Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Bill [HL]

I have some comments on Amendment No. 15, tabled by my noble friend Lord O’Neill, and Amendment No. 17, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox. On my noble friend’s amendment, I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Oppenheim-Barnes, that he is well aware that the Bill is not creating individual consumer rights, legal rights or anything of the sort. It does not seek to give consumers in this country rights that they do not otherwise have against suppliers in the United States or elsewhere. He will correct me if I am wrong, but I understand that he is saying consumers in this country have a body called the National Consumer Council, which is there to protect the interests of consumers generally, give advice to Ministers and consumers, conduct research and so on. In the course of giving advice to British consumers, to extend a restraining arm to those who might otherwise go wild on the continent of Europe or in New York in doing their shopping and who do not take sufficient care of their own interests would seem to be perfectly reasonable among the other advisory and warning sounds that the NCC might make. I do not think my noble friend’s amendment is needed, because although the consumer, as distinct from the supplier, has to be in this country, the definition of ““consumer”” and ““supplier”” in Clause 2 does not restrict itself to a supplier who is within Great Britain. It says: ““a person who purchases”” and so on, "““in Great Britain, goods or services which are supplied in the course of a business””." It does not say where the supplier has to be. That could cover the problem my noble friend Lord O’Neill is concerned about. With regard to Amendment No. 17, I know the business background and experience of the noble Baroness, and I was not surprised when she said she was mainly concerned with sole partnerships, small businesses and so on that do not have vast legal departments such as major business firms like ICI may have, and therefore may know the law about the buying and selling of goods and services no better than what I might call the ordinary, private consumer. She makes a fair point. Due to the way she has drafted the amendment, however, the ““consumer”” includes a person who purchases and so on for the purposes of their own business. In law, the word ““person”” includes not just natural persons but corporate persons. Therefore, when ICI is buying either machinery or an expensive car for the chief executive, it is a consumer. I hope that my noble friend Lord Whitty, as the person running the National Consumer Council, does not want the NCC to be spending time on the concerns of businesses that no doubt have their own lawyers and legal departments at their beck and call.