Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 161: 161: After Clause 53, insert the following new Clause— ““Publicity (1) When any of the conditions in this section apply, the local authority must publish the fact in a manner it considers appropriate. (2) The first condition is that a local authority has imposed a fixed monetary penalty under section 37 and— (a) no review notice has been served within the specified time, or (b) an internal review has confirmed the penalty and no appeal has been made within the specified time. (3) The second condition is that a local authority has imposed a non-compliance penalty under section 43 and no appeal has been made within the specified time. (4) The third condition is that a local authority has imposed a stop notice under section 44 and no appeal has been made within the specified time.”” The noble Lord said: After those great clashes of principle, this proposed new clause is rather more probing in nature. It is obvious to anyone who knows anything about it that when breaches in these various laws occur, the sanction of a fine can be extremely important to the business concerned. But a fine is more likely to do real damage to a business, making it difficult to carry on, if it is a small concern. A giant supermarket chain finding one of its stores in trouble in the local courts or under this new arrangement can quite easily pay the fine and either forget about the problem or take steps to tighten up its procedures to avoid the breach happening again. Such an event is not necessarily damaging to the business overall. What is damaging is the publicity of being taken to court and dragged into the public arena for having caused a breach of, say, a food safety arrangement. It is this disparity between small and large businesses that I want to draw attention to with the amendment. Nowhere in the Bill is it provided that the new system will involve any publicity at all. I thought I would suggest the new clause to see whether that is intended. Once the new arrangements get going, a cosy arrangement may develop to some degree between the regulators and the large businesses that are being regulated. In part that is what is intended and wanted. Indeed, the Minister said earlier today that the regulators and the regulated bodies will talk to one another more frequently than is the case at the moment. But if there is a breach and a cosy arrangement exists, we may not hear much about it having taken place. It may be hushed up after a quick payment is made, and on we go. In reality, that is no sanction against a giant firm—or at least it is only a very small sanction. On the other hand, it could crush a small firm or seriously damage its business. For many businesses, it would be a personal fine on the proprietor, as opposed to a big corporate entity, for which such a fine would be a microscopic proportion of its turnover or profits. I am merely probing what publicity there will be to preserve both an effective sanction over and above fines and the balance of sanctions which seems to exist in the present system between small and large businesses. I beg to move.