Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Bill [HL]

Perhaps I may comment on the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Newton of Braintree, to whom I am most grateful for picking up on my brief comments at Second Reading which expressed surprise and queried the provision for redress schemes in the plural. I wondered whether some new type of competitive adjudication schemes would be introduced in this country for certain fields of interest. I agree with pretty well every word that the noble Lord has uttered. I would add only that it is not just this part of the Bill that talks about redress schemes in the plural; the whole of Schedule 6 is devoted to them in relation to estate agents and, therefore, envisages something remarkable. So far, we have not heard sufficient explanation from Her Majesty’s Government as to why that is the case and whether any precedents are being relied upon.