Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Bill [HL]

I declare an interest as chair of the current National Consumer Council. I wish to address the remarks of the noble Baroness in relation to the Question that Clause 15 shall stand part of the Bill, because the inclusion of the clause imposes on the new body the obligation which currently rests with Postwatch to consider post office closures and the plans for changing the post office network. The noble Baroness suggests that this issue will be lost in the new organisation. But the benefit of it being looked at in a wider organisation is that the rural consumers and the deprived urban areas which are losing their post offices suffer from the multiple withdrawal of services, not simply those of the Post Office. The post office has been key in many respects, but they are also losing their local shops, their garages and, in some cases, their pubs. Consumers and many public services are withdrawing to the larger towns. For all those reasons, post office closures are part of a bigger consumer issue. The expertise of wider consumer areas can be brought to bear, as the noble Baroness said, on creative, innovative solutions in providing those services within rural areas. I therefore suggest to her that putting this matter into a bigger organisation will make it more likely that the concerns of consumers in rural areas will be met. Provided we maintain the expertise of Postwatch within the new organisation rather than confining it to looking at the future of the ““post office””—the local post office branch—this may well be part of a bigger and better solution for many rural consumers. I would very much regret the removal of Clauses 14 and 15 from the Bill because I do not think that would serve the interests of the rural consumers that these amendments purport to represent.