Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Borrie for his clear exposition, with which I wholly concur. We had a lively and helpful debate on this amendment on Report. From that debate and the earlier debate in Committee, it is clear that the intention behind the amendment is essentially the need for transparencyin the Government’s dealings with the new council and public accountability. I can again confirm our wholehearted support for these intentions. The discretion afforded to the Secretary of State by Clause 18 not to publish a report prepared for him by the council would be necessary to deal with particular circumstances, such as when the report contained sensitive information that was commercially confidential or price sensitive, as my noble friend Lord Borrie outlined. Such information might be necessary to support the recommendations in the report. However, a requirement on the Secretary of State to publish every report submitted to him might create a deterrent effect on external experts or stakeholders who might be reluctant to provide advice because it might be disclosed. Such advice may be shared with the council only on the understanding that it was not to be made public. Requiring the Secretary of State to publish every report submitted to him under Clause 18 could therefore deter the provision of useful or important information to aid the preparation of the report bythe council, to the detriment of the quality of the final report and the subsequent advice provided to the Secretary of State. I cannot believe that that isthe intention of the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, or the noble Lord, Lord Razzall. A key consideration here is that there may be good reasons why the content of reports prepared and submitted to the Secretary of State to aid the decision-making process should not be published. While we envisage that the Secretary of State will generally wish to publish any report submitted to him under Clause 18, it is important that this discretion is retained in order to allow for what is appropriate in each case. If the council determines that the issue of the report is one of interest to consumers more generally, as we envisage will generally be the case, Clause 18 does not prevent the council from exercising eitheror, indeed, both of the powers under Clause 17 or Clause 19(2) to prepare and publish reports or advice and information for the purpose of bringing issues of importance to the attention of the consumer. A report prepared under the powers in Clause 17, for example, that covered the same issue as a report prepared under Clause 18, could be published without information that was considered to be sensitive and in a format that may be more in line with the needs of consumers. In light of my explanation and the fact that we have discussed this on several occasions, I hope noble Lords will understand why the Government do not feel able to accept this amendment.