A Leap of Faith?

It's been quite a week - again. Tuesday saw the House of Lords debate the 2nd reading of the Public Bodies Bill. A Lords constitutional committee had earlier been extraordinarily critical of the Bill and the proposed use by Government of secondary legislation to ignite its quangos bonfire and limit Parliamentary debate - the so called Henry VIII process.

On Tuesday scores of Peers queued up to say their piece on the Bill, mostly expressing concerns about the Bill itself but also about the many public bodies affected by proposed abolition or change. Trading standards, Citizens Advice, local government, and Consumer Focus all featured. There was even a quarrel over the definition of what is a consumer. There was clearly considerable concern across the floor over the proposed loss of consumer law enforcement from the OFT.

Is this really a sensible time to place even greater reliance on local authorities who are even as I type having or choosing to slash their trading standards budgets? Lord Borrie, a previous OFT Director General quoted my words from our latest TSI TS Today publication: 'a leap of faith, I just hope it isn't a leap in the dark'.

Time will tell but I sense we are only at the beginning of this quantum leap.