My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Ashton of Hyde, explained that he was hoping to make things a bit easier for noble Lords with the reprinting. I welcome that and wish him well with it.
The amendments in this group are all government amendments, with the exception of Amendment 18, in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, which seeks to amend a government amendment. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ashton of Hyde, for explaining these amendments. One of the amendments refers to functions that were considered for inclusion. Can he help the Committee by saying what functions were considered and then not included? I would be interested to know that in relation to Amendments 16, 17 and 24.
I can see the value of being able to add further non-compliance matters by regulation. However, this should be by the affirmative and not the negative procedure, as proposed here. Such matters often benefit from a short debate in the Moses Room when additions are proposed. I think that many in the Committee would agree that this legislation is not to the same standard or quality as we saw with the Modern Slavery
Bill, for example. For that reason, if for no other, we should have the affirmative rather than the negative procedure.
It could be suggested that Amendments 19, 20, 21, 22 and 23 better define the labour market functions within the scope of the labour market enforcement strategy, by reference to specific legislation; I can see that point.
Government Amendments 243 and 244 both require the use of the affirmative procedures. That is welcome, but it contradicts the earlier decision to use the negative procedure, which I have referred to on this group. The last amendment, Amendment 246, would take out a reference to the Director of Labour Market Enforcement. Yes, that is fine, but I wonder whether the Government should perhaps have taken the whole thing out of the Bill and brought a separate Bill back.