I beg to move Amendment No. 48, in Clause 12, page 7, line 30, leave out ‘may’ and insert ‘shall’.

This amendment may seem among the tiniest that could be found, but it is a crucial one. We are looking now at subsection 3 of clause 12, which reads,

“Where a complaint to which this subsection applies is referred to the Council by or on behalf of the designated consumer, the Council may investigate the complaint for the purpose of determining whether it is appropriate to take any action under subsection (4)”.

We feel strongly that of all the places where “may” is inappropriate—and where “shall” should be inserted—this one is overwhelmingly important, because this is about any requirement on the NCC to follow through and deal with individual complaints from the kind of vulnerable consumers that we have just discussed.

Earlier, when my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull raised the issue of changing the word “may” to “shall”, when looking at the various duties of the NCC, the Minister gave an extremely enlightening reply that, regarding this clause, was exceedingly worrying. I do not have it verbatim but he was saying, in effect, that it is necessary for the NCC to have flexibility within its work programme function not to carry out an activity perhaps to the fullest extent. There had to be regard to the way that money was spent, and to funding.

I must say that, in this area, where we are talking about vulnerable customers—someone identified under the definition as “vulnerable” and therefore in need of support—to turn around and say that there is any possible scenario in which they cannot rely on the NCC to take their case forward—we are only talking about taking it forward to the point of investigation, and we are not saying that the NCC must carry this right the way through to get a resolution, because they are not even required to give advice or whatever, just to determine whether or not an investigation would be appropriate—it seems to me that there should be no possibility that a person could hear the word “no” in that kind of instance.

So I say to the Minister that, although I understand that he is concerned about independence, it seems to me that there must be a necessary balance here. People who are highly vulnerable need to know that the advocate is there for them, and there for sure. Therefore, to put in a provision for the independent council to decide that, in some cases, or in all cases, or in a percentage of cases, or after a certain number of cases have been reported in the year, or whatever else, that it need not exercise this particular set of roles is exceedingly worrying.

I am responding to the comments that the Minister made, that flexibility is required; here is a case where flexibility should not be required. I ask the Minister to reconsider in this instance, and to recognise, by character, that it is different from the other instances where we have raised what sounds like a similar issue, but this issue, by all measures, is far more important.