Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 45: 45: Clause 29, page 14, line 15, leave out ““Where”” and insert ““Before”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, Clause 29 will play an essential role in encouraging a more co-ordinated, strategic and consistent approach to local authority inspection of multi-site businesses. Inspection plans will present a primary authority with the opportunity to share with all other local authorities its strategic knowledge of the businesses with which it has a partnership. It is our expectation that primary authorities will be experts in the operation of the businesses that they partner and in particular will have detailed knowledge of compliance and quality assurance processes. A primary authority will know those areas where a business presents a low risk, where it has a strong record of compliance, where it has improvements in hand and where improvement is needed. To give a primary authority an evidence base to develop this expertise, we believe that when an enforcing authority departs from the recommendations in an inspection plan it must inform the primary authority of this departure and give reasons for it. It was said in Committee: "““If businesses and primary authorities are to go to the expense of drawing up agreed inspection plans, it is not reasonable for local enforcing authorities to be able to disregard those plans without having to justify that””.—[Official Report, 28/1/08; col. GC 256.]" We agree with that and understand that businesses in particular will expect that they should not be subject to arbitrary inspections based on spurious grounds when an inspection plan has been drawn up. With this in mind, we believe that it is more appropriate for local authorities to notify the relevant primary authority when they depart from the recommendations in an inspection plan before the inspection is carried out. That is what Amendment No. 45 will do. I beg to move. On Question, amendment agreed to.