Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 85: 85: After Clause 63, insert the following new Clause— ““Publication of enforcement action (1) Where power is conferred on a regulator under or by virtue of this Part to impose a civil sanction in relation to an offence, the provision conferring the power must, subject to this section, secure the result in subsection (2). (2) That result is that the regulator must from time to time publish reports specifying— (a) the cases in which the civil sanction has been imposed, (b) where the civil sanction is a fixed monetary penalty, the cases in which liability to the penalty has been discharged pursuant to section 39(2)(b), and (c) where the civil sanction is a discretionary requirement, the cases in which an undertaking referred to in section 42(5) is accepted from a person. (3) In subsection (2)(a), the reference to cases in which the civil sanction has been imposed do not include cases where the sanction has been imposed but overturned on appeal. (4) The provision conferring the power need not secure the result in subsection (2) in cases where the relevant authority considers that it would be inappropriate to do so.”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, the amendment would require regulators to publicise on a regular basis details of their completed enforcement actions imposed under the powers in Part 3 of the Bill; that is, when a civil sanction is imposed or an undertaking accepted. The amendment is similar to Amendment No. 179A tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, in Grand Committee. As we said at the time, publicising enforcement activity is an accepted government policy and was a key recommendation of the Macrory review. While we had originally intended that this issue should be dealt with through guidance, we understand the concerns that have been raised and are happy to place the requirement on a statutory footing. The new clause also excludes decisions by the regulator that are overturned on appeal, which takes account of the concerns raised in Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts. Amendment No. 85 contains one important difference from the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Razzall. New subsection (4) allows the Minister to exempt certain cases from the publicity requirement. This captures cases where there may be data protection implications or other important grounds for not publishing some details of a case; for example, exempting enforcement action that has been taken under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, since this would disclose the fact that certain individuals or companies are involved in animal research. For security and safety reasons, it is not Home Office practice to publish such information. I beg to move.