Clause 22
Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Bill
10:00 am
Mark Prisk (Shadow Minister (Small Businesses and Enterprise), Trade & Industry; Hertford and Stortford, Conservative)
I have a couple of points that I wish to raise on the clause as a whole without wishing to detract in any way from the genial state of our discussion. This is a broadly worded clause which enables the council to undertake a wide range of paid and unpaid research and related activities. Subsection 3, as members of the Committee will see, says that the council may:
“Spend such sums as it considers reasonable”.
I entirely accept, and we have always argued, that the council must be independent. However, it would be helpful if the Minister confirmed that he is confident that there are satisfactory management and audit oversight provisions to ensure that, as public money is involved, it is to a standard that our constituents would expect.
Turning to subsection 4, the council is allowed to set up a limited company to exercise a particular function. This is, again, quite a wide power. If that company were to fail or to face significant liabilities, how would the Secretary of State be able to intervene; or is it the intention that the Secretary of State should not intervene?