Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Bill [HL]

Amendment No. 30 provides for regulations to limit the expenditure that the council can make for its forward work programme. Its budget would be discussed between the department and the council. It is normal practice to provide indicative budgets for three years ahead to aid planning and provide certainty. Making regulations to limitthe expenditure would be too onerous and, in the circumstances, unnecessary, so I do not support the amendment. The noble Baroness made a point about permission to close regional offices. Paragraph 27 of Schedule 1 provides that: "““The Council must maintain an office in each of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales””," and, "““The Council may, with the approval of the Secretary of State, establish additional offices in the United Kingdom””." The number of offices can be expanded, but proposals to close offices must go before the Secretary of State. The assumed cost of the redress scheme was estimated on complaint levels in 2005-06, and the figures in the RIA are based on our best estimates of the assumed income from complaints. The idea is that the core savings will come from the consolidation of Energywatch and Postwatch. The industries in those sectors will continue to be responsible for the costs of the complaints and the operation of their sectors, so in future they will have funding responsibility for Energywatch and Postwatch, as they do currently. It is not envisaged that that will lead to increased costs. I will write to the noble Baroness on her other points.