My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, for provoking a wide-ranging and thoughtful debate. As I mentioned in respect of the previous amendment, we are consolidating and updating consumer law investigatory powers in order to make enforcement more efficient and more effective. I will try not to be too repetitious of that debate, but I will repeat something I said in earlier sessions of this Committee: I feel strongly that trading standards officers around the country do a very good job. I have dealt with them a lot over many years and I am very grateful for the work they do.
The Government are keen to support the honest trader and to tackle the rogue, so there is a joint and agreed objective in these areas. I am going to speak at some length, for which I apologise in advance. I hope that noble Lords will realise that our heart is in the right place and we are trying to do the right thing in this area. As I have said, we are consolidating and simplifying consumer law investigatory powers across 60 pieces of legislation, setting them all in one place. This variety of instruments can be a cause of confusion and a burden for enforcers as well as businesses. We are also clarifying the law to make it easier for trading standards to work across their local authority boundaries in order to tackle the rogue traders who cause real harm to consumers and damage consumer confidence and reputable businesses.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, asked about what had happened with the consultation and about the benefit to consumers. I can confirm that we did
have mixed responses, but the British Retail Consortium and the Federation of Small Businesses, which together represent a large number of small businesses, support the notice provision. Businesses in general welcome it for reasons that I will come on to explain. It reduces the burdens and unnecessary costs that they are facing, and those costs are in turn passed on to consumers in a competitive market. The Government consider it vital that trading standards and other consumer law enforcers can protect us from businesses that are deliberately or inadvertently breaking the law.