Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 64: Page 7, line 23, at end insert- ““( ) Where it appears to the Council to be appropriate to do so, the Council may enter into arrangements with other persons in order to exercise the power conferred by subsection (4).”” The noble Lord said: I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 66, 69 and 71 in my name. When I looked at this matter, my mind went back to Christmas 1980, when I returned to Scotland with a virginal copy of the Education (Scotland) Bill. My job was to fillet it and produce amendments for Committee with the express intention of keeping the Government as far away as possible from securing the legislation. In those days, new Front-Benchers had to undergo a kind of D101 course, which said, ““When you see ‘may’, put in ‘shall’; when you see ‘three months’, put in ‘six months’; when you see such and such, change it””. I am almost embarrassed at the way in which I am introducing these amendments today because, in many instances, I am repeating what I did 26 years ago, and I feel that I should be doing something better with my time. The fact is that these amendments have some express purpose, which is not particularly irrelevant or a waste of the Committee’s time. Amendments Nos. 64 and 69 afford to the National Consumer Council a degree of flexibility that the legislation as drafted appears not to; that is, to find the best way to fulfil and deliver the functions. It affords the National Consumer Council the opportunity to subcontract some of the responsibilities to other bodies. Perhaps I should declare an interest as the president of Energy Action Scotland and the vice-president of National Energy Action, which are two bodies that are engaged in the fuel poverty lobby and which conduct, in their own ways, a great deal of research, the kind of research that is sometimes subcontracted by government and other bodies. There are specialist bodies that have a rather narrower focus than the NCC, and the NCC might well need some form of specialist advice, particularly in other areas, such as public inquiries and consumer complaints. Amendments Nos. 70 and 71 are of a slightly different order. We have been trying to impose burdens on the NCC today. This is a kind of softening of the obligation in the sense that in proposing the amendment it is not reasonable in every instance for the NCC to be required by the Government to do things. It should not be the creature of the Government. It is intended, as I understand it from the legislation, to be an arm’s-length satellite body. As a consequence, I am not sure that it necessarily should be required or demanded by the Government to produce reports. A polite asking rather than a demand might be appropriate in this instance. Having said that, if we are going to have a relationship between the Government and the NCC for research purposes, there is nothing more frustrating for bodies such as the NCC to produce erudite, well thought-out, clearly expounded reports and then discover that they lie gathering dust in government departments, and that what will be a late summer becomes an early autumn becomes a ““just before Christmas”” type of publication. Having been for some 10 years the chairman of a Select Committee, one of the consolations that I had was that maybe the Government would not always agree with what we said, but they had to respond to it within something like six to eight weeks, or we would create hell and they would be rather embarrassed. Therefore, if the Secretary of State asks the NCC to produce a report, there ought to be a duty to publish it within a reasonable timescale. That is the burden of Amendment No. 71. We have these four amendments, two affording a degree of flexibility to the NCC and the other two enabling it to have a perhaps slightly less onerous relationship with the Secretary of State; but at the same time not letting the Secretary of State off the hook when reports have been asked for, agreed to and produced and then we find that there is problem with publication. I would like to think that the Minister will be able to tell us that such a thought would be so far from the Government’s mind—certainly in relation to the last amendment—that it is unnecessary, but some of us, through bitter experience perhaps, have more than an iota of cynicism on these matters. Unless it is written down and the hands are nailed to the table, we are not convinced that they will necessarily produce the reports that an independent body such as the NCC would perhaps produce in all honesty, but might cause the Government a bit of embarrassment to publish. So we think this amendment is necessary. The amendments are both flexible towards the National Consumer Council and requiring the Government to assist the NCC as well. I hope the Minister will be able to respond positively. I beg to move.