Consumer Rights Bill

Laura Sandys Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

Following the contribution of the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), I will be watching very carefully when I next buy a ticket to an event.

I am the only Member of Parliament who used to work for the Consumers Association. It is important that the consumer voice is heard in the House. This Bill is an excellent piece of legislation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) said, it is simple, clear and designed to give consumers access to redress and ensure that they are in a position to take control and that they are getting the value and the product or service that is clearly “on the package”. I welcome the legislation and feel that, at last, we are pulling the threads together and ensuring that we have clarity at the heart of our consumer policy.

I was also very taken with what my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) said about broadening the debate and ensuring that we do not just address the issues of consumers at the point of redress and when things have gone wrong. I feel passionately that we must take our agenda even further and place consumers at the heart of markets. Good markets put consumers in the driving seat and that enables consumers to make, shape or break products. Bad markets disguise; they mislead and control consumer choice. This is the first in a number of pieces of legislation. I am sure that, over the following stages, the Government will look at where we can embed consumers at the focal point of our competition and market philosophy.

Markets, regulators and Government Departments must put consumers at the heart of the economy. I welcome the role played by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in that regard, and I hope that it will champion it across other Departments because we need to ensure that they look at the power of the consumer, and not just be captured by the power of the supply chain.

Members have talked about energy prices, ticket touts and telephone and broadband suppliers, but there is also the food sector, which needs to allow consumers to shape the market. I am particularly concerned about “shrinkage”, which is becoming very common. It is something that poorer consumers are finding extremely challenging. Food companies are creating a perception for the consumer that a particular product is the same as another one that they may have seen or bought. Ultimately, what has happened is that the quality ingredients in the product have been reduced. That is happening across a wide range of products and, because no obvious flash is placed across the product, saying, “30% less good ingredients”, consumers are not able to make proper choices. They are not able to recall the weights and measures of the ingredients in every favourite item to try to establish whether its content has been reduced.

Mintec, one of the big analysts of the food sector, says:

“Shrinking products have become a ‘common tool’ used by a range of food sectors, from confectionary and snack foods to soft drinks, to mitigate the volatility of commodity prices.”

It is crucial that the Government bear down on those companies that are not being transparent. I hope that this Bill will be the platform for further pressure on the supply chain to ensure that consumers have absolute clarity and transparency in what they are purchasing.

It is important that we extend and broaden our consumer policy beyond just protecting the vulnerable consumer. We should do more than just protect the consumer at the point of market failure. We must engage the consumer right at the beginning of the design, regulation and governance of our markets. I suggest that we look at some measures that we can take over the next couple of years and into the next Government. They include a very clear focus on consumer policy. I propose that we consider appointing a Minister of State for consumers. That Minister needs to act as an advocate around all Departments to ensure that they are looking at the consumer who needs to be at the heart of their decision making.

I also urge the Government to consider the regulators. They have consumer representatives on their boards, but do they design their markets around consumers? Or are they also, in many ways, looking to, and captured by, the supply dynamic? We must review regulators’ remits to strengthen the consumer voice, not just in terms of redress but in terms of consumer activism and efficiency.

I also welcome the Bill because it creates simplicity of information, which is absolutely fundamental for consumers. Frequently, energy companies, for example, say that they must educate the consumer—for example, that they must do a public awareness course so that consumers understand what kilowatt-hours are. I would turn it around and say that they needed to design their product around consumers rather than expecting consumers to become electrical engineers.

It is incumbent on people who have dominant roles in markets and those who are an important part of our consumers’ lives to deliver the truth. We need to be very clear that we expect a presumption of truth and that redress must become simpler and more public. I propose that companies that have been prosecuted by trading standards should have to put that prosecution on their website for a month. We must ensure that the consumer sees what goes on and sees when they have been taken for a ride. It is crucial that we address the question of the large companies that put their hand in the petty cash box and pay the money to trading standards so that nobody is any the wiser while continuing to pursue certain non-transparent aspects of their business model.

I know that the Government care about putting the consumer at the heart of markets and I am sure that we will consider legislation that does that. It is imperative that we ensure that we start to rebalance the relationship and create greater symmetry between the consumer and the large dominant companies, particularly those in the food and energy sectors. I know that the Government have consumers at the heart of their agenda and I believe that it is our role to remind the market that the consumer must be king.