My Lords, I am disappointed by that reply because I do not think that the Minister is right in the description of consumer law. You could write the regulations so that you would have to go to the ombudsman before going to such a system. The cost to consumers of starting a process in the court is prohibitive but, were it a collective provision and the ombudsman had found in a certain way, that cost would fall on no one.
If you take the equivalent of the PPI scandal in the financial sector, there is not a collective redress but there is a collective problem. If anything, the banks probably have paid out more money than they otherwise would have done had they offered a collective form of redress right at the beginning of the process. They have been obliged to try to find all sorts of people who may or may not have been aware that they had been mischarged.
However, it is clear that the Government are not prepared to pursue this issue in that context, which is disappointing. I also think that the briefing that the Minister has is not entirely in parallel with what is being discussed in BIS and in the consultation on consumer protection in other arenas. This is an area where common problems arise much more frequently than in the normal buying and selling and contractual arrangements throughout the economy. That is because everyone has similar Bills and similar charges whereas in other places there are differentiations to be made. Therefore, this is a prime potential sector for collective redress. However, for tonight, I accept the Minister’s rebuff and I will say no more. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.