The government has again seen the House of Lords amend its Enterprise Bill..

Peers last night voted to separate the role of chairman and chief executive at the Office of Fair Trading despite ministerial calls not to.

The Department for Trade and Industry is now considering its position.

Forum Response: British Retail Consortium

Bill Moyes, director general of the British Retail Consortium, told ePolitix.com: "The BRC welcomes the amendment to the Enterprise Bill passed again by the House of Lords to split the chairmanship of the OFT board from the position of chief executive of the board.

"It supports our amendment on this issue, an issue on which the BRC has been campaigning for ever since the government earliest consultation on OFT reform.

"Given that the OFT is often prosecutor, judge and jury it is vital that there be internal checks and balances within the OFT. The board must set down firm guidelines within which the chief executive must operate - and it must be able to call him or her to account.

"The recent experience of the OFT's actions on extended warranties indicates why this is necessary. Having referred the issue of extended warranties to the Competition Commission for further investigation, the OFT has prejudged the outcome of that investigation in its recent press release effectively warning consumers against such warranties.

"That is the sort of ill-considered, one-sided action the board should stop - but that would hardly be likely to happen if the chairman and the chief executive were one and the same."