My Lords, I am probing to see whether there is some way in which some of these arrangements could be drafted to simplify their implementation. I worry about the amount of work that we are giving the legal profession by some of these arrangements. This is a very complicated piece of paper chase. New Section 40A amends the 1998 Act. We have been talking mostly about the 2002 Act. It relates to powers when conducting investigations, to failure to produce documents, destroying or falsifying documents, and providing false or misleading information. The 1998 Act contains in Section 27 powers to enter
premises without a warrant and with a warrant. In a statutory instrument in 2004—which, incidentally, is not included in the latest printed edition of the 1998 Act, you have to find it some other way, but it is an amendment to the 1998 Act, statutory instrument 1261 —there is a power to enter domestic premises with a warrant. That is the 1998 Act. However, new Clause 26A to that Act, which we have just been looking at, is in Clause 33 of this Bill. That leads me to ask one or two questions.
I should say to the Bill team: thank you for your assistance with my eventually finding Amendment 28A and that statutory instrument because it was a very interesting chase. No wonder I could not find it in the 1998 Act; it was not there.
New Clause 26A(6) says,
“For the purposes of this section … an individual has a connection with an undertaking if he or she is or was … concerned in the management or control of the undertaking”.
I started to get into a terrible panic and wondered what sort of information I might be required to provide about when I was laying graphite cores in nuclear power stations or something. Is there any limitation on that subsection, such as a statute of limitations?
I have many questions in my mind, but I shall limit myself. With regard to new Clause 40A in Clause 34, BIS’s presentation to the Delegated Powers Committee says that the Bill,
“removes … criminal sanctions attached to failure to comply … and replaces them with a new civil sanction”.
However, when I read the amendments in Clause 34, particularly the ones near the end about omitting subsections (1) to (4) and so on, I could see where we were omitting certain of the criminal sanctions, but there followed two or three other clauses in the 1998 Act that seemed still to apply and still to envisage criminal proceedings. All that I am asking is that some real effort is made to clarify some of these matters in a way that means that businesses, their secretarial departments and legal departments will understand them, and they will not have to go to outside lawyers too much. We keep on talking about making things certain so that people know that they can get on and do the things that they want to but, believe you me, it is some endeavour to find out what this means. I beg to move.