---

Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Bill [Lords]

It is not my intention to spend much time discussing the parts of the Bill that deal with estate agents. However, the exchange between my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East (James Duddridge) and the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Dr. Turner) prompts me to bring forward some remarks I had intended to make later in my speech. I am indebted to the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which has enabled me to draw some definitive conclusions about the relative popularity of estate agents and Members of Parliament. I have good news for the hon. Gentleman: we do indeed shade estate agents. The survey states:"““These cards show different types of people. Please put them on this board to show which you would generally trust to tell the truth and which you wouldn’t.””" The answers showed that family doctors scored 93 per cent.; ““your local MP”” scored 48 per cent.; MPs in general scored 29 per cent.; estate agents scored 24 per cent. and journalists on newspapers such as The Sun, The Mirror or the Daily Star scored 9 per cent. But where are Ministers? Their score is 23 per cent.—1 per cent. lower than the estate agents they aspire to regulate in the Bill. Perhaps we should have a Bill to deal with Ministers—not in this Government, but Governments in general—rather than the Bill we are considering. There is a certain irony in the ranking.