My Lords, I am afraid that I do not accept those arguments at all. New entrants will not be affected. If they are not operating in the market at the moment, they will be operating under the very process that is prescribed in the Bill. There is therefore no uncertainty for them. Furthermore, the only retrospection will be in how compensation is delivered. Any breach will have been under a contract or licence that already existed at the time that the breach occurred. Any breach of consumer law would have been a breach of the law at the time, and therefore susceptible to a court case brought by one or more consumers at that point. This is not retrospective legislation. It is simply tying up the delivery of existing legislation and existing licensing conditions.
If the Government continue to resist this, they will need better arguments. There is no retrospection in the sense that the noble Lord, Lord Deben, talked about earlier. He perhaps had a point. This simply concerns consumers who are currently under investigation. We also have to bear in mind, when talking about the detriment to consumers, that some of them might have started a court case had it not been for the fact that they knew that Ofgem was beginning to investigate the situation and that they might be precluded from bringing such a case.
The idea that resisting the amendment is in the interests of consumers, or that it should be resisted because it implies a breach of the principle—which I fully support—of not legislating retrospectively, is wrong. I hope that the Government will look at this again before Report. At this point, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.