Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

Can the noble Lord add a further point to his letter? Suppose that the local authority makes a mistake and the enforcing authority chooses to enforce and uses one of the civil sanction powers that we shall consider later in the Bill. In fact the authority should have obtained the approval of the primary authority before it did anything, but did not. Can that be raised as a defence by the person who is subject to the civil sanction? Will or will it not be a defence in a criminal case that the procedures set out in the Bill were not carried out? I do not expect the Minister to give an answer now, but could he include that point in the letter, because this matter will lead to greater complications later on? If there is a challenge, it will go to the first-level tribunal and, in some cases, the courts, because it may not go through a civil sanction system. There will be further trouble later on down the line unless this matter is clarified at the beginning.