My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving me the opportunity to say what a good job I think trading standards do in many of those very difficult cases, having worked with them for many years. It is true that many government services have suffered from cuts as a result of the need to get the economy back on track and deal with the deficit problems that we inherited.
As noble Lords know, spending and resourcing decisions about local trading standards are made by the individual local authorities. They, rather than central government, are best placed to make decisions about the enforcement needs of their local communities. However, I have talked to them about how you can focus and get local authorities to focus on the real areas of importance, and they are trying to do that in often deeply difficult circumstances. BIS greatly values their work protecting consumers from everything from rogue traders to scammers and so on. That is one of the reasons why we have set up the National Trading Standards Board and work with the Local Government Association on trying to improve enforcement in local authority areas in important areas. Of course, product safety and risk of death always come very high on their agenda.