Consumer Rights Bill Debate

Full Debate: Read Full Debate
Department: HM Treasury

Consumer Rights Bill

Greg Knight Excerpts
Tuesday 28th January 2014

(10 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Vince Cable Portrait Vince Cable
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The proposals are designed to address exactly that kind of problem, because they would enable the remedies to be tailored and varied according to circumstances and the seriousness of the offence.

Greg Knight Portrait Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
- Hansard - -

Will the Bill be in any way retrospective? For example, will it bring relief to a customer who has entered into a long-term contract, the provisions of which extend beyond the Act’s implementation date? Will a customer in those circumstances be able to cancel any unfair terms?

Vince Cable Portrait Vince Cable
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The right hon. Gentleman asks a tricky and quite specific legal question, and I do not want to guess the answer. Of course, in general we always try to avoid retrospective legislation, but I can see that for contracts spanning a period of time we need to cover the whole contract period. I will check the details of the proposal and get back to him.