Offshore Environmental Civil Sanctions Regulations 2018

Lord Grantchester Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, when I first read the regulations, I had a vision of a motorboat chugging up to an offshore oil rig and sticking a parking ticket on it with a fixed penalty fine, but obviously that will not be the situation.

One of the questions I was going to ask is about numbers. I thank the Minister for going through them. It is certainly very stark that we have two prosecutions for environmental offences out of 4,000. I guess that is one of the reasons that this measure is needed.

Paragraph 7.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum states:

“The need for the instrument has arisen due to a number of contraventions of environmental Regulations”—


the Minister has gone through those very well—

“going unpunished as a result of OPRED’s lack of a proportionate enforcement response”.

What resources does OPRED have? Is it an organisation with capacity? Is it underfunded at the moment? Is that part of the problem? Can it do enforcement in a quicker and cheaper way?

I want to expand on my noble friend Lord Bruce’s point. It rather surprised me that we were moving from criminal law to civil law but the burden of proof did not move to balance of probability; it stayed at the level of criminal proof—that is, beyond reasonable doubt.

Regulation 9(1) states:

“A person on whom a final notice is served may appeal to the Tribunal in relation to the decision to impose the fixed monetary penalty”.


That is fair enough. However, Regulation 9(2) states:

“In any appeal where the commission of an offence is an issue requiring determination, the relevant enforcement authority must prove that offence according to the same burden and standard of proof as in a criminal prosecution”.


If I were faced with a £48,000 fine, what would I do? I would just say, “Take me to court. Go through this criminal proof”. If that is getting in the way of prosecutions at the moment, the barrier is still there. There is a quick and easy way for justice to be avoided once again.

Going through the regulations, I looked at the fixed penalties. Although I realise that they are rather more draconian than going through a Cornish village at more than 30 mph, I wonder whether £500, £1,000—as for most of them—or the top limit of £2,500 would even be in the petty cash of the sort of organisations that we are talking about, which I assume are the potential offenders. Although I realise that the fines can go up to £50,000, I wonder whether organisations would even notice these fixed penalties, which are the cutting edge of these regulations. It seems that it will be part of the P&L line where you just pay your money to avoid environmental regulations.

I have a final question for the Minister. I assume that the answer will be no. I like the idea of immediate penalties in low-impact environmental impacts, so that the system is sped up and more enforcement takes place. Might this apply to any marine-based activities other than the hydrocarbons industry?

[Lord Grantchester (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his introduction to the regulations before the House. They are relatively straightforward, which the memorandum explains very well.

The instrument will allow the offshore petroleum regulator for environment and decommissioning—OPRED—to impose civil sanctions under the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008 for RESA offences and the European Communities Act 1972 for ECA offences. The memorandum explains that these regulations are due to the number of contraventions going unpunished, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, explained. However, I am a little more relaxed than he is on them. I will explain why. The regulations are a sufficient and proportionate deterrence against non-compliance. They will tackle poor behaviour and stop it becoming persistent. They are consistent with measures available to onshore environmental regulators.