Consumer Rights Bill

Debate between Baroness Deech and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

Wednesday 26th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, may I interject a word on this amendment, on which I have spoken before, by way of an Oral Question? To insist that everything is online and more expensive if one opts out is to penalise the poorest and oldest in society. We are always talking about the gap between the better off and the worse off. To ensure that the poorest and oldest—who are least likely to have computers and all the expense that attaches to them—should be penalised is quite wrong. In 50 years from now, I am sure that things will be very different, but we have to cope with where we are today. This amendment is eminent good sense.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I beg the indulgence of the House first to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, for what she said on caller identification. I was not able to speak at that point, but we are delighted with the movement there.

I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Oppenheim-Barnes, for focusing attention in a Bill, as has been mentioned, on consumer rights on the basic right to have an invoice on paper and to be able to pay by cheque for utilities without having to pay for the privilege—it ought to be a right, not a privilege. We need to keep at the centre of our debates those customers who still want paper bills for their electricity, their gas and their water, particularly, as others have mentioned, those with no internet access or, indeed, no printers.

As the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, and others have said, the digital exclusion affects some of the most vulnerable in society. More than a third of the digitally excluded are social housing tenants. Seventeen per cent of people earning less than £20,000 have never used the internet, compared with just 2% of those earning £40,000. Moreover, 44% of people without basic digital skills are on low wages or are unemployed. Added to that, 33% of registered disabled people have never used the internet. That is the group that we are talking about, in addition to the elderly.