My Lords, the good news for the Committee is that this is the last it will hear from me for a bit. I will hand over to my noble friend Lord Mitchell, whose great success in the Financial Services Bill will, I hope, make the Minister quake as he receives my noble friend’s amendments.
The first of the two amendments in this group, which I move on behalf of my noble friend Lord Whitty and me, concerns the make up of the CMA board, and ensures that, as has already been mentioned, at least one of its members has expertise in representing the interests of consumers. There is a large pool on
which to draw for this. For example, they may be former employees or board members of ombudsman schemes or consumer bodies or panels, or else active in the wider consumer movement. I know from the testimony of the financial industry and not just the consumer movement how well received Mick McAteer’s appointment has been, in his work at both the Financial Reporting Council and now the Financial Services Authority. He was formerly with Which?, has been a consumer advocate with long experience of representing consumers at both UK and EU levels, and has brought realism grounded in consumer experience, expertise and a clear consumer focus to the FSA for the past three years—to widespread acclaim. Earlier, a former chair of the National Consumer Council—not one of the two with us today—proved herself to be so invaluable to the FSA that it promoted her to become its vice-chair. Other examples abound.
Our proposal is modest. It is for just one such person, but having that in the Bill also reinforces the fact that the CMA is all about consumer interests and that consumers’ voices must be heard at the highest level. As I said previously in response to a question by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, this is not instead of a consumer panel. No one person can represent all consumer interests. What is interesting is that that person can be a channel and focus, albeit that they take the full corporate responsibility for the whole board.
The second amendment in the group, Amendment 24BK, is based on the assumption, which we do not necessarily share, about the proposed panels and the tiers mechanism in the new architecture. We have argued that that might not be for the best. For the moment, accepting that that structure is there, our proposal is again to emphasise the need for consumer and competition experts on CMA panels to avoid the risk of making their deliberations insufficiently consumer focused. That would make sure that the CMA and its decision-making panels represented the interests of consumers throughout their work. I beg to move.