Clause 3 - General duties of Ofcom
Communications Bill
4:30 pm
Mr Andrew Lansley (South Cambridgeshire, Conservative)
I do not concur with the hon. Gentleman. If, in order to ensure competition, it were necessary to have a powerful consumer watchdog, we should have such a watchdog. Energywatch and Postwatch are doing their jobs well—especially Postwatch, which deals with what is, in essence, a monopoly. However, if one seeks to promote competition, one should accept that the interests of consumers are integral to the nature of the competitive market. It does not necessarily follow that a consumer watchdog is needed to ensure effective competition. The retail industry does not require a lot of consumer watchdog activity in order to be effective. The National Consumer Council and the Consumers Association operate at the margins, but they are not integral to the market.
The consumer panel will not necessarily be toothless. We will discuss that later. We may be able to make the consumer panel a little more independent of Ofcom, which would help. However, such considerations should not change the general duties that go in the Bill. That would be the tail wagging the dog.
I hope that I have explained amendment No. 1. However, I want to explain why it takes a particular form, which differs from that of similar amendments. Amendment No. 195 was tabled by the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Brian White). I agree that it is important that Ofcom's principal duty should be set out as having different characteristics from all the other duties, and that Ofcom should have regard to that principal duty in all its work. However, amendment No. 195 contains two phrases that make it different from amendment No. 1. It refers to ''the long-term interests'' of consumers. The Joint Committee sought the inclusion of a reference to the
desirability of encouraging investment and innovation, which the Government subsequently inserted into clause 3(3). However, the ''long-term interests'' of consumers are distinct from the interests of consumers generally. It seems inherently dangerous to use the qualification ''long-term'' with ''citizens'', as it encourages the regulator to think that it has a greater knowledge of the interests of consumers than that which would be disclosed through the operations of markets. I did not use the words ''long-term'', although the Joint Committee did.