Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Bill [HL]

I inform my noble friend that one of the functions of Committees of this nature—it will be done in one of the other amendments with great concision—is that ““may”” should often be replaced by ““shall””. While the amendments do not put it quite in that fashion, we have to take account of the rather narrow view of the nature of devolved responsibility that is being presented by the Government. In many respects, what we see, as my noble friend Lord Williams has just pointed out, is a number of options opening up, but the soft option is always the one that is being accepted; that is, that the National Consumer Council will eventually, in its wisdom, be able to do certain things. That is very much the product of the metrocentrism of Victoria Street. We have the DTI muddling on, not actually appreciating that we have had a devolution settlement in the United Kingdom since 1999, when the Parliament and the Assembly were established, or indeed since the referenda of 1997. I stress that they are now part of the British political firmament; they are mature institutions. I have to say as a Scot that I am a wee bit less than satisfied with certain aspects of the performance of my colleagues in Holyrood, but I will be working very hard when it comes to the elections in May, and before that, to ensure that many of my Labour Party colleagues are able to form the majority of the Scottish Government. The point I really want to get across is that we have in the United Kingdom, and we have always had—this was one of the arguments for devolution—a number of institutions that were quasi-Scottish, quasi-Welsh and quasi-Northern Irish, but they were answerable at the end of the day to no one. We would like to see a new balance being struck which takes account of the integrity of the Parliaments and the capacity of the Parliament and the Assembly to pass legislation that will impinge on and affect the working of the National Consumer Council, because the character will be Scottish and Welsh. It seems sensible to give the Scottish and Welsh representative bodies the opportunity to establish accountability with the Westminster Parliament and the National Consumer Council. I do not wish to detain the Committee at length, because my noble friend has gone through this in some detail. We are trying to establish that the National Consumer Council has to have UK responsibility. Equally, it does not have to—grudgingly or otherwise, and I do not think it would be grudgingly—grant powers to Scotland and Wales. They are entitled to have them under the devolution settlement. Indeed, it is appropriate that they have them because in certain areas Wales, and probably to a greater degree Scotland, will have the opportunity through the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly to pass legislation on the consumer councils of the two. I do not like the expression ““territorial committees””. I would be quite happy, as I said at Second Reading, to have Yorkshire, north-east and north-west committees established as and when appropriate. At the moment, I do not think it is particularly appropriate to designate committees or councils that will be operating within the purview of devolved Administrations as simple territorial committees. It is important that we grant them their due status. Secondly, it is important that they are properly funded and that this funding is appropriately ring-fenced. It will doubtless be the product of arm-wrestling between the comparative Administrations. Equally, however, there have to be areas in which it is appropriate to look at the UK as a whole. Therefore, it is appropriate that the National Consumer Council should be required to investigate on a United Kingdom basis issues that are appropriate to the United Kingdom, but have arisen from a regional or national concern. We have to establish in statute the responsibility of the National Consumer Council to follow up issues raised by the Welsh or Scottish councils. It is equally important that appropriate reports are timeously presented because often people can dig deep, look hard and forget. We want accountability and want reports to be published. We must also ensure that we have appropriate funding for these committees. Therefore, it ought to be established in statute that there is no get-out clause. We are not legislating for Government A or Government B or in perpetuity, but it is important that when we talk about functions and capabilities, we also talk about resource. It may well be that it is the responsibilityof the National Consumer Council to appoint appropriate people to sit on these committees, but after the committees are established in that way, they are entitled to have appropriate funding, subject to public scrutiny, whether by the Scottish and Welsh bodies or the Public Accounts Committee. This group of amendments covers most of the appropriate areas. At this stage, the Government may not be inclined to accept them. I am a new boy in this House, but I am sufficiently realistic to know never to push matters too hard because that would deny us the opportunity of coming back to them at a later stage. There is always more rejoicing in heaven over a sinner that repenteth, and I would like to think that the Government will look afresh at this. In discussions with the Minister and his officials, I got the impression that there is a lack of appreciation of, but not necessarily hostility to, the nature of the devolution settlement. There are Parliaments of the United Kingdom in Scotland and London and there is an Assembly in Wales. There are bodies with differing responsibilities that touch the lives of people who live in those places. They should be given appropriate consideration. At the moment, the DTI, in sponsoring this legislation, is guilty—I use that word without too much consideration—of a kind of metrocentrist insensitivity and believes that what operates in the interests of Victoria Street operates for the interests of the whole UK. That is not appropriate. We must recognise that we have moved on from that. I would dearly like to think that, at an appropriate time, we will give proper accountability and status to the Northern Ireland Assembly. Were we to get that, that Assembly would sit alongside the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament and have appropriate rights and responsibilities. The Government have taken their eye off the ball. I am disappointed that a Secretary of State who is a Scot who played such a distinguished part in the campaign for the establishment of the Scottish Parliament allowed his department to have made a faux pas of this nature. As I say, we could change it. These may not be the best amendments, but, let us face it, the good should not be the enemy of the best. If it does not disagree and accepts the force of our argument, it is up to the department at a later stage to table amendments that can do this job. At the moment, there is a big gap which will cause a lot of difficulty for a lot of people, not least those candidates who, in May, will stand in elections in Wales and Scotland on behalf of the party that the Minister, my noble friend Lord Williams and I are proud to be members of.