Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 111: 111: Clause 42, page 24, line 34, leave out ““may”” and insert ““shall”” The noble Baroness said: I am sorry to have hesitated for a moment, but I thought that my noble friend Lord De Mauley would have been back at this point. However, I am delighted to move Amendment No. 111 and speak to the other amendments included in the group. This group of amendments seeks to strengthen the complaints handling procedure following the merger of Postwatch and Energywatch under the new umbrella body, Consumer Direct. Amendments Nos. 111 and 112 go hand in hand to strengthen the provisions of Clause 42. Currently the clause allows regulators to make regulations to prescribe standards when handling complaints. However, one of the major concerns of the outgoing Energywatch is that there will not be adequate protection for those consumers facing the cut-off of their electricity supply. Amendment No. 114 would prevent the Secretary of State running a redress scheme or appointing a body to run such a scheme. This is a probing amendment to discover the Government’s policy on whether a redress scheme would be controlled by central government. I would have thought it important to ensure that a redress scheme is approved by the relevant regulator who will be independent of central government and have detailed knowledge of consumers’ needs. Amendment No. 116 seeks to remove the reference to ““relevant consumers””. All consumers using energy supplies are relevant where redress schemes are concerned. Amendment No. 117 changes the remit of what a regulator must consider in creating a redress scheme, raising the bar of performance from ““good”” practice to ““best”” practice. I am sure that the Minister has a good reason for setting the standard for a redress scheme at ““good”” practice. ““Good”” is good enough for most people, yet I should be interested to know why he does not aim for the best in this Bill. Our idea of best practice is where consumers can make rapid contact with the ombudsman instead of the current three-month wait and where recognised complaint handling procedures are a requirement for entry on to the scheme. Amendment No. 119 fulfils the need to have approved standards for complaint handling procedures, while Amendments Nos. 120 and 121 ensure that the regulator would have to take into account the handling of individual complaints when designing a redress scheme. Along with all noble Lords, I welcome the proposal for an ombudsman in these markets, but I am concerned about the future treatment of those consumers who need more than the simple advice that Consumer Direct can provide and who cannot afford to wait months for an ombudsman scheme to make a deliberation. Last year, Energywatch took 63,000 complaints, and followed up a further 223,000 issues directly with companies on behalf of consumers. Energy problems can be complex and urgent, so I find it hard to see how diminished support and longer waiting times represent a step forward in consumer services. I am concerned about what will happen to a consumer who has been threatened with having the gas supply cut off after March 2008. It is my understanding that the current Bill would require the new consumer body only to deal with those who have already been disconnected. At present, Energywatch intervenes when a consumer is at risk of being disconnected or is without an energy supply for other reasons. It is vital that Consumer Direct has access to good quality complaints data, to basic intelligence about what is going wrong in markets and how that affects consumers. Indeed, I should be interested to know how consumer problems are to be dealt with in the interim transition. The Bill reorganises five bodies, will make hundreds of dedicated members of staff redundant and require complex transactions that will confuse consumers as well as reducing help and support for them. A £9 million saving is admirable, but I should be interested to take a note of the final collateral costs involved in staff payoffs and extra funds spent on the more complex processing of consumer complaints during the transition. The Minister kindly hosted a meeting for myself and my noble friend Lord De Mauley in advance of the debate on Second Reading at which he said he did not have the exact figures for redundancies to be made during the merger. His officials mentioned that there were some figures from PriceWaterhouseCoopers which had predicted an audit for the potential transition, but that at that stage they were not conclusive. I should be grateful if the Minister could give an estimate of the total number of redundancies involved in the transition if he has any further information in that regard. There are many questions in this large group of amendments to which I hope the Minister will be able to give a full response. I understand that in some cases he will need written help to do so. However, I look forward to his words and to redrafting amendments in the light of his response for the Report stage. I beg to move.