Consumer Rights Bill

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Wednesday 26th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Cathain (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment. I have heard what has been said about people who opt for paying their bills online, or whatever, and get a discount; that would be fine if everybody in the country had online access, knew how to work computers and knew exactly what they were doing. The reality is not like that. The most disadvantaged in our country do not have online access, including the elderly and those who live alone. The digital divide is increasing as we speak and it is very difficult—I am sorry, but on things such as utility bills, it is.

Secondly, if any noble Lord has tried to go online to pay a utility bill, particularly electricity and gas together, it is a nightmare. It is not exactly an easy option, and then a page comes up saying, “Do you want to chat?” and, of course, you cannot chat at all, it all has to be typed. I mean, what about people who have problems with their eyesight? It is tiny print. I have done it, but, my goodness, I swore at it. It took me about an hour to set up the thing. I can see people older than me—if there are such—struggling with this. It is not good. I think, for all sorts of reason, that until we have broadband in every house and a computer at everyone’s bedside, so to speak, we should carry on. Otherwise we will increase the digital divide and increase the disparity between those who have and those who have not.

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, support my noble friend in this. I cannot understand why the utilities feel that they might incur huge costs in sending out paper bills. After all, they tell us how easy it is to use, how much better it is to use. Well, then, their customers will be convinced and they will do it that way. Of course, some will not, because, as my noble friends have said, not everybody at the moment has access to the internet. There are a number of elderly people, in particular, who find it difficult to manage it. Yes, they will move on in due course; why can we not decently wait for them to do so, and be replaced by all these vibrant, young people who can manage such things?

I also have some reservations about how one actually speaks to organisations such as utilities, which have now become terribly efficient, when you want to do something which is not exactly in the line of what they have anticipated. Of course, there is a phone number for you to ring, is there not? You then find you are speaking to a computer and the computer does not understand what you are saying, because what you are asking has not been programmed into it. Why should those of us who do not want to go down this modern route have to pay for those costs?

If I sound a bit edgy about this, it is because I had a problem yesterday with one organisation. I shall not mention which one, out of kindness. I rang the telephone number and, after a while, I could see that all I was doing was increasing my telephone bill. In some irritation I put my coat on and walked to their office in town. I stood in a queue, waiting to meet a human, and eventually I found a human. She was very helpful and said, “Oh, I can deal with that. I can get you a print-off”. She gave me a print-off and I came back quite pleased. I sat down and then realised that the print-off was not for the dates which I had asked for. So I put my coat on again and walked back.

This is a story of our times—dealing with these people. I find it extremely irritating that the programme is always right and the customer is always wrong. For that reason, I shall support my noble friend tonight. As I say, if we are wrong, and if it is such a beautiful system which all the utilities have introduced, it will not be a problem for them, because nobody will want to do it the way that my noble friend has suggested and all will be well—but I suspect that it will not be.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

My Lords, I support the noble Baroness in her attempt to get equal rights for consumers who want to have paper bills. It is about consumer rights. The utilities are huge. It is quite right that it is cheaper for them to send the e-mail. It is not cheaper for the very poor and the vulnerable, as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, pointed out to us. In the work that I do in social welfare, it is the poorer end, people in poverty and the vulnerable elderly who often do not have family who can do the direct debit for them who actually end up paying more of the bill. What I cannot understand is: if it is going to cost the utilities so much more to send these people paper, why do they constantly send me every week a bit of paper that says, “I think you should know that if you change your supplier, you can save two and thruppence a week,” or whatever it is—I am going back a bit and using that to give a picture of how people view these things.

