My Lords, this is probably a helpful amendment from my noble friend. The reason I say “probably” is that I am not sure that it is asking all the right questions: it is asking two of the right questions, but I suspect that there is a third one as well. One of the good provisions—which I actually think should be incorporated in all of the legislation that goes through Parliament—is the one introducing some mechanism for reviewing, once the legislation has passed, how much the powers that have been granted to whoever have been exercised, whether they have worked, and so on, and what the cost has been. Paragraphs (a) and (b) here are very much a part of that. I would like to see those incorporated in every piece of legislation that we pass because it would be helpful. I sometimes think that government departments put forward these things and then nobody ever looks at them again until perhaps 20 years later, when there is a Law Commission review as to whether anything has actually happened. This would provide the raw material to see what happened. It is particularly critical in this area because we know the extent to which trading standards departments are overstretched and in real difficulties. Therefore, it would be extremely valuable to understand whether this has been yet another set of powers, duties and obligations placed on them that they simply cannot cope with.
The second important thing done by the amendment is to try to set a standard for individual trading standards officers; to say essentially that there should be a properly recognised qualification and describe how all that would work. That is also extremely helpful. The amount of law that trading standards officers are expected to enforce—I think there are 250 pieces of legislation and the number rises constantly—covers an enormous range of areas of activity and requires a degree of specialist skills. Some of them require investigatory skills and financial skills in addition to all that, so having some minimum standard as to what officers should do is helpful and useful.
What the amendment omits is the minimum standard that our citizens—from whichever local authority—have the legitimate right to expect from local trading standards. What is the minimum level of protection that we can expect from local trading standards? That is the area where this amendment could be strengthened. Obviously, if the Government accept this amendment today, there would be progress and no doubt my noble friends would then introduce an amendment on Report which focused just on this issue. Otherwise, if they bring it back, perhaps they could look at this wider issue as well. This is important because there is enormous variation between local authorities in terms of trading standards provision.
As a former local government leader, I absolutely espouse the importance of local accountability, localism and so on. That is an absolute principle, but there were plenty of areas when I was a council leader where, yes, we had local discretion and espoused the principle of localism, but we were expected to achieve certain minimum standards. That is not the case as far as trading standards and consumer protection are concerned. It would be helpful to try to find some way to enable the Department for Business to look at whether there was an acceptable minimum standard or level of trading standards provision in every local authority. I am conscious that the level of provision made by local authorities necessarily depends on their block grant. That is determined not by the noble Baroness and her colleagues in the Department for Business, but by the Department for Communities and Local Government. Consumer protection is one very miniscule part of that block grant. It would be in everyone’s interest—particularly in the interest of all of us as citizens or consumers—if there were some clear minimum standards laid down. Perhaps some work done on the back of a small amendment to this Bill over the next year or so would be extremely helpful in setting out what that minimum should be.
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