David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate, Conservative)

I declare an interest as a practising solicitor and a member of the Law Society. The concern is, as my hon. Friend has said, not just about independence, but about the perception of independence. There is concern that we ensure that there is a balanced debate. It is all very well for the Minister to talk about the consumer time and again, but she will note, as I will mention shortly, that the regulatory objectives are not just about the consumer. That objective must be properly balanced with other objectives. It is important that we do not seek to make one compete against the other at this early stage, before the regulatory objectives have been properly implemented and worked through. Putting one regulatory objective above another is not a good example for the supervisory body or any other regulatory authority to follow, because we have not succeeded in any amendment with regard to the hierarchy of those objectives.

There has been a wealth of evidence on the issue. To return to the Joint Committee evidence that my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon prayed in aid and draw out some of its conclusions, a number of professional bodies, such as the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys, the Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys and others, were four square behind the need for proper independence, saying:

“the Chair should therefore be wholly independent of the Executive to avoid any perception of bias or influence and to ensure maximum confidence in the regulatory system from consumers and”

approved regulators. Although any debate should focus on the need to bolster independence, it should work in tandem on the importance of confidence for the consumers.

Then there were the consumers groups that gave evidence. I take issue with the hon. Member for Bassetlaw saying that the Joint Committee was a lawyers’ love-in, as such. It involved—and in a very short period—a wealth of evidence from a range of consumer bodies and individuals. It is to the Joint Committee’s credit that it did such hard work and managed to get a balanced flavour of the debate.

One of those loud voices was the National Consumer Council, which said in oral evidence that although it was

“fully in the consumer interest that the professions are independent of the state...So long as we have an open appointment process that ensures we have the right people for the job, that is what really matters here.”

That is what matters to consumers—getting the right people in the right job. In many ways, the Minister overstates consumers’ concerns about the current position in the Bill, whereby the appointment takes place with the concurrence of the Lord Chief Justice. I would suggest that consumers’ great concern is not so much about the formality of the concurrence of the Lord Chief Justice, as about the fact that the appointment, applied through the Nolan process, delivers a candidate who is there by merit and is the right person in the right job. That is what matters to consumers.

See this speech in context