Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 10: 10: Clause 7 , page 5, line 29, leave out ““may”” and insert ““must”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, with this amendment are grouped Amendments Nos. 11 to 13. They return to the issue of whether the Bill should lay a firm duty on the council with regard to the representative function in Clause 7, the research function in Clause 8, the information function in Clause 9 and the general powers of investigation in Clause 10; or whether it should simply have the power to do that. We explored that in Committee, but I felt that it merited further investigation in the light of the Minister's reply, as reported at col. GC155 of Hansard for 18 December. The Minister resisted the idea of the council having the duty as opposed to the power because he felt that the council should be able to set its own priorities, and that laying a duty on it would prohibit it from doing so. However, my amendment would not spell out in any way how the council should conduct its representative function under Clause 7(1)(a), (b) and (c); it would say simply that it must do these things. It should not have discretion on whether to provide advice and information to persons about consumer matters, and it should certainly not have discretion on whether to represent the views of consumers on consumer matters. That is the very core of what it is to do. I imagine that the Minister will say that that is covered in Clause 4, on the forward work programmes, but the fact that the council has its own clause, entitled ““The core functions””, means that those are its core functions. Therefore, despite the Minister’s resistance in Committee, it would be interesting to know why the Government are not laying a very firm duty on the council to perform those core functions. The research function is equally crucial to consumers, because if the council chooses not to obtain the information on consumer matters, it will be a fairly toothless creature. It must disseminate that advice to consumers, because that is the other reason for its being. On the general powers of investigation, I cannot understand how the Government can draft the clause so that the council could exercise any discretion as to whether it will investigate. Of course it will have the discretion to decide how it will investigate and how much resource it puts behind that investigation, but surely that is exactly what this council is for and exactly what consumers will be relying on. If the Government say that a Bill such as this is there to improve life for consumers, it really must be seen to have the power to do so. That is why I re-tabled these amendments. I beg to move.