If competition in the electricity market in 1998 fails and falls flat, although the Minister for Industry and Energy will be well out of the way, it will generate a massive Crisis of Consumer Confidence in competitive energy markets.

There is also a Crisis of Consumer Confidence around the world - tragically, with a consequent economic crisis that has engulfed an industry employing 600,000 people in the United Kingdom, mainly in fragile rural areas.

They are naive in the extreme to think that more could have been done to lift the European ban, especially when the European beef industry as a whole was suffering a severe Crisis of Consumer Confidence.

The demand for more regulatory bodies seems to come from consumer organisations and special interest pressure groups which need to believe, and need to make others believe, that there is indeed a Crisis in Consumer Confidence.

If he wants to leave office with a reputation for more than complacency and denial, he will join Opposition Members in the Lobby to address the deficit of trust, tackle the Crisis of Consumer Confidence and begin the process of giving customers a fair deal for their energy prices.