Compensation Bill [HL]

I shall certainly try. Mr Boleat said that he thought that the figures that we had worked out for £1.5 million and £2.1 million plus set-up costs of £500,000 were reasonable. To complete what he said, he said that the estimates for the NDPB, which we set at about £4.2 million to 4.7 million, with a much higher set-up cost of £1.5 million, were at the top end of any likely costs. He did not say that they were outside any likely costs but that they were at the top end. I would certainly want to look at those again. We are considering and the kind of registration fees that might come in and the fees that might be charged would give us a minimum of £300,000, but I am not able to give the noble Lord the precise details of where the £500,000 came from. In other words, I do not know what was done in terms of assumption, off the top of my head, about costs of office accommodation, location of accommodation, staffing and so on, which would be the basis of the set-up costs to a large degree. I shall of course write to the noble Lord and give him as much information as I can on that. The reason why we considered different models is to try to ensure that when we approach how best to do the regulation we get the most cost-effective model as well. As the noble Lord will know, part of that is to think about the flexibility that we would want in the system to enable the regulator to take on additional areas of work where appropriate, or to recognise that we may begin by saying that there are 500 companies, but that may reduce substantially. We have looked at reductions that have occurred elsewhere to see whether we can learn any lessons. For example, it was estimated that 4,000 would seek licences under the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004, but the figure was actually 1,000. The Security Industry Authority allowed for 100,800 door supervisors to be licensed in 2004–05. Halfway through the following year only 31,500 had been issued. Mortgage Code Compliance Board initial research indicated 50,000 mortgage intermediaries, but only 13,500 firms were licensed. I have asked officials to look very carefully at what we know about what tends to happen in a marketplace and work on the basis that the figures could drop substantially and what that would mean for regulation. On the one hand, it points to what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has been saying to us—that if it looks as if the figure is going to drop by quite a lot, there are implications for what kind of regulator one uses. That is a fundamental part of the work that I am doing—to consider how best to regulate the sector, precisely because, if far fewer companies are to be involved in it, one has to look at the best use of public resources in setting up something that is independent and free-standing. On the other hand, the market might be small now, but we can envisage that there are obvious other areas of work for the regulator to do, that might be all right. A better proposition might be to attach the work to another organisation, or to do it in a slightly different way, with a kind of sub-contracting operation from the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor. It is a fundamental part of the approach that I am trying to take, as the noble Lord would expect, because I do not want to do anything other than use public funds appropriately.