Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 192: 192: Clause 71, page 33, leave out line 13 and insert— ““(1) Part 1 of this Act extends to England and Wales (2) Parts 2 to 4 of this Act extend to— (a) England and Wales (b) Scotland in respect of reserved matters; (c) Northern Ireland except in respect of transferred matters (3) Part 5 of this Act extends to the United Kingdom.”” The noble Lord said: We come to Part 5 of the Bill. It is a slim but important part and Amendment No. 192 seeks to strike a blow for clarity, candour and consistency. As the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, reminded us an hour or so ago, consistency is at the heart of the Government’s objectives for this Bill. My amendment seeks to replace Clause 71, which currently reads: "““This Act extends to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland””." To the non-legal reader, that is a travesty of the reality: it flatters to deceive. It is hung around the legal distinction between extent and application—something with which Sir Humphrey Appleby would have been pleased to bemuse the luckless Jim Hacker with in the television series. That it is extremely difficult is reflected in the fact that it takes up a page and a half—paragraphs 12 to 19 inclusive—of the Explanatory Notes. Even there, the drafting is extraordinarily obscure in that paragraph 17 says: "““Parts 2 to 4 apply in Scotland but only in respect of reserved matters””," and paragraph 19 says: "““Parts 2 to 3 apply in Northern Ireland but not in respect of transferred matters””." It would be very difficult to find a way to make that harder to understand. However, these Explanatory Notes will disappear and we will be left only with the Bill. Therefore, my amendment seeks to reflect in the Bill what is in the Explanatory Notes by making it clear that only Part 5—itself a very slim part of four short clauses—applies to the United Kingdom as a whole. This is not just about appearances or the niceties of parliamentary draftsmen; I wish that it were. It is about the candour of the Government’s approach. The Bill claims to be about local better regulation but nowhere have the Government accepted that. In fact, a proper and more accurate title for the Bill would probably be ““The England and Wales Local Better Regulation Bill””. If they do their job properly, the bulk of the work for LBROs will be on devolved or transferred matters. As such, we do not have a UK-wide level better regulatory playing field; we have potentially three different levels of better regulation. I have looked in vain for any acknowledgement of this grey weakness by the Government. Far from it—in fact, rather the reverse. On 28 November in our Second Reading debate, the noble Lord, Lord Jones of Birmingham, said: "““Local authority enforcers sit at the centre of a system that has grown up over decades within a framework set by multiple government departments, initiatives and regulators. It is a very complex system and, because of this very complexity, it has not always been as effective as it might have been. Parts 1 and 2 of the Bill aim to strike a careful balance by ensuring that the legitimate expectations of business are met within the system while at the same time ensuring that local authorities retain the freedom and flexibility that they need to get on with doing their job effectively””.—[Official Report, 28/11/07; col. 1239.]" To make this claim without mentioning the exclusion of Scotland and Northern Ireland is extraordinary and, indeed, it strikes at the strategic purpose of the Bill. Worse still, I am afraid that the Government know that that is the case. The noble Lord, Lord Bach, and I have had discussions in this room about a parallel example, which we already have, of how the absence of a UK-wide level playing field can lead to difficulties. He and I discussed at some length the issue of charity law. Charity law is a devolved, ““not reserved”” matter. The Charities Act 2006 is administered in England and Wales by the Charity Commission but there is a separate charities Act for Scotland, which is administered by the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator—OSCR. These two authorities are now producing different regulations for England, Wales and Scotland. This has posed enormous problems for national charities. After some considerable discussion, the noble Lord was prepared to write to me, which he did on 17 December, placing a copy in the Library. He said: "““However, the introduction of a new regulator in Scotland has created an additional burden that did not exist before for charities operating there, and whilst the legal frameworks are similar, the different Parliamentary routes have inevitably led to some differences””." We are heading for precisely the same result here. We have no co-ordination, leading to extra administrative burdens on firms which are operating on a UK-wide basis. So what solution do I see? Some time ago, when we discussed Clause 12, the possibility was raised of the LBRO building relationships with regulators through Memorandums of Understanding. I hope that we can find a way for relationships with Scotland and Northern Ireland to be dealt with in this way. I would like the Government to say that they are not going to introduce these provisions until they have reached agreement with the Scottish and Northern Ireland regulators so that we can have a level playing field. Without that, a large measure of the grand strategic design that the Government have set out for the Bill will fail because they have not thought through how it will work in a devolved structure. If the Government are not going to do that, let us at least have candour and honesty about how and where the Bill will apply and how it will operate. This is half a loaf only but it is better than the present situation, when we are being almost economical with the actuality. I beg to move.