Consumer Rights Bill
Debate between Lord Best and Lord Borrie
Lord Borrie (Lab)
My Lords, I support the amendment that has just been spoken to. I declare in interest in that I am a vice-president of the Trading Standards Institute and I have been the president so I have a long understanding of the work of trading standards people up and down the country. They have been extremely useful in every development of consumer rights and consumer law over the many years since they were called weights and measures inspectors under the old rules of 1880. Now that they are trading standards inspectors and the Trading Standards Institute is a very respectable body, they have as a prime function the enforcement of consumer law. That is so now, although the substance of the law has been altered and is being altered further by this Bill.
One of the principal jobs of enforcement officers is, of course, to see whether a prosecution is justified. No self-respecting prosecutor thinks that any minor infringement of the law is deserving of prosecution and the trading standards officers in each county are well aware of that. They take a great deal of care in developing their thoughts that on a particular occasion the goods are dangerous, or the various things that my noble friend Lady Hayter referred to have occurred. To my mind, there is no doubt whatever that it is a far greater deterrent to malpractice if no notice has to be given of an inspection. I was delighted, as I am sure many of us here were, whether interested in this subject or not, with the announcement of the work done by Ofsted in deciding that there are some occasions when schools need to be looked at without notice so that they can be taken off their guard and it is more difficult to show that they are all to the good.
Trading standards inspectors have tasks other than prosecution. I was thinking of this when the noble Baroness, Lady Oppenheim-Barnes, was talking about the previous amendment. They do a great deal of advisory work and advise not just consumers but businesses. That is at least equally important because they are advising businesses on how to comply with the law, how to better comply with it and how to make sure that they do not suffer from prosecution in the future. In their advisory capacity, inspectors make sure that the right relationship is obtained with the trader concerned and notice may be given that they wish to come and talk about a particular problem and they hope their advice will be looked at and taken. There is a world of difference between advising and prosecuting. We can all see that and surely there is no doubt that it is far better for the prosecution element of the work of trading standards that visits do not require notice on every occasion.
Lord Best (CB)
My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Borrie. I, too, am a vice-president of the Trading Standards Institute. I moved this amendment in Committee because it seemed extraordinary when I first read it that trading standards officers would need to give 48 hours before turning up to find out some wrongdoing on a site, in a shop or whatever. However, the Bill already says that if,
“the officer reasonably considers that to give notice … would defeat the purpose of the entry”,
then the 48 hours’ notice would not have to be given. Nor would notice have to be given if the officer,
“reasonably suspects that there is an imminent risk to public health or safety”.
In Committee we received reassurances from the Minister, who explained that even if there was just a suspicion that there might be something going on, it would be quite in order not to give notice because that would totally undermine the purpose of looking in on the premises. That just leaves the 48 hours’ notice for “a routine visit”, which is how this is expressed in the amendments to follow in the name of the Minister. For a routine visit, 48 hours’ notice would be given but I understand that if trading standards officers are to make a routine visit—probably, as the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, said, to give advice, or to explain that the law has changed and there is something new that the business ought to know about—it will not be a matter of just giving notice. It is a negotiated thing. They will send an e-mail and receive a reply. What is the point of turning up 48 hours later if nobody is there or if the boss is not there and you need to see the boss? If it is something completely routine, this is how people behave just out of politeness, if for no other reason. They will make an appointment and go round and visit. The danger is that this will get blurred, the proper use of the unannounced visit will be inhibited and we will not see justice done when it should have been done. It seems much better if we simply omit this reference to 48 hours’ notice. It was probably a bad idea in the first place. There is a certain amount of retreat from it now—very sensibly by the Minister—but why not just knock it out? It does not seem to serve any purpose.