Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Lord Maclennan of Rogart Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech]

The noble Lord makes a good point. I am a long suffering commuter and I will not bore the House with my experiences on rail and bus. I do not feel that the voice of the consumer has been properly heard. I have stood on Oxford railway station and argued with the guards in relation to the passenger charter when the queues were too long and they would not let us on. I am not convinced that rail passengers are well protected at the moment. This passenger body exists but things are bad on the ground. I just hope that someone more expert than me can do more for those such as myself who have suffered.

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

My Lords, this has been an authoritative debate which has brought into the discussion on the future of consumer protection the voices of those who have given great public service in the field and who speak from direct knowledge. My personal credentials are somewhat dated although I was a Minister at the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection when the National Consumer Council was established in 1975. My concern about the inclusion of Consumer Focus in Schedule 1 reflects concerns that have been expressed across the Committee: namely, that it is not clear how the functions exercised by that body, which were endorsed by Parliament as recently as three years ago, should be redistributed. It has been suggested that the work of Consumer Focus should pass to Citizens Advice. I am bound to say that in its present form it would not seem to me sensible to pass the work of the NCC to the Citizens Advice network. That body draws its strength from its localism, from its ability to speak for the individual and from its selfless commitment to work with all the other agencies, tribunals and sources of legal advice to amplify the effectiveness of individual citizen protection. The work of the NCC has always been very different. I do not believe that a marriage between these two bodies would work. In fact, it would probably lead to a subsequent divorce.

Before Parliament takes a final decision on this, we need to have much greater exposure of the thinking across government about how consumers should be protected, particularly in the times in which we are living.

When the NCC was set up, inflation was rising to the peak of 26 per cent. We are not in that situation at present, but we see inflation rising by an amount which is approximately twice that predicted by the Bank of England a year ago. There are very clear threats to individual consumers in the present economic climate. The voices of those consumers will be represented in their individual difficulties and Citizens Advice has a very great role to play in that. Its work will be enormously added to by the changes in legal aid which have been adumbrated—indeed announced—by the Government. But it does not seem to me to be an organisation that is at all suitable for work which requires probing, research and access to information which, notwithstanding the changes in freedom of information and data protection, is still very hard to grapple with. It is even harder to influence the way power is exercised by those commercial bodies that have it.

I am not attempting to turn back the clock. I am susceptible to the arguments that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, made earlier that there could be a number of different ways of ensuring that the voice of consumers is expressed. I am clear, however, that an ad hoc active citizenship role cannot provide that. It needs to be professional; it needs to be committed; it needs to be knowledgeable; and it needs to be authoritative if it is going to influence policy judgments. We have that at present. We have an authoritative body. If a complete rethink of consumer protection is required, then I profoundly hope that no steps will be taken to implement any change of this kind unless and until the voices around the industry and around the country have been thoroughly tapped into and collated, and a consensus is arrived at how best to give structure to the change. I do not think that that is impossible, but at present it is not in the forefront of people's imaginations or discussions and we need to get it there again. It is of interest that in 1974, at a time of economic crisis, the Labour Government established a separate department of state to try to deal with these matters. That was taking upon government responsibility and accountability. I remember well having to answer questions about these matters. My noble friend was a very distinguished predecessor.

[Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes]

My noble friend is almost bound to have to add that the Department of Prices and Consumer Affairs was created by a Government—of whom he was the Minister for Prices and Consumer Affairs—that presided over an inflation rate of more than 26 per cent, which we inherited.

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

My noble friend must have been momentarily nodding during the part of my speech in which I referred to inflation of 26 per cent. I was about to refer to the embarrassment of having to answer questions about the prices of fundamental items in the domestic budget at that time.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, if we are now going into history, it should be put on record that the inflation rate, which peaked at 26 per cent, was going down at a substantial rate by the 1979 election after the beneficial influence of the Lib-Lab pact.

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

I am not trying to resurrect history tonight, but merely to call in aid some of the relevant factors. It is true that inflation dropped to 10 per cent, but that is still more than three times what it is at present.

I agree that the nexus and concatenation of consumer protection bodies played a considerable role in helping to focus policy-making on what was necessary. I appeal to the Government to recognise the inadequacy of the present proposals for change. The Bill is primarily about winding up bodies, not about indicating what is to take their place. That is one of its defects. It is an attempt to make things possible, but it will not command the approval of Parliament if we do not know what are to be the alternatives, and if we are not satisfied that they are satisfactory and will deliver what the bodies that are for the chop have delivered. No one can pretend that this body has passed its sell-by date or ceased to have a useful potential purpose in future. I say yes to rationalisation and reorganisation—but let us know how it is to be done.

[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, briefly, I support the amendment. We have had an excellent debate. I cannot believe that the Minister, who knows a lot about this subject, is not somewhat uneasy in the light of what she has heard. We have had excellent contributions from my noble friends Lady Hayter, Lord Whitty and Lord Borrie, and the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, who really know their stuff in this area, as I know she does. If she is thinking about how to win an argument within government for a change of policy on this issue, perhaps I may suggest that abolishing the National Consumer Council—Consumer Focus—is a deeply anti-big society move. If you look at the history of the consumer movement in Britain, you will see that in the 1950s there was a tremendous growth of interest in consumerism on the part of social democrats, such as the late Lord Young of Dartington and some of the progressives from the Conservative Party who wanted to see a different kind of politics from the clash between employers and trade unions, and who wanted a third voice—a consumer voice—to be represented.