Consumer Scotland Act 2020 (Consequential Provisions and Modifications) Order 2022

Lord Hope of Craighead Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation of the background to this instrument. Of course, it is set out very clearly in the Explanatory Memorandum, which I have read.

I have just one comment, which is on the change of name. The name Citizens Advice Scotland is very well known to people who live in Scotland, and the crucial word in the name is of course “advice”. As an ordinary consumer in Scotland in need of advice, the body to go to would be Citizens Advice Scotland. The new name going into the legislation is Consumer Scotland, which does not include the word “advice”, which begs the question of whether this new body continues to have the function of providing advice. As I understand what the Minister said, and what is set out in the Explanatory Memorandum, the answer is yes; there is no change in function, but there is a change in name.

I was not quite sure whether I picked up the Minister correctly as to whether Citizens Advice Scotland will exist as a body beneath the umbrella of Consumer Scotland, or whether its name will go altogether. If its name goes altogether, there is a question as to the extent to which Consumer Scotland will advertise and make it known to everybody in Scotland that it has an advisory function as well as an advocacy function. For the ordinary person in the street, that is possibly more important than the advocacy—which is important, of course, but not everybody in the street is thinking of it. People seeking advice want to know where to go.

Can the Minister reassure us that the advice function will not only continue to be performed but the people in Scotland will be aware that Consumer Scotland is the body to which to go?

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a bit of a maiden speech, in that I must have done at least 100 SIs over the past years, especially in that wonderful rush towards leaving the EU, but I have managed to avoid Scottish SIs until today. As a result, I found reading the SI and the Explanatory Memorandum something of a challenge. Everything I now say may be rubbish, because I might have got it wrong, but I do not really think that we are here to discuss the merits of Consumer Scotland.

It seems to me that the Scottish Government created Consumer Scotland, and as far as I can see that is their business, and they have to be accountable to their electorate over whether it is a good or a bad thing. To do its full job, as I understand it, it needs to take over responsibility of Citizens Advice Scotland with respect to energy, postal services and water, because they are not devolved areas, and therefore it is our responsibility to agree that these non-devolved areas shall be given to Consumer Scotland. As I said, to do this, it needs our authority, because those areas are not devolved. This oversight activity seems to have worked in the past with Citizens Advice Scotland, and I have no reason to believe that it will not work as well with Consumer Scotland. Our only interest should be whether those transfers will bring harm to those services in the rest of the UK—and, frankly, I do not see how it can possibly produce any harm.

As far as I can see, the other parts of the SI seem to be technical in nature, and we have no interest in whether Consumer Scotland is a good or a bad thing. That is the responsibility of the Scottish Government. I therefore fully support the draft instrument.