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Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Bill [HL]

I, like my colleague and noble friend Lord O’Neill, find it curious that subsection (2) should be here at all. It states only that the Secretary of State ““may”” publish; surely there is no need to require the Government to publish a report for which they have specifically asked—but I do not see much point in the amendment, either. As my noble friend indicated, the National Consumer Council has over the years published numerous reports, and he, who has been critical of that organisation in the past, none the less admits that many of those reports were of value. My point is simply that there is hardly a need to insert ““must”” instead of ““may””, because the National Consumer Council could publish the reports as it wishes and that has been common practice. I know that this may sound unhelpful: I see neither the point of the Government’s subsection, nor any point in the amendment.