Consumer Focus Wales

Ed Davey Excerpts

Wednesday 14th September 2011 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Edward Davey)]

May I start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) for securing the debate? As he said, he and my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams) came to see me in June, just after the consultation had begun, to press their case. My hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion has pressed his case again today with his usual energy and enthusiasm. He was right to discuss in his initial remarks the excellent work done by Consumer Focus Wales. Any changes made will not reflect on that work; in many ways, we want to build on it and its excellence in representing consumers in Wales.

My hon. Friend mentioned Sharon Mills, whose son Mason tragically died during an E. coli outbreak in Wales. Ms Mills showed through her excellent work on food safety with Consumer Focus Wales that citizens can play a role. It also shows that Consumer Focus Wales has done an excellent job.

My hon. Friend is right that we are still consulting, and the consultation will not close until the 27th of this month. To reassure him and other Members, particularly Members from Wales, that we are listening, I can tell him that officials from my Department will be in Cardiff next week talking to officials in the Welsh Government about what they want. We have a genuine desire to reach out, listen, consult and find a way forward, and to ensure that all the great things that Consumer Focus Wales has done are maintained and that the Welsh voice is heard in whatever we end up with as a result of the consultation.

We must await the end of the consultation process. We will consider all responses carefully, but we believe that our proposals to rationalise further the functions of consumer protection bodies, strengthening the front line of consumer protection while reducing the complexity, confusion and waste of the current wide variety of bodies, are a positive step forward for consumer advocacy in Wales and across the UK.

We have absolutely no intention of reducing the level of support afforded to consumers across Wales; in fact, the whole purpose of the exercise is to see how we can improve it. I agree with the assertions made by the Welsh Government and Consumer Focus Wales that Consumer Focus Wales’s functions in representing Welsh consumers should be retained in Wales. The organisation’s important role in providing support for particularly vulnerable consumers, for example, which my hon. Friend asked about, will remain under the new regime.

Exactly how that role will be delivered is obviously still under consideration and will need to include comments from the ongoing consultation, but as I said, we are talking with interested parties, including the Welsh Government and Citizens Advice, to design a model of consumer representation in Wales that meets our objective. We believe that the concerns expressed by my hon. Friend and Consumer Focus Wales are not insurmountable, and I hope that we can cover them all in our considerations.

[Jonathan Edwards]

Consumer Focus Wales has an agreed funding formula with Consumer Focus. Will the Minister ensure that any successor body has funding comparable to that currently enjoyed by Consumer Focus Wales?

[Mr Davey]

The hon. Gentleman will understand that that is part of the deliberations and consultation. I cannot pre-judge the findings of the consultation, but funding is clearly key among our decisions.

One big issue raised is governance in Wales. We see no reason why the new model cannot replicate the current one. We understand how important it is that decisions affecting Welsh consumers should be made in Wales. I hope that that reassures hon. Members.

We do not want to add layers of bureaucracy. In these difficult times, that would be wrong, as my hon. Friend said. Although it is important that each country should have national representation on issues of specific interest to it, universal industries should also continue to have a single national voice and should not have to negotiate three or four times whenever they wish to do something.

For example, if Royal Mail wished to make even a minor change to their service, devolvement of consumer advocacy, which some have proposed, would require them to have detailed conversations three or four times over, which could lead to differing levels of service. I hope that hon. Members can understand that some industries covering the whole United Kingdom are not devolved, and that we do not want to add unnecessary costs that will not serve the consumer.

[Mr Mark Williams]

I am pleased to hear that the discussions are being held between the Minister’s Department and our colleagues in the National Assembly Government. That is important, and I wish those discussions well. Can my hon. Friend understand the frustration of some of us who are committed devolutionists and who look forward to the time when power can be transferred and Ministers in Cardiff, rather than here, will decide the appropriate future structure? That is my fundamental point, coupled equally with the need to provide a good service.

[Mr Davey]

I understand how my hon. Friend feels about that point. I hope that we can come to some agreement, not just in this debate but in due course. We want to give consumers and others greater clarity about who is championing their rights. Consumers need to know who their advocate is. We want to increase the impact of publicly funded consumer advocacy domestically and internationally and to reduce overlap. We want all that to be delivered by a known and trusted organisation with high visibility and outreach. I will talk tomorrow to the Welsh Minister, Carl Sargent, about the issue. I hope that that indicates to colleagues that we are taking Welsh concerns seriously.

Citizens Advice in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland is widely recognised and trusted by the public. In the surveys, its brand recognition is extremely strong and it is extremely well trusted. That is one reason why we have shaped the consultation as we have. It is a distinct advantage for an organisation with such strong recognition and trust to be up front, championing the consumer.

[Jonathan Evans]

I will be brief, as I am looking at the time. As the Minister is praising Citizens Advice, in which we all join him, I will share with him the observation that Citizens Advice is under great pressure. Other Members of Parliament and I are now seeing people who cannot get into Citizens Advice surgeries. Is he taking account of Citizens Advice’s capacity to take on the responsibility?

[Mr Davey]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman made that point, as it enables me to clarify something that has been slightly confused in this debate. One must remember that at the moment, Citizens Advice has a national organisation, which undertakes much of its research for consumers, and local bureaux. We are talking about the national organisation, Citizens Advice, taking forward the work of Consumer Focus and other organisations to ensure a powerful research and expertise base for advocacy, education and information at the national level.

[Jonathan Edwards]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Davey]

I must end my remarks, I am afraid.

That will be in no way affected by local pressures. Most funding for the national work comes either from levies or from the taxpayer; a lot of the local funding comes from local government. They are two connected organisations, and the strength is in their connection.

Citizens Advice, the national organisation, gets information fed up from the grassroots all the time. That is one reason why the brand is so trusted and why the organisation has a special, and perhaps unique, role to play in our country. Citizens Advice has local representation through its bureaux in communities. Although those bureaux will not be conducting research, they will be able to feed into the analysis. That is particularly important for the most vulnerable in our society. It is another reason why I think that our model has a lot of strengths.

I emphasise that Citizens Advice has an excellent track record of advocacy on behalf of consumers at a national and local level. We want to build on that track record and the brand awareness that it enjoys and direct resources for consumer education, information, policy and advice to Citizens Advice. We also want to bring together local, bottom-up information with the national research and expertise currently carried out by Consumer Focus, which is, as we have heard, of extremely high quality. That will create a powerful consumer body to which businesses will have to listen.

We do not intend to lose the experience and expertise held at Consumer Focus. Instead, we want to bring together its policy and research expertise, especially in the energy and postal services sectors, with the long-standing success of Citizens Advice and its bureaux in helping consumers. By operating in that way, we can connect consumer policy and research functions with the concerns and problems of citizens in their communities. There are benefits to be realised by making that connection. We remain committed to working with all, including those across Wales, to make it a reality.

Question put and agreed to.