Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Bill [HL]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lee of Trafford, and my noble friend Lord Borrie for their insightful contributions. Amendments Nos. 129 and 130 go over ground that we covered when we discussed Amendments Nos. 126 and 127, so I do not intend to repeat myself. Amendments Nos. 131, 132 and 137 remove the penalty charge regime for non-membership of redress schemes. However, it would make the Bill out of step with the Housing Act. More importantly it would take away one important weapon in the armoury of trading standards officers, to which my noble friend Lord Borrie referred. I think the intention of these amendments, if I read them rightly, is to ensure that an estate agent who is not a member of a redress scheme is referred to the OFT straightaway. The paragraphs of new Section 23B, which the amendment omits, place enforcement officers under a duty to notify the OFT if they believe that an estate agent is not a member of a scheme. However, when a trading standards enforcement officer finds out that an estate agent is not a member of a scheme, he or she can also issue a penalty charge notice and, as I mentioned at our previous sitting, can continue to issue notices. I do not think that the figure of the penalty notice is the most important element because that can be issued several times over and eventually lead to the banning of the estate agent. That provides a mechanism for giving immediate punishment and an incentive to comply. At the end of the day, we want compliance. Penalty charges also provide an intermediate step from the ultimate sanction of being banned from practising, as I mentioned. There are around 12,000 estate agency offices in the UK and only one Office of Fair Trading. If a penalty charge notice makes an estate agent join a redress scheme quickly, that frees up the OFT to focus on the persistent offenders who refuse to join a scheme and who deserve to be banned. Of course, the OFT can still consider cases where an estate agent has joined a scheme after being issued with a penalty charge notice if the circumstances warrant it. If these measures are to be taken seriously, it is important that they are enforceable. Taking away one of the intermediate and more proportionate means of punishing non-membership puts unreasonable pressure on the OFT, which may delay or prevent it tackling other serious instances of misconduct by estate agents. This is not what the Government are seeking to achieve. I hope that that clarifies matters.