Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

My Lords, Amendment No. 43 stands in my name. I pause to see whether the Government will accept it. I see the Minister shakes his head. It is similar to points that the Government have accepted, acknowledging the position of local authorities and providing for consultation with them. That explains the amendment. I hope that the explanation carries some force. I do not want to spend a long time on it. I welcome the matters that the Government are putting into the Bill regarding exemptions. An acknowledgement of consultation would be an appropriate step. I welcome the government amendments in the group. On delegation, the Government are absolutely right. I raise a concern which has been expressed to me and I believe to the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, by the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, which is worried that, "““the effect of this amendment could be considerable for the resources of the LBRO and may bring into doubt their ability to meet the demand for adjudications and/or dealing with the (potentially large) number of references it might get under this process””." I would welcome comment from the Minister on the resources point. On Amendment No. 42, I cannot restrain myself from noting that we now have a provision that the Secretary of State ““shall”” do something. Amendments to change ““may”” to ““shall”” normally come from the Opposition Benches. The Government may find it is quoted back at them on other occasions. Paragraph (b) in Amendment No. 44 states that the application of a section would be ““wholly disproportionate””. I stumbled slightly over ““wholly””; it is not something I would have expected to see in legislation. That seems to be more the language of conversation or rhetoric. Given that there is reference to proportionality elsewhere in the Bill, I wonder whether there is a particular significance in this.