Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 14 November 2022 to Question 80687, what steps he is taking to ensure that (a) intellectual property practitioners are effectively regulated and (b) consumers have access to an appropriate redress mechanism against those practitioners.

I refer the Hon. Member to the answer given to him by my Hon. Friend the Minister of State for Science, Research and Innovation on 14^th November 2022 to Question 80687: the Government supports appropriate regulation of intellectual property practitioners where this is necessary to ensure that applicants and rights holders are effectively represented.

The Government has not seen a need to change the current regulatory framework. However, the Government welcomes evidence from practitioners and consumers if they consider there to be deficiencies in the current system.