Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

My Lords, we have considerable sympathy with the sentiments behind the amendments, particularly when it comes to consistency. It is worth stressing again that the requirement in Clause 62 is to publish guidance; the clause does not refer to who prepares that guidance. The regulators should publish the guidance because we believe that the regulated community will look to them for this kind of information. For example, a business in the West Midlands will look to its local trading standards office for guidance on the new sanctions, rather than BERR’s website. Concern has been expressed by LACORS about who produces the guidance and the potential workload. I have spoken to the chief executive of LACORS, who is now satisfied about the workload involved. I can understand that not every individual local authority will want to produce guidance on its own, which would defeat the purpose of improving consistency. In the event of a national regulator working in partnership with local authorities, such as on food safety, we would expect the regulator to prepare the guidance in consultation with the LBRO and local authorities, and then for the local authorities to publish the guidance. Where there is no national regulator, the LBRO would prepare the guidance, working with the relevant government department and the local authorities. The local authorities, as regulators, would then publish the guidance. This approach should help reduce the workload for local authorities and ensure the consistency which we agree with the noble Baroness is critical. We have set out on pages 44 and 45 of the guide to the Bill exactly how the approach will operate, so that local authorities will not be left exposed. I hope that, in light of what I have said and of the fact that the head of LACORS is now satisfied, the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.