Consumer Protection

Gill Furniss Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

UK consumers spend over £1,160 billion a year on goods and services, and they are the backbone of the British economy. They spend their hard-earned money in shops and, increasingly, online. It is vital they are properly protected when buying products to ensure consumer safety.

The majority of law enforcement—75% of public enforcement responsibilities—is carried out by local authority trading standards services, from scams to products. However, those services have had to deal with cuts of more than 50% over the past seven years, and some parts of the country have been hit particularly hard. These cuts will undoubtedly have a negative impact on their ability properly to inform and enforce consumer protection.

Sadly, lack of compliance with consumer protection law can have serious and deadly consequences. For example, around 3,000 fires each year in the UK are caused by faulty electrical appliances. This technical order

“establishes equivalency with respect to the investigatory powers in Schedule 5 to the Act between the Secretary of State and those of local authority Trading Standards and district councils in Northern Ireland”.

The explanatory memorandum goes on to say:

“The instrument allows the Office for Product Safety and Standards, on behalf of the Secretary of State, to investigate claims of unsafe products in the context of a national incident, where local authority Trading Standards…lack the resources or expertise to do so.”

I broadly welcome this statutory instrument, in that it attempts to strengthen the enforcement regime. However, there are some points to note.

According to the National Audit Office, overall, local trading standards have lost 56% of their full-time equivalent staff since 2009, and 20 services in England have had funding cut by over 60% since 2011. Some services now have only one qualified officer. Despite that lack of funding, local trading standards teams are expected to enforce 263 different pieces of legislation for different Government Departments, with little direction from Government on the priority of those issues. It is this Government who have taken away the vital ability of trading standards to properly enforce consumer protection.

The OPSS was finally established after years of reviews and consultations, but unfortunately it has proved to be weak. It launched an investigation into Whirlpool following reports that more than 100 Creda, Hotpoint, Indesit, Proline and Swan tumble dryer models—all brands owned by Whirlpool—made between April 2004 and October 2015 could pose a fire risk. It is known that at least 750 fires have been reported since 2004 that involved those dryers.

Following its investigation, the OPSS assessed Whirlpool’s tumble dryer modification programme, and judged that the risk to consumers from modified machines is low. Consumer groups led by Which? were incensed by what they called a

“fundamentally flawed”

investigation

“that appears to favour business interests over people’s safety.”

The investigation failed to speak with any affected Whirlpool customers as part of the review, and further failed to verify the history of the 28 Whirlpool dryers it tested as part of the inquiry, so it was unable to draw conclusions about when the machines had been modified and by whom.

How does the Minister suggest we have confidence in the OPSS if its first ever investigation has been so widely criticised for its failure properly to tackle the issues at hand? It is one thing to give it investigatory power, but another for the OPSS sufficiently to use those powers to investigate big business and hold it to account for its handling of such serious issues.

In so far as the use and scope of the investigatory powers is concerned, the note outlines that,

“it is envisaged that the investigatory powers will not be used frequently...However, when these occur the Office will be able to support and supplement the work of local authority Trading Standards more effectively than at present”.

Can the Minister outline what criteria will be set and will have to be met for OPSS and the Secretary of State to use these powers? Can she outline the process used to decide whether and when these powers will be used? Can she outline the process that will take—will any investigation undertaken by the OPSS then invalidate a local trading standards investigation? Will the two co-operate or will they be able to undertake any investigations in parallel? Finally, what discussions has the Minister had with trading standards about the use of these powers?

In conclusion, I draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that, yet again, an SI has been prepared without an accompanying impact assessment, and ask why that is.