We can remember that, many years ago, there was an attempt to phase out cheques. That was changed because so many older people could not manage their accounts without having a cheque. As the noble Lord said, as we all die out—all those people who are not in this computer age—there will not be a difficulty because all our children and young people are taught computing at school and use computers all the time. But the costs must be minimal, compared to the vast amounts being made by utilities, to enable people who are poor and vulnerable to manage their finances in a visible and transparent way that they can understand. That surely is what we should be looking for in consumer rights.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, we are living in a digital age, and many of us welcome the convenience of receiving and settling bills online. I have had an interesting discussion with my noble friend Lady Oppenheim-Barnes about the many issues she raises, and I certainly understand that many people want a paper bill. As she says, not all people can manage online, and we empathise with them. As the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth of Breckland, said, some people have no relatives to help. I also take the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, about the poor and the vulnerable. However, all utility companies will give a paper bill on request. Bills can also be settled by cheque, which was another point made in the amendment, although I accept that certain payment types may attract discounts.

I was glad to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Clarke of Hampstead, about the importance of the universal postal service and that he found our exchange of correspondence helpful. Perhaps I may write to him again on the point that he raised. Some noble Lords referred to identity. Although paper bills are useful for the purpose of establishing identity, that is not their primary function. More reliable forms of identity are available, such as passports and driving licences. Going forward, as regards the transition, the Government Digital Service is leading work on the development of the ID assurance programme which will enable people to prove their identity and access government services in a digital world. That is an important bit of long-term work.

I have mentioned the availability of paper bills and I should summarise the current position in each of the utility areas. In water, companies do not make a charge for paper bills and offer a choice of payment methods including cheques. In telecoms, blind or visually impaired consumers who have requested bills in an accessible format, such as large print and Braille, and consumers on social tariffs, such as BT Basic, are not charged for paper bills. Ofcom requires that if there are charges for paper bills they must be set out in a clear, comprehensive and easily accessible manner and providers must publish clear and up-to-date information on these charges. In energy, paper bills are available and companies are already required under the terms of their licence to ensure that any differences in charges to consumers between different payment methods reflect the cost to the supplier.

I do not want to play party politics but we have reduced energy bills, and of course the energy companies have been referred to the Competition and Markets Authority. I am sure that we will all be very interested to see the progress of its study. As to other communications providers such as broadband, while paper bills might not always be provided, the main suppliers such as BT and Sky make them available and all companies must make a basic level of itemised billing available to all subscribers on request, either at no cost or for a reasonable fee. It is worth noting that the nature of these services is, of course, online.

In my very good meetings with my noble friend Lady Oppenheim-Barnes on various amendments to the Bill we discussed a number of the issues that are before the House in this amendment. I understand my noble friend’s analysis that paper transactions can sometimes cost relatively little, and I can agree that it is sometimes costly for a utility to sort out a problem caused by queries, for example a failure to pay electronic bills. However, these are not many cases compared with the total volume of bills. The reality is that utility companies save money by communicating electronically with consumers. That is a cost saving which is then passed back to consumers. As the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, said so elegantly, that is occurring at a time when the cost of living is a really important issue. According to the Digital Efficiency Report, transacting online with the government will deliver more than £1.1 billion in savings because the average cost of a digital transaction is 20 times lower than on the phone, 30 times lower than a postal transaction and 50 times lower than face-to-face contact.

[Lord Tebbit]

I wonder if I could make a helpful suggestion. Perhaps the Minister could suggest to the utility companies that, before they start to charge customers for issuing paper bills, they will guarantee that they will stop pestering customers with letters to “The Occupier” offering their wares. After all, it must be enormously expensive to do that. So they could save some money there, and that would help cover the costs of what my noble friend would like.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

I thank my noble friend for his intervention and indeed for that suggestion. The whole business of costs, benefits and so on in this changing world is a very important one and the obvious answers are not always the right ones. I was trying to say that the savings are considerable and, with direct debit in particular, there are savings on both sides. In fact, 50% of those in fuel poverty use direct debit to spread the costs—so there are advantages. I do not want to discourage firms from innovating to protect and empower consumers in different ways. I do not want firms to get the message from this House that we are the enemies of progress. We have to be careful about that.