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Consumer Credit Bill

moved Amendment No. 11:"After Clause 42, insert the following new clause—"    ““OFT GUIDANCE (1)   After section 183 of the 1974 Act insert— ““183A   OFT GUIDANCE    No guidance is to be published under this Act without the approval of the Secretary of State.”” (2)   In preparing or revising guidance under that Act, the OFT shall consult such persons as it thinks fit.”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, on reflection, subsection (2) of the amendment is not necessary. I therefore propose to speak only to subsection (1). I will not expect the Minister to address subsection (2). As I explained in Committee, the corresponding amendment then proposed, and this amendment, would require the OFT to produce guidance before the provisions on unfair relationships came into force. It is therefore concerned with ensuring greater certainty about what is meant by ““unfair relationships””. I reiterated that there is a lack of detail in the Bill; and that far too many of the significant policy areas had been left to secondary legislation and guidance from the OFT, none of which had been clarified by disclosures to date. I said that this was unsatisfactory and would create uncertainty not only for business but for consumers. In his response to the corresponding amendment in Committee, the Minister said that the second part of the amendment then proposed was unnecessary because the relevant provisions of the Bill already require the OFT to consult on the guidance. Accordingly, we have dropped that part of the amendment. However, in response to the first part of the amendment, the Minister said:"““Once the Bill is passed, the OFT will consult on the guidance, which will be expanded to give examples of requirements and more details of the procedure that the OFT will go through””.—[Official Report, 16/11/05; col. GC 314.]" The preoccupation with undebated guidance seems to be an abuse of Parliament. Important principles setting out the framework within which regulators operate should be set out in law and not left to guidance. Accordingly, I beg to move.