Before the noble Baroness withdraws her amendment perhaps I may ask her a question arising from the statement made in advance by the Citizens Advice service, which is going to be the home of information, advice, education and advocacy on general consumer matters under the Regulated Industries Unit. This is one of the best pieces of news in the Bill because it will bring together the technical expertise, Consumer Focus and information gathered by the CABs and a unit to represent consumer interests in the regulated sectors—gas services, electrical services, postal services and so on.
This is very important because the regulatory authorities do not always appear to be sympathetic in areas in which they should be. It is not very gratifying or appeasing for consumers when one of the regulated bodies receives a multimillion pound fine for being in breach of their responsibilities because the consumers who have suffered do not receive a single penny of that. All they hear about is this very big sum and they do not know whether it has made any difference to the practices. Also, it has been a very long-standing argument of mine—and I hope that it will be solved by this—that Citizens Advice and Consumer Focus should be able to take up individual matters. That is important because the big regulators will not take up matters such as how the bill is presented. Very often bills are presented in a most confusing and frightening way. EDF sends out bills that look, at first, very frightening to the ordinary eye and certainly to an aged person—particularly when they see £1,000 appearing in big letters on the front, although it is not what they will in fact have to pay. It is an assumption of what they might have to pay if they used a certain amount of electricity, or whatever. This is an important provision and I hope that the noble Baroness will take account of that before she withdraws the amendment.