Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008

My Lords, I have two points to make on this. One point is procedural—which is unusual, coming from me—and the other is substantive. We ought to register the concern that a year ago we had the Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Act, under which these regulations are laid. They are serious regulations that impose criminal offences on people, leading to two years’ imprisonment for people who are in breach of both sets of regulations. From these Benches I have long argued, in relation to consumer legislation, that there ought to be a prohibition on unfair commercial practices, and I feel, although this is not a point I often make, that this ought to be dealt with by primary legislation rather than by regulation. After all, we are not in a position to amend these regulations; either we throw them out, which I do not propose to do this evening and I know the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, will not, or we approve them. The imposition of a prohibition on unfair commercial practices, which from these Benches we have long argued for, coupled with significant repeals of Trades Descriptions Act legislation, is an important point, and I fail to understand why the Government, knowing that the directive was going to come out, could not have postponed the legislation on the Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Act until it had.