Mr. Jeremy Godfrey:

I made a comment on insurance already to say it is important consumers get redress. What would be what we call a disproportionate impact on insurance is if we ended up with effectively vexatious actions, or nuisance actions, that people felt they had to settle as it was cheaper to settle them than fight them in court, so it is important that balance is struck, and the mechanisms in the Bill strike that balance adequately.

I do not have a view on retrospection. Whenever anyone says "retrospection", I always think there are legal issues about retrospection, and perhaps the Law Society may have a view. Of course, if people have breached consumer law, they will certainly be at risk of public bodies enforcing the obligations. Where those obligations include payments of compensation, they can be enforced by public bodies anyway.

Of course the real message to businesses is that they should comply with the law and then they will not need to worry about whether anyone can take retrospective action.