My Lords, having been given the lead-in, I will rise to speak at this point, and I do so very much from the point of view of the consumer. In the helpful note that was sent to me and, I am sure, to others by the Minister on 27 October, she rightly stresses that the list is not definitive and the views of business, regulators and other respondents will inform the legislation. Something that always worries me, of course, is that business and regulators have whole departments that are able to respond on this while the consumer—or, as I will come it, the patient—never does. They do not know about these things and therefore we have a particular duty to think about that.
As my noble friend Lord Stevenson has said, the first list sets out the statutory bodies that are under consideration for being brought into scope. I find the inclusion of the Charity Commission difficult to understand. It is to protect the use of charitable money and make sure that it is spent on charitable aims and objectives. It is not to further the interests of business, to make business more efficient or to help growth. It is a protection, particularly for people who donate to charities, to ensure that their money is used correctly, so I find it slightly surprising that the commission is in there. Again, though, I worry about how the sort of people who donate to charities would ever get their views heard if there was a risk that that regulator had in some way to take more account of the interests of businesses that may have a charitable arm than those of individual donors.
There are two others on the list that I worry about for similar reasons. One is the Information Commissioner and the other is the Pensions Regulator. I used to sit on the determinations panel of the Pensions Regulator, but I no longer have that interest to declare. They are both protectors of the interests of groups of the public. The Information Commissioner is in a way quasijudicial because it is looking at whether a company has perhaps misused its mailing lists or, in the case of a bank, its bank details. It would worry me a lot if it was the bank that was giving evidence about whether the regulation of its data by the Information Commissioner was too intrusive while the views of people like us with bank accounts or any other data—our shopping experience with a big retailer or whatever it might be—will not have our views heard when this is looked at. I have concerns about a body like the Information Commissioner that is there to protect the public.
I have similar concerns about the Pensions Regulator, which is also in a sense quasijudicial. Certainly, the sort of cases that I used to hear were dealt with in a court. The regulator is there to protect pensions very often where a company may be in difficulties and there are really difficult issues to be dealt with around its pension scheme. The regulator is there to protect the pensions and to look after those interests. If that regulator is told that it must look at the business interests rather than those of the pensioners, that would worry me. Again, I do not know how would-be pensioners, who have no idea about this or that they may be in a scheme which the Pensions Regulator is looking at, will be heard.
Lastly, although they come under the second sub-heading “Regulators for further discussion”, are the bodies regulated by the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care, which is what I think we used to call the professions allied to medicine, and now with social work included. Again, this is about setting standards to protect patients—which is what they will usually be, although sometimes in social care they will clients rather than patients. A big care agency may say, “Look, this regulation is a bit hard on us”, but these standards are there to protect us as patients, as people being looked after in care homes or as whatever—the Committee is fairly familiar with the areas that this covers.
These provisions are very much there to protect users, consumers, patients, residents of care homes and anyone who has information held by a big retailer or company, and I hope that the Government can offer a little more justification as to why the regulator will be perhaps nudged to look towards growth and the business aspect rather than the interests of the consumer and the public.