Brexit: Consumer Rights Policy

Lord Christopher Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

That is a difficult question to answer—I am always straight. What I would say is that, as I mentioned earlier, we have planned a series of engagements with consumer bodies