Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

The noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, has dealt clearly, comprehensively and with an abundance of argument with these amendments, which would otherwise have been spoken to by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell of Markyate. She will not mind my saying that, despite the ability with which she has put forward the amendments, I am sorry that the noble and learned Lord is not in his place; we have had one or two private conversations about this and I know how keen he is on what I might put simply as preserving the role of the magistrates’ courts and the Crown Court in any new role that they would have under this Bill were it not for the insertion of administrative tribunals into the procedure. He feels strongly about that and, in earlier discussions in Committee, I have shared with him an enthusiasm for the success of the criminal law in dealing with a lot of regulatory offences, particularly under the Trade Descriptions Act 1968, which will celebrate its 40th anniversary this year. Moreover, it is not just the bringing of an action but, as the noble Baroness indicated, the threat of an action and a criminal penalty that so often proves to be such a valuable deterrent and incentive to better business conduct. But, and I suspect that the noble Baroness thought that there would be a ““but”” somewhere along the line, she will remember that my noble friend Lord Bach made it clear that—along with the Macrory recommendations, the civil sanctions and the new remedies that may be sought and which we have been discussing in this Bill—the criminal sanctions for breaches of food law, health law, trade description law and so on are all still in place. They have not been taken away and, in suitable cases, they are all available to be brought. However, the point of the Bill, as has been explained many times by my noble friend, is that, while the criminal law will continue to be used as appropriate, there will be more flexibility once it comes into force. If the distinction is going to be clear between, on the one hand, criminal sanctions and penalties—the criminal aura and the burden that a businessman faces of having been found guilty of a criminal offence—and, on the other hand, the new flexibility offered by the so-called civil sanctions of stop notices, discretionary and fixed penalties and so on, it is not a bad idea to have a separate group of bodies dealing with the procedures covering how those sanctions are to be imposed. Hence we come to the regulator, along with the right of the person on whom a penalty has been imposed to appeal, not to the magistrates’ court but to an administrative tribunal. I suggest that the different administrative tribunals have had long experience over the years, whether they deal with social security or employment issues, for example, and have built up a certain expertise. Moreover, they have been given the training to do that. Magistrates are not without training, but it has to be of a much more general kind. However, if you are a member of an administrative tribunal dealing with the kind of cases that we have been discussing—those turning on regulatory issues—no doubt the training can be much more closely focused on the legislation that you will be dealing with. Nowadays, 50 years on from the Tribunals and Inquiries Act 1958, and following the tribunals Act last year, tribunals have equal status in the public mind; they are authoritative, fully a part of the judicial system, expert and apt for the jobs that they are asked to do. They are as trusted and established as the magistrates’ courts and the Crown Court.