Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

I want to ask the Minister a question on this because I have just become aware of the guide to which the noble Lord, Lord Cope, referred. I wonder whether there is not, on page 15— "““Current National priorities for local authority enforcement””—" a fairly serious gap. I know that the Government and, in particular, the department represented by the noble Lord, Lord Bach, is interested in businesses. Better regulation has always been interested in businesses and, to some extent, voluntary organisations. I have never been so sure that it is interested in the interests of members of the public. It ought to be. I have never been certain that the department sees its role as better regulation for the benefit of members of the public, although, of course, within the list of priorities on page 15 they gain some advantage. The gap here concerns anti-social behaviour. An enormous amount of local authority time and money is spent dealing with anti-social behaviour. They are all members of crime and disorder partnerships which they share with a number of other local bodies. It is not good enough to say that that is nothing to do with regulation because in a number of cases it certainly is. For instance, we have listed here, "““entertainment and late night refreshment licensing””," as one item that is a priority. Fair enough, anti-social behaviour often arises in that connection. But so it does in a number of other areas where local authorities have to carry out regulatory functions. For instance, they have to ensure that people behave themselves in public parks—the definition of anti-social behaviour is extremely wide these days—they have to deal with noise, which is often a matter of anti-social behaviour, and they deal with housing management. If they do not do it themselves because they have sold off their housing stock to an arm’s-length management organisation or some similar body, they nevertheless have a residual power and duty to help those bodies to deal with anti-social behaviour in the housing management field. This is a fairly major issue in a number of places and, as I am sure the noble Lord knows, I spend a great deal of time going around inspecting local authorities on the question of privacy. Anti-social behaviour is left out of the list. Is it a mistake or is it because the department does not consider that it is anything to do with businesses and, therefore, it does not need to be included? I can tell the noble Lord that many local authorities would find that a list of priorities that did not include anti-social behaviour would think that the Government had seriously let them down. I did not have an opportunity to give the noble Lord notice because I saw the list only today, but I would very much welcome his response on that point.