Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Bill [HL]

I have a feeling that we have been around the houses on this one either with regard to energy or to postal services. I thought that my noble friend Lord Whitty made the key point earlier: as long as the specific expertise in the particular segmented consumer bodies is not lost, there are advantages in the bodies coming together within the umbrella of the National Consumer Council because the NCC has a larger role for consumers generally. It can bring to the table a power of knowledge and advocacy which is broader than the other bodies. There probably would not have been separate consumer bodies in those different fields if it there had not been different legislation at different stages of parliamentary life that required such consumer advocacy bodies to be created. There was the same position with regulators. We had separate regulators for gas, electricity and the other privatised industries because the legislation did not come forward at one moment but at different points of time. Now, later, one can look back and see whether a bringing together of either the regulatory bodies, or, in this case, the consumer bodies, is desirable. I think that the Government have made a very good case for saying that that is desirable in the particular instances proposed in the Bill. We have discussed the matter of merger several times. The noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, made the case earlier, but I think that it has been answered.