If the noble Lord would bear with me, I have an example which we can debate.
While we share some common objectives, there are clearly real differences of opinion about how trading standards officers and other law enforcers should carry out their duties. The Government start from the principle behind the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, which aims to protect civil liberties and reduce burdensome and intrusive powers of entry. It starts from the simple premise that an investigating officer should have good reason for entering premises. This is really important because both as private individuals and as businesses we should rightly expect to be treated as law-abiding unless there is a justification. The requirement in the Bill for enforcers to give two days’ written notice for routine inspections—I emphasise routine—flows from this principle. However, we take very seriously the importance of ensuring that enforcers such as trading standards can continue to tackle rogue traders. I am sorry to keep repeating this but I think it is common ground, and I can assure noble Lords that we are doing nothing to prevent enforcers investigating illegal activities—quite the opposite.
Let me explain in more detail why we have decided to require notice for routine inspections. Enforcers currently have some very intrusive powers such as the power to enter commercial premises without a warrant to carry out their inspections. They can demand that documents are produced and break open containers, and any person on the premises has to provide assistance and the information requested. Small businesses have told us that unannounced inspections are burdensome and inefficient. In particular, the Federation of Small Businesses is concerned about unannounced visits and has said that booking inspections in advance will allow the businesses to ensure the appropriate staff and paperwork are available. This ensures that neither the trader’s nor the enforcer’s time is wasted in these routine inspections. The owner or manager might be visiting a supplier away from the premises, leaving a junior member of staff not equipped to deal with an investigator’s questions or to find the documents needed. Staff may be in the middle of receiving deliveries or busy dealing with customers or an important new client when the enforcer arrives. This can be disruptive and embarrassing for the business. While large retailers may be able to cope more easily—the noble Lord
mentioned them—it is really difficult for compliant businesses to see why they should be so disrupted when they are giving no cause for suspicion.
Business disruption hits the bottom line. We estimate that this measure would generate net savings to the economy of almost £50 million over 10 years. This net figure includes the savings to business as well as the costs and benefits to enforcers arising from a greater degree of efficiency in inspection.
Of course, I agree entirely that businesses cannot expect to have notice of an inspection when there is risk of a breach of the law. We have listened very carefully to enforcers’ concerns on that: to local authorities, regulators and trading standards officers, as I think was hinted at earlier in the discussion. Therefore, the Bill provides a number of very clear exemptions that still allow enforcers to carry out unannounced inspections, as they do at present, where they need to investigate illegal activities and matters of urgency. I will go through those and try to pick up the examples that have been quoted in debates and which have obviously been concerning people.
The first exemption would apply where an enforcer reasonably suspects a breach, for example where the sale of counterfeit alcohol is suspected or where a test purchase has been made and failed, e.g. on an age-restricted purchase. The noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, asked about access to warehouses and whether, if the officer suspects a breach, the exemption applies. Of course, that is particularly important in relation to rogue traders and the same would be true of the example of the sale of counterfeit goods.