Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble and learned Baroness for her intervention and question. As I am meeting the noble and learned Lord, I would be very happy to meet her as well to discuss it further. With respect to the tribunal, it is established under Section 3 of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 that it can comprise members with both legal and specialist expertise in the subject matter before the tribunal and therefore provide fuller understanding of the regulatory issues. The noble and learned Baroness asks why we do not strengthen the courts to provide better regulatory outcomes. That was a part of the package of Professor Macrory's recommendations on improving criminal courts’ methods for tackling regulatory offences. He believed that they should be better equipped to deal with them through improved training, sentencing guidelines, information from prosecutors and introducing new sentencing options. Those recommendations were accepted by the Government in full and are being taken forward separately from the Bill, because they are not legislative. The noble and learned Baroness also raised the issue of deployment, which will be a matter for the Senior President of Tribunals. As I said, the panel will consist of judges and, where appropriate, expert and non-legal members, but would be very happy to meet the noble and learned Baroness to go through the detailed questions that she raised.