Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

I used the term ““jaw-jaw”” followed by ““war-war””. We have had 54 minutes of fairly heavy artillery exchange on my rather more narrow amendment. I am grateful to the Minister for his response to my amendment. I have some sympathy with the belief of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, that direction about guidance might be a contradiction in terms. My noble friend Lord Eccles referred to alcohol. As I tried to make clear in one of our debates on Monday, much alcohol regulation comes from the police, because they have a major input into the matter, but they are quite outwith the whole of this legislation anyway, so a lacuna exists. I was grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, for her support for my rather modest change. We come back always, as has the Minister at least twice today, to my amendment being refused on the grounds that general duties will oblige the LBRO to do it—therefore, judicial review. Having to keep going for judicial review is hardly the light regulatory touch that we are seeking. People simply will not do it—they will just accept the heavy-handed nature of what is being proposed. When Ministers say words like, ““We need distinctive sectoral solutions””, I begin to think, ““Hello, this is something special here””. There is a new formulation of words to justify something special. The Minister went on to say that the LBRO exists ““to improve co-ordination”” in the context of enforcement, but co-ordination is hardly enforcement. I therefore have some sympathy with the views expressed. The left jab is: ““Don’t worry about this because we can go to judicial review””; the right cross is: ““Well, the clause is needed, but it won’t be used, so you needn’t worry about; it is just there as a backstop. Don’t worry about it””. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, began by saying that my amendment was wrong because it would add words to the Bill. However, the other amendment in the group would cut out the whole clause, which would reduce the Bill quite a lot. He must decide whether he wants a longer or a shorter Bill; he cannot have it both ways. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 7, as amended, agreed to. Clause 8 agreed to. Clause 9 [Advice to Ministers of the Crown]: