My Lords, I intervene briefly to ask the Minister a rather pedantic question. Subsections in Clause 35 all use the word “may”. There is no actual requirement for the Government to introduce regulations and therefore for local authorities to be placed in a position whereby they can charge. Why has it been left open, rather than using the word “shall”? If we could take the wording as meaning “shall”, can we assume that each further instance of the word “may”—that is to say:
“The regulations may specify costs … The regulations may require or permit adequate security…The authority may not charge interest under regulations…The regulations may make other provisions”—
is part of a whole package? Or, if “may” does mean “may”, might only individual parts of this clause be introduced, as opposed to the whole clause? For example, subsection (2) states that:
“The regulations may specify costs which are, or which are not, to be regarded as administrative costs for the purposes of subsection (1)(b)”.
If that particular part of the clause were not implemented, it would leave local authorities open to decide for themselves what the administrative costs could be. Whatever internal reasons they may have—and my noble friend Lord Lipsey referred earlier to the reluctance
of local authorities—should local authorities have that ability to be flexible? I am seeking to establish whether, if this is all going to happen and we should read “shall” for “may”, all the subsections of Clause 35 will be implemented and that isolated subsections will not be introduced in the regulations? That might create difficulties that we are not foreseeing during the passage of the Bill.