Question: You are holding a conference this week - what issues are you seeking to raise?

Graham Vidler: The Which? Choice conference is about consumer choice and the government’s extension of choice to new areas.

This includes introducing new choices into health, and emphasising the role of choice in education, pensions and food. The conference will take the consumer perspective on each of these choices to the heart of government.

Question: What are you hoping to conclude from the conference?

Graham Vidler: The conference will bring the consumer voice to a debate which is too often characterised by rhetoric and ideology.

For choice to work the government has to listen to consumers, has to take consumer views on board and has to make sure that any choices that are offered are delivered on consumer’s terms.

Question: Choice will be a key issue in the build up to the election - but what does choice really mean?

Graham Vidler: That is the big question that Which? will be answering at the conference.

The government tells us that by introducing more choice into the health service for example it is responding to a tidal wave of demand from consumers.

However the research we have done over the last six months actually shows that consumers have a much more sophisticated understanding of choice.

They clearly want to make some choices and they clearly want more responsive public services, but there are other choices which they find extremely difficult to make in certain circumstances and at certain times.

There is a real danger here of confusing the narrow range of choices the government puts forward with the real choices that consumers actually want to make.

Question: Why did you choose the four policy areas of health, education, pensions and food?

Graham Vidler: These are key areas where the government is extending the principles of consumer choice in traditional retail markets to new areas where they are using consumers in order to deliver public policy objectives.

For example in pensions the government has a clear objective of getting people to save more for their retirement; yet their solution is not to actively do much about it themselves but to leave it to individual consumers to do.

Question: Do consumers want greater choice in these policy areas?

Graham Vidler: Consumers do want some choice within these areas; however across the board choice is less important than access and quality. More than 90 per cent of people questioned told Which? that access to quality local services was their number one concern in healthcare and education.

Many people do want more choice, but in reality it isn’t the sort of choices that the government are putting before them that they want.

For example in the health service the new choose and book system will give people a choice between five or six different hospitals but many of the people we have spoken to said that this is meaningless choice.

They are asking quite shrewd questions along the lines of: Who is choosing the hospitals that are put before me? How am I expected to choose between different hospitals, when I don’t have the information to make that decision?

Fundamentally they are asking why they should have to make this choice and why should they potentially have to travel miles to access this particular service when what the government should really be doing is focusing on driving up standards at their local hospital.

Question: Before choice can work then there has to be the necessary support and information in place?

Graham Vidler: That is absolutely right, clearly choice can't work unless people have the information they need to make their decisions, I have to stress though that the information is only part of it.

In many case people will need support to turn that information into a decision. For example with the pensions process the government tells us to make an informed choice, choice backed with lots of information for people, but there really isn’t enough information or support for people to judge what outcome they might get from their pension investment.

They have to make a leap into the 40 year dark putting their money into a pension and waiting and seeing what they get out at the end.

People in general want an adviser to talk them through their options and support them when making their decisions One of the biggest problems in pensions at the moment is people don’t have access to that sort of personal support and advice.

Question: So on pensions there is a need to be met before there can be choice - how is the conference focusing on this?

Graham Vidler: Yes and that is fundamental to not just pensions, but to healthcare and education. The job for the government we believe is to put basic services in place which makes peoples decisions easier.

In education that means that local schools should meet parent’s basic requirements in education standards, it means for pensions that the state pension should provide adequate means to survive on, in health care it means a safe and effective local hospital and other local health care services.

Choice has to be built on top of that baseline of core good quality services.

Question: Are you challenging government on how they plan to introduce choice in public services?

Graham Vidler: Which? believes strongly that a large part of the choice agenda is about devolving to people the responsibility for delivering key public policy objectives, including the standard of our diets, the quality of our hospitals and schools, and the level of savings for retirement.

To some extent that is fine and many people are happy to take on a part of that responsibility because they want to make some choice in key areas of their lives.

But that responsibility needs to be matched, firstly by government maintaining its share of responsibility and providing the core good quality local services that people need.

It also needs to be matched by responsible behaviour from everybody else involved in putting choices before people.

So, for example, it needs to include a food industry which acts responsibly and stops marketing products high in fat, sugar and salt to children.

Question: What is at stake if the government doesn’t provide the necessary information to make an informed choice?

Graham Vidler: One of the reasons we are holding the conference is that these are critical issues not just for consumers today but for future generations.

This is obvious in terms of education where choices made about your child’s education will in large parts determine your child’s future.

It is also the case in pensions where 17 years of choice in pensions have left us in a position where there are 10 million people who aren’t saving enough to fund their own retirement.

This not only has repercussions for those individuals concerned, but also for society as a whole and for future generations of tax payers who will have to pick up the bill for that.