Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

If the amendments proposed by the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, are accepted, in effect an enforcing authority will have to get the consent of the primary authority before carrying out any inspection which falls outside the scope of the inspection plan, although there is what might loosely be called some sort of appeal to the LBRO. The outcome of the amendments would be an additional burden on primary authorities, which would have to deal with requests from enforcing authorities to inspect outside the scope of the inspection plans, and they would impose an additional restriction on the autonomy of enforcing authorities to respond to local concerns. Noble Lords—certainly those on the Liberal Democrat Benches—have recognised that on many of the matters we have discussed it is a question of balance: local autonomy versus central agency and so on. The noble Lord said that under the Bill as it stands the enforcement authority does not have to justify itself. However, it does have to justify itself because it has to inform the primary authority if it wants to go against the inspection plan and it has to give reasons. That is set out in Clause 28(9), which states that a notification has to be made and that it, "““must include reasons for exercising the function otherwise than in accordance with the plan””." As the noble Lord, Lord de Mauley, quite rightly said, any scope to enforce the view of the primary authority is missing. What is in the Bill is sufficient and, because justification has to be given, there is no need for the amendment.