Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for raising these issues. Perhaps I may say at this stage that I am also grateful for the helpful way in which we have debated the issues around this part of the Bill and the amount of work that the noble Lord has done on it. I have thought very carefully about what the noble Lord is seeking to achieve. I went back and looked at the recommendations of the Independent Review of Bailiff Law, published in 2000 by Professor Jack Beatson. On the face of it, the idea of moving this matter into regulations and being able to manoeuvre the situation in the way that the noble Lord suggests is always attractive, because that would achieve his aims and it is usually my desire to do that. But Professor Beatson’s Recommendation (1)(a) struck me as vital in this context. He said that the fundamental rules governing distress should be set out in one place—in statute. Recommendation (21) set out what the methods of taking control of goods should be. We have set those out in paragraph 13 of Schedule 12. Noble Lords have generally welcomed the bringing of bailiff law together into one place. We had to make a decision as to whether we used primary or secondary legislation. I have talked the matter through with officials at some length over the past few days to see whether we were in the right place—and I think that we are, because it is important to bring bailiff law together on the face of legislation. That is because my objective is to clarify, rationalise and simplify enforcement agent law for all the reasons that were dealt with in Grand Committee and to bring certainty, both to professionals who deal with the law and those who are at the receiving end of it. Noble Lords will recall that we talked about all the different pieces of law—some in statute, some in common law—through which bailiff law had grown over the centuries. For that reason, I am inclined to keep it where it is—that is a key recommendation on what we should do. The fact that there are many regulation-making powers within the Bill does not preclude continuing to talk, not only to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and other noble Lords, but to the members of the industry with whom we have begun a dialogue, the Citizens Advice and others, about precisely how the regulation-making powers are set out. I am keen to do that over the next few months as we develop this area. The noble Lord was particularly concerned about those who sign a controlled goods agreement, which we talked about in Grand Committee. I made it clear then, and I reiterate again, that we are not precluding someone else signing on behalf of the debtor, provided that they have been authorised to do so. If a person volunteers to sign, it is for the enforcement agent to ascertain the relationship and to be satisfied that the debtor wants that person to sign. We will look to developing how that will look, the criteria and so on, in conjunction with those involved—both those who are concerned that someone might sign inappropriately and those who are concerned to ensure that if you are able to sign on behalf of the debtor, it is done properly. If no one is willing to claim such authority, the enforcement agency should try to contact the debtor by telephone to explain the situation and see whether they can instruct someone else to sign the agreement. If no one is willing to sign the agreement, the enforcement agency must act within its rights to take control of the goods immediately. Of course such an agreement should not be signed by someone who is under 18 or would not understand the nature of what they were doing and the consequences of the document that they were signing. We are going to work very carefully to make sure that we set this out properly, which I think is what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is keen should be done. In the light of the principle that I have set out, and with the assurance that we will consider carefully how we do this so that we do it properly and get it right, I hope that the noble Lord will not press his amendment.