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

Lord Tunnicliffe 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.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I start by thanking both noble Lords for their general support for this order. Our amendments to the UK legislation made through this Scotland Act order will enable, as I hinted —or said—earlier, effective implementation of the Scottish Government’s decision to establish Consumer Scotland.

The few questions that arose were over the relationship and to do with the changes, and I hope that I can answer them. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, asked whether the advice function would continue to be performed in Consumer Scotland. I shall give the noble and learned Lord a little more detail on this. Consumer Scotland, as it will be called, will have five key functions. The first is a general function to provide consumer advocacy and advice—so the word “advice” is definitely in there. Secondly, it has a representative function to provide advice—again, it says “advice”—information and communication to other public bodies on consumer advocacy. Thirdly, it has a research and investigation function to research consumer matters and conduct investigations into consumer harm. Fourthly, it has an information function to provide public-facing consumer advice and information; and, finally, a recall of goods function, which will allow for the managing of records of recall of goods. As the noble and learned Lord will know, that is something that has been in England for some time.

I just add that Citizens Advice Scotland will still operate in Scotland. It will remain an important partner for Consumer Scotland and the Scottish Government in tackling consumer issues, providing advice to individuals and in a range of other areas, as I mentioned earlier, including social security and tackling poverty.

I shall try to answer a question from the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, on how the body might differ, and I shall perhaps add to what I have been saying. The 2020 Act created an independent consumer champion dedicated to representing the interests of consumers, so it will be a source of expertise, focused on advocating for change on issues that particularly affect people in Scotland. It will recognise Scotland’s distinct circumstances, such as its rural population and devolved industries. That would include matters of transportation, which I suspect will be of interest to the noble Lord, and the fact that there are particular specific issues in that respect for Scotland. I hope and believe that Consumer Scotland will create better outcomes for citizens in Scotland.

I hope that that gives a little bit more meat to the bones on the questions raised. To close, our support for the Scottish Government on the establishment of Consumer Scotland demonstrates Scotland’s two Governments working very well together, and the commitment of this Government to strengthen the devolution settlement. I hope that with those remarks, this order will be passed, and I commend the order to this Committee.