Consumer Rights Bill

Debate between Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville and Lord Harris of Haringey

Wednesday 22nd October 2014 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 50. I have an elderly father who is 91 and who has recently been extremely ill. While looking through his paperwork, I found a number of bills that needed paying. We discussed this and I said, “Why don’t you set up a direct debit?”. He definitely did not want to do that. He felt that he would lose control of what was going on in his life and his finances. He liked the security of filling out a cheque and sending it in the post, with a copy of the bill or the counterfoil on the bottom of it. He felt that that was the way that he could make sure that his money stretched, that he had money at the end of the month and was able to pay all his bills. He is not a man who did not want to enter the technological age. He bought a computer—much to my utter amazement—because Lidl had them on special offer. He loves Lidl. He joined a course to teach him how to use to the computer, and my husband and son went over to help him to set the computer up and get to grips with it. However, he did not use it often enough to be able to use the skills that he had been taught in his computer classes, so he was never going to be able to pay all his bills from the internet. My father is not on his own. Lots of people want the security of a paper bill and of being able to pay by cheque or a direct debit—because my father has direct debits for some things, such as council tax. They want that security, and I think that they ought to be able to have that.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, Members of the Committee have highlighted a number of categories of people for whom this is a necessity. We should also be clear why it remains a necessity for virtually every citizen. That is a consequence of the approach of both the current Government and their predecessor in not enabling the citizens of this country to have a readily available means of identity proof and assurance. Had proposals gone forward on identity cards, it would no longer be necessary to prove your identity by turning up with a paper copy of a utility bill, which is one of the two elements that you nearly always have to have to demonstrate and prove who you are. I think that the failure of successive Governments to provide a proper system of identity assurance is lamentable, but that is for a separate debate.

We are left in a position where most citizens need to be able to produce a hard copy of a paper bill for a utility or similar service; otherwise, they cannot prove their identity to their banks, to apply for certain documents and for all sorts of other purposes. Under those circumstances, the Government need to look favourably on this group of amendments.