Compensation Bill [HL]

The noble Lord and I are in complete agreement on the role of the regulator—namely, that the regulator should not promote commercial interests and that, as we are absolutely clear about, it has a public information role to increase public awareness. Its statutory role has been drafted in a similar manner to that of the Financial Services Authority. I think that the noble Lord and I would agree completely that, to make sure that we have effective consumer protection, we need the regulator to be able to publicise the fact that it has responsibility for regulation and that, when consumers seek claims management advice, they should do so from an authorised person. That is not, of course, commercial promotion activity. It is simply designed to help consumers to have the best possible information so that they can make the best possible decision. As far as I am concerned, that is where it stops. It is about saying to consumers, ““We exist and we are regulating this sector””. As the noble Lord said, that will give the sector a strong kite mark, so that people can believe in it and recognise that those companies that are authorised can be trusted in that context. That is what I think the role is for—no more than that. Whoever and however we designate the regulator—and we will give as much information on our deliberations on that in the next few weeks as we possibly can—it will be a critical factor in the credibility of the whole process. I know that the noble Lord was probing with his amendment, so I hope that he will feel that he has got exactly the answer that he wants, which is that I completely agree with him.