Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 27: 27: Clause 6, page 3, line 38, after ““authorities”” insert ““and police forces”” The noble Lord said: I shall engage in a little off-piste skiing on this amendment, but I would like to draw the Government’s attention to some important issues which I would like them to find a way to address. I am encouraged to do so because the Minister has earlier, in talking about the purposes of the Bill, talked about avoiding powers being used in a conflicting way and about consistency, and he has just told us a little bit about regulatory stability. I am afraid that I must say—and I do so with due deference—that too often the enforcement of regulation and the position of the police vis-à-vis local business and commerce can be quite finicky and difficult to deal with. It can represent a considerable regulatory burden. That is why I seek to change Clause 6(2), where it says, "““Guidance … may be given to … local authorities””," to say that guidance can be given to one or more local authorities ““and police forces””. I shall illuminate the Minister’s thinking with a couple of examples. The Register of Members’ Interests will show that I am a director of a brewery and pub operator. We have 2,500 pubs around the country. The idea that we can achieve regulatory consistency with the licensing laws is a joke. The different police forces enforce in different ways. Different approaches are taken within different towns. We have just had a case where two young women came into a pub. One, clearly above the drinking age, orders two drinks and asks her colleague to pay. The colleague pays, whereupon the woman at the front says ““I am a police officer and that is an under-age person who has just paid for the drinks””. This sort of activity is going on quite widely, and if we are going to have better regulation—this is not about encouraging binge drinking, I am all for stopping binge drinking—we have to find a way that firms, businesses and individuals who are affected by the activities of local police forces are able to find a way to talk to the Local Better Regulation Office about how their interests might be protected. I shall give three more, very quick, examples. I have an association with a chain of children’s clothing shops, one of which is in Kensington High Street. It is told not to report shoplifting because, as a friendly sergeant said, ““We don’t want to record a case because we probably can’t clear it up, and then our clear-up rate diminishes and we are not hitting targets””. If we are going to find a way to have better regulation, the shopkeeper, who has health and safety, the minimum wage and all the other things—and quite right too—is entitled to make sure that regulation of another sort that could benefit him is being fairly and proportionately applied. If one talks to smaller firms across the country, one of the things they raise is fly-tipping. They can find the person who is doing the fly-tipping, and they will be responsible under the environmental requirements of Clause 4(3)(e), but will the police enforce something when the person is found? There are businesses that face incursion by Travellers, who break down fences, enter premises and set up camps, but can they get the police to remove them? I understand that the Bill is about better regulation and local authorities, but there is a large tranche of activity where police forces are not acting in a way that in any way approaches the Hampton principles. They are looking for easy hits and fail to respond to the genuine requirements of individual firms, individuals and businesses large and small. While I do not doubt for a moment that the Minister is going to tell me that this amendment is out of order here, the Government have to think of a way whereby people can have more confidence and a more realistic expectation that the sorts of issues that I have raised—I have raised only four to try to illuminate the point I am making—can properly be addressed in the cause of better regulation. I beg to move.