My Lords, I have amendments tabled later on community protection notices and how statutory nuisance is to be dealt with, but I use this opportunity to ask the Minister a couple of questions.
In the Commons, the Government took out the exclusion from community protection notices of statutory nuisance—it was in Clause 40(5)—saying that they had established a technical working group including representatives from the police, the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health and the Chartered Institute of Housing to draft clear guidance as to what to use when. I should declare an interest. I am a vice-president of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, which is why it has come to me on this issue. It has told me that it was asked for a comment at one point but that it is not aware of the technical working group. Can the Minister explain to the Committee what is happening in that area?
The institute’s concern is about confusion over who should do what, whose responsibility it should be and whether, in the case of some nuisances, those who might have powers to deal with them are likely to have
the technical knowledge. The point was made to me that you can tell what litter is, but it is not always easy to tell when noise is a statutory nuisance, because so many conditions and criteria surround it. I would be grateful for some help and news, which might shorten our debate later—although, of course, it might not.