Consumer Credit Bill

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley. A thread runs through what those of us who are generally in support of the Bill have been trying to say. It runs through our comments on a number of Bills that emanate from the Department of Trade and Industry. We believe that we must, wherever possible, retain the right to parliamentary scrutiny of the proposals, the regulations and the actions of non-elected bodies. The Minister earlier gave the game away, because he said that surely it was better for the OFT to be making decisions on the matter rather than the Government. I entirely agree with him: no one on these Benches or indeed the Conservative Benches is suggesting that it would be better for the Government to make decisions. We are suggesting that we need to have proper parliamentary scrutiny and that legislation that emanates from the Department of Trade and Industry should be in such a form that there can be proper democratic scrutiny of regulations in both Houses of Parliament. That is the point we are trying to achieve and there is a consistency and a thread through the amendments that we and the Conservative Opposition have proposed to try to achieve that. I agree that if there was a choice between the Government and the OFT deciding, we would choose the OFT. If there was a choice between the OFT and Parliament deciding, we would choose Parliament.