Consumer Rights Bill
Debate between Lord Blencathra and Lord Whitty
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, I support the thrust of this amendment. As my noble friend Lady Wilcox said, the regulators were all set up at different times and in different ways. I am not sure whether it is best to have an amendment in this Bill or to look at regulations applying to all the different regulators and toughen up their charters, so to speak. Perish the thought that I should disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, but, leaving aside the London tideway tunnel, my experience of Ofwat was that it was slightly better than many of the other regulators because while the water and sewage industry needs billions of pounds’ worth of infrastructure development, at least Ofwat keeps a tight grip on many of the companies and guards consumers’ interests slightly better than some other regulators.
Leaving water aside, in my experience the worst regulator was Ofcom, which is utterly wet and useless in regulating telephone operators. Perhaps it is, understandably, too focused on radio and the independent television sector and on selling off 4G and things like that, but I do not feel it has been very effective in regulating mobile telephone companies.
I hope the Minister will accept the principle that regulators have to do more to protect consumers’ interests, tailor-made to their current legislation and the job they are doing in their own regulatory field. This Bill may not be the best vehicle for such legislation, but I hope the Minister will accept the principle that regulators have to do more to protect consumers’ interests.
Lord Whitty
My Lords, I, too, support the thrust of this amendment. As I said on an earlier amendment, the consumer interest has often been lost or redefined in the way in which regulators operate. They have often very effectively—I accept that some are more effective than others—looked at the outcome for consumers in terms of price and particular aspects of consumer service. This amendment requires them also to look at process—as to how customers are treated and informed and how prices are set and complaints are dealt with. It would probably be better if something relatively common appeared in the individual pieces of legislation for each regulator, but we have an opportunity in a general consumer Bill to set down the principle. I would hope that the Government could accept that the principle should be set down in something like the words here. The noble Baroness is probably pushing the boat a little far with subsection (4) in that no doubt somebody at the Treasury has already had a look at it and will be advising the Minister appropriately from that point of view. So while I support the principle, in reality the Minister will not be able to accept that—but I hope that she can accept the rest of it.