Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Debate between Ian Byrne and Maria Eagle

Committee stage
Tuesday 7th December 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Maria Eagle]

It is good to see that there is some provision about enforcement because there is often a gap in legislation, so the law is made and practical enforcement is not set out. I find it quite an interesting approach to enforcement to say that local trading standards or weights and measures authorities in England and Wales “must enforce” in their own area the standard statutory obligation of such an authority but

“may enforce…elsewhere in England and Wales.”

I may be wrong, but that seems a fairly novel approach to enforcement. I am not saying it is bad, but I would like the Minister to set out in a little more detail why the clause is worded in this manner and whether there are any precedents in respect of other enforcement arrangements that have been drawn on to set out the provision.

Subsection (2) says:

“A district council that is not a local weights and measures authority may enforce section 3 in England (both inside and outside the council’s district).”

We have the prospect of roving entrepreneurial weights and measures departments perhaps thinking that they can go and levy fines of up to £30,000 for a breach somewhere else entirely. I think I have read somewhere that they get to keep the proceeds, so this is quite an interesting tax farming idea—perhaps going back to old England, whereby the collector is given a percentage of the takings. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale, I was going to ask what provision the Government will make to enable a local authority’s trading standards department to search out such breaches. Perhaps they intend to enable trading standards from elsewhere in the country to come galloping in.

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. On the point raised by my hon. Friends the Members for Garston and Halewood and for Weaver Vale, Liverpool has lost £465 million of funding since 2010, and another £34 million of savage cuts are mooted for the upcoming budget. How does the Minister expect a council such as Liverpool City Council to finance a trading standards team that can actually carry out what the Bill proposes under what we are experiencing through austerity?

[Maria Eagle]

I agree with my hon. Friend about the savage reduction in available resource that the Government have visited on Liverpool. I am interested to hear from the Minister about the intention of this formulation and whether he anticipates that trading standards from out of area will be galloping around the country doing enforcement work in the manner that the clause lays out, because it is not something that I have seen before in legislation. I may be wrong, but it is not something that I can recall seeing.