Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Bill [HL]

The noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, asked initially about the functions of the new council. The council is given functions in respect of consumers and consumer matters, rather than having any prescriptive objectives. It is therefore for the council to decide what its objectives will be from time to time. My noble friend Lord Borrie, who has a great deal of knowledge in this area, referred to this point, too—I am grateful for his contribution. The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, queried the phrase ““may … appoint staff””. My noble friend Lord Borrie referred to it as well. On the face of it, it could be questionable, since any organisation will require staff. ““May”” is used because this is a power which the council may exercise from time to time. It is not obliged to have any particular number of staff—that was the intention of the drafting. The council will of course require staff, but the Bill is drafted in such a way as not to be prescriptive, to retain maximum flexibility for the council. Amendment No. 8 would replace the provision that the council ““may”” appoint staff with the requirement that it ““shall”” appoint staff. There is no reason to compel the exercise of this function, particularly as the provision is intended to apply where appointments become necessary. Amendment No. 9 seeks to replace the power for the council to establish regional committees with an obligation to do so. The objective of the Bill is to retain flexibility for the council to establish regional committees, or not in this case, as it sees fit, and to be able to change the committee structure over time in order to meet future needs. Amendments Nos. 10,11 and12 replace ““may”” with ““shall”” in the relevant parts of the schedule. I do not see a compelling reason to replace these words as they make no effective change. Amendments Nos. 44, 45, and 49 seek to place a duty on the council to carry out two of the threecore functions—the representative function and the research function, referred to by the noble Baroness—and to place a duty on the council in relation to the exercise of the third of the three core functions—the information function. However, this would remove the flexibility of the council—