it must register the need for local authorities to delegate their regulatory activities to trained and qualified professionals. Such competent authorities will have adequate numbers of staff to deal with the workload and, more importantly, staff will have specialist knowledge of the given regulatory field, thus enabling the correct and proper implementation of a regulation. I believe that the regulatory system would not only work much more smoothly and more efficiently if such subsidiary agencies were utilised but that would be less of a burden for local authorities to bear. We know that at the moment under this Government six new regulations are coming into effect every day. Even the large and prosperous local authorities will have difficulty finding the resources to manage these ever-increasing commitments without some external help. If an authority is over-stretched it will undoubtedly make mistakes—or misregulate—and therefore invariably disadvantage businesses and consumers alike. I ask the noble Lord why local authorities should penalise themselves and try to be jacks of all trades when there are many masters of one, like the Trading Standards Institute and the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health at hand to do the job with expertise. The Bill needs to encourage an effective and efficient use of resources. I beg to move.