Consumers: Paper Billing

Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes Excerpts

Monday 25th November 2013 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to the difficulties faced by consumers receiving bills and statements where financial penalties are applied to those choosing to receive them and reply in paper copy.

[Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes]

My Lords, I am exceedingly grateful to the Keep Me Posted campaign, which has led the way to this debate. It is already supported by 33 of our most respected charities and is being joined every day by more supporters.

We are living in a fast-moving, fast-changing society of which one sector, digital access and digital communications, is threatening to take over our lives, leaving out in the cold not only the millions who do not yet have broadband but the elderly, the disabled, their carers and members of their families. While some might be able to go online, very many are not able to and, in any case, they want to hold a piece of paper in their hands showing what they have left, what debts have been paid and what might be owing. They are caused great distress by not being allowed to do so. They are the obvious victims. On access to broadband, we hope that we will hear tonight from the Minister that the Government are aware of the need to get on as quickly as possible.

There are also people who, like the people whom I have described in what I call the priority areas, can go online but do not always want to do so. They want to pay their bills with cheques or postal orders, and certainly not by direct debit, which we now realise has caused great hardship to many people. There are a lot of people out there who have computer skills but are angry about the extra costs that they incur if they choose not to use those skills.

Big companies, banks and utilities all claim that they must cut costs—and they are right—in order to satisfy their shareholders and to safeguard their workforce. They have made these cuts by requiring online communications. While they are entitled to take that approach, they should also consider their customers, who cannot afford, are not able or do not choose to use these online services. This is not cutting into profits as such. It is taking advantage of some of the big savings that these companies have made by going online as far as they have.

Every day, I receive examples from people who have annoyance and expense because they do not want to go online. Where they have an alternative telephone line to ring, it is always the most expensive one. For example, Which? recently reported that customers of EDF can expect to encounter an average delay of 19 minutes and nine seconds before they can get on with asking their questions. One can only imagine the enormous cost of that.

While BT does not charge anybody for a paper statement except businesses, that includes even the smallest businesses. People who receive paper bills are not told for the first time until page 3, in the smallest possible print, how much they must pay. For those who want to pay by cheque or postal order because they have no other alternatives, it is often very difficult to find to whom the cheque should be made out. That is not put in a prominent position where they can read it.

On top of that, we receive blandishments every day from Waitrose, Marks & Spencer and all these people on the huge savings—£75 in the case of Waitrose—to be made if we will only change our accounts to online ones. We are no longer dealing with an equal society of any sort. There are those who are incapable of doing these things online. There are those who are capable but, for one reason or another, do not always want to do so and do not want to be penalised as a result. Furthermore, research has shown that households with online bills or statements are less likely to check them and more likely to fall into debt.

Things are moving very fast now and we cannot allow them to continue at the present pace without at least putting some safeguards forward to protect the people whom I have described from incurring charges either from freedom of choice or, very often, because they have no alternative. In replying to this debate, I hope that my noble friend will accept that there is a real and urgent need as we move forward to protect consumers’ choice in this matter and to preserve their existing right to exercise it. If we do not do that, more and more problems are likely to arise in the areas that are most vulnerable and more and more annoyance will be caused with companies that are not in any way co-operative. Above all, the right to hold a piece of paper in your hand—to look at what your bank statement is, what your bills are, what has been paid and what has not—is very important.

This is not just for all those vulnerable people or those others whom I have mentioned who have choice. Many people in high positions in society today are still not ready to accept that they must pay a price for receiving anything on a piece of paper. Only the other day, I had to ring the secretary of one of our foremost doctors. She said, “Well, I have got it on the computer but must print it out before I can see it”. I said, “Oh, thank goodness—one of us. What a wonderful welcome this is. Thank you very much”. “Oh,” she said, “but Dr X”—one of the most prominent doctors in the country, and who is not old—“has said over and over again that he hopes that when he dies he still has a lot of sheets of paper around him with writing on. Then he will die content”.

This is a social problem. It is a consumer problem. It is a problem where, certainly, the utilities have taken liberties because of the breadth of their market. The time has come for regulators, at the very least, to step in and approve a code of practice in these matters. This issue is becoming more and more urgent and I hope that noble Lords and my noble friend will treat it with the urgency that it deserves.