Section 1: Establishment of the National Consumer Council and its territorial committees
29.Subsection (1) establishes the new National Consumer Council as a body corporate. The Council will be a Non-Departmental Public Body (NDPB). It will be funded by the Secretary of State who will recover some of the Council’s costs from payments made by licensees in the electricity, gas, and postal services sectors. Such costs will be collected from licensees by sectoral regulators. After the Consumer Council for Water has been abolished under section 31, licensees in the water sector may also be required to contribute towards the cost of the Council. Part 5 of Schedule 1 and section 33 make provision in relation to funding.
30.Subsection (2) requires the Council to establish and maintain a committee in Scotland, to be known as the Scottish Consumer Council; a committee for Wales to be known as the Welsh Consumer Council; and a committee for Northern Ireland, to be known as the Northern Ireland Postal Services Committee. These three committees are called “territorial committees” (subsection (3)). The Council’s functions extend to Northern Ireland only to the extent that it represents the interests of consumers of postal services (see the definition of consumer in Northern Ireland, in section 3(2)(b)). This is because the existing General Consumer Council for Northern Ireland already has the function of representing the interests of consumers in Northern Ireland in respect of other matters and will continue to perform that function once the Council has been established.
31.Subsection (4) introduces Schedule 1, which makes further provision about the Council and its territorial committees, and sets out its membership, terms of appointment, procedure, funding and requirements as to its accounts. There is a more detailed explanation of the contents of Schedule 1 in paragraphs 174 to 206 of these Notes.
