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Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Bill [HL]

I thought that I had qualified my criticisms of the National Consumer Council by saying that until fairly recently it was a bit of a sleeping dwarf. Excuse my sizeist language, but, at best, it under-punched its weight considerably and was not very effective. Of late, it has been far more effective and far more proactive. The injection of individuals from Postwatch and Energywatch could well carry on that process and add a dynamic to it. The idea that we should segment the consumer protection industry, as it were, is dangerous, because there are degrees of overlap in a number of areas and the degrees of expertise are common to many utility advocacy roles. It is possible to create a seamless organisation. For the moment, segmentation will continue in other areas, but there is a case to be made for further energising—perhaps I should use a better word—further injecting some urgency into the activities of the National Consumer Council, which has come a long way in a comparatively short time, along with Postwatch and Energywatch. Postwatch is a relatively new body, as is Energywatch. A number of people will leave, but there is always a turnover in such organisations and I imagine that a number of people will be interested to see what the new body is like and will hang on for a bit longer. Others will have been looking for a chance to leave and are taking it now. When you bring together public bodies, there will always be a degree of shake-out. All I can say is that while I do not expect us to have a vote on this amendment—we do not behave like that in these Committees—it should be rejected and the Government should be supported on this issue, with the qualifications that I have expressed.