Clause 54 - STATEMENT OF POLICY IN
Consumer Credit Bill
11:00 am
Mr Laurence Robertson (Shadow Minister, Economic Affairs; Tewkesbury, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 42, in clause 54, page 44, line 34, at end insert
', who shall have the power to order that the statement of policy shall be amended if he is not satisfied with it.'.
Clause 54 concerns a statement of policy in relation to civil penalties, which the OFT is obliged to publish. Proposed new section 39C(3) in the 1974 Act says:
''No statement of policy shall be published without the approval of the Secretary of State.''
My amendment is partly a probing amendment, although not entirely. I want to test what exactly subsection (3) means. Does it mean that the Secretary of State must be satisfied with the details of that statement? I would be happy if that were the case, because hon. Members will recall that I have just once or twice been slightly critical of the OFT and the extra powers it will gain. I am happy for the Secretary of State to be required to approve the statement before it is published. That is the probing part, to which I would like an answer.
My amendment, however, goes a little bit further and clarifies subsection (3) if that is not to be the case. It gives the Secretary of State the power to order that the statement of policy be amended if he is not satisfied—in other words, to avoid getting to the point at which he is not satisfied and then nothing seeming to happen from there on.
That is important, because the OFT's imposition of civil penalties is a serious matter. It may turn out that the OFT is too heavy handed in the way in which it imposes penalties, or it may turn out that it is not heavy handed enough. At some point, the Secretary of State should be able to affect that. I will not go over the horse racing analogy, which hon. Members had to sit through on Tuesday, in which the Secretary of State could not intervene or make any particular difference. However, with a body as powerful as the OFT, the Secretary of State should have some ability to affect what it does. When I say the Secretary of State, I mean that Parliament should have an ability to affect what the OFT does. I would like an explanation of that.
May I test your patience just for one minute, Mr. Benton? This is the final clause that relates directly to the OFT. I remain concerned by the OFT's power, and by Parliament's lack of ability to affect what it does. The Minister has said that the OFT frequently appears in front of Select Committees, but we all know that Select Committees do not have any power to affect what the OFT does. They can produce a damning report, and that may or may not happen in the future, but I remain concerned by the lack of parliamentary control over the OFT and by hon. Members' lack of ability to represent their constituents with regard to the way in which the OFT works. I would like to put that on the record. The Bill has added to my concerns in many ways, and I have gone through those concerns in great detail. I will not repeat them now, but I do want to say that I am very concerned about it indeed.