Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Cope of Berkeley, has made a good case for his amendment. It is certainly a much better case than that made by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, on behalf of the Opposition, when she wanted to change the word ““Regulation”” to ““Deregulation””. That seemed to me nonsense. We all know that regulation is necessary, whether we are talking about food safety, health and safety of workers, consumer protection or whatever. What is needed is better regulation—or better administered regulation—which is fairly and adequately enforced. The noble Lord, Lord Cope of Berkeley, makes a good case for altering the name. What are we about? We are about better regulation and he wants to say ““Better Local Regulation Office”” instead of ““Local Better Regulation Office””. Of course, he is quite right that it is a national body and the existing name could confuse people in the way that he described. The only qualification that I have is that we are where we are. The name ““Local Better Regulation Office”” has been with us for some time; the noble Lord admitted that it was there as a corporate body before it was suggested that it become a statutory body. The name is familiar—the LBRO has advertised posts under that name—so what is the case for changing it now? I very much doubt that that case has been made, as distinct from the case that could have been made if we were starting from scratch.