UK Parliament / Open data

Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

I thank the Minister for that. How interesting it is that we can have sector specialists such as lawyers and accountants, and they are not conflicted, but you can talk about someone coming from a consumer background and it is immediately assumed that they will be conflicted. Everyone in this Room is a consumer, and consumer representatives speak on our behalf, whether to individual providers, regulators or anyone else. Just because they have done that and built up that expertise, they may be conflicted, but a sector specialist such as an accountant who no doubt has worked with some of these companies is not—I find that very interesting.

It has been very clear that having people from a consumer background on the Legal Services Board and the FSA is valued by people from the industry. To write that into the requirement seems the least that we can do. I see that most of the words that the Minister read were actually written before I had spoken, so perhaps when he looks again at what we have actually said, he may be able to be a little more responsive should we need to bring this back. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
741 cc353-4GC 
Session
2012-13
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords Grand Committee
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