Today the Department of Trade & Industry announced the Government’s plans for the future of consumer representation over a range of industries. Under one option in the consultation document of January 2006, the Ofcom Consumer Panel - on which I sit as the member for England - and the FSA Consumer Panel would have gone into a new general consumer body likely to be known as Consumer Voice. However, today’s announcement makes clear that the Ofcom Consumer Panel and the FSA Consumer Panel will remain as stand-alone organisations.

The core of the Government’s plan is that the existing consumer bodies Postwatch (on which I sit as the member for Greater London) and energywatch will be combined with the National Consumer Council to create Consumer Voice. The regulators Postcomm and Ofgem will be enabled (but not required) to establish their own consumer panels. Once established, Consumer Voice will enter into a Memorandum of Understanding with the two existing consumer panels and it is likely that there will be cross-appointments between the Consumer Voice Council and these two panels.

All of this is subject to the (extremely likely) announcement of a Bill in the Queen’s Speech on 15 November, but the DTI hopes to have Consumer Voice in operation by the end of February 2008.