Mr. Jeremy Godfrey:

We do not have any concerns about the criteria or the process of a designation but the Deputy is quite right. We particularly see that the issue of funding will be crucial to who feels able to become a qualified entity. Of course, issues of public funding of qualified entities and issues of modernising the laws on private funding of litigation will be important. Some of those are issues for the Department of Justice rather than for the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. We think it is important and highly desirable for consumers that some civil society bodies are able to come forward to be qualified entities. From our point of view, we are not a funding body but we have some expertise to assist and will do what we can to support bodies that are interested in being qualified entities in their applications. As the Deputy said, there is a lot of water to flow under the bridge before we know what is going to happen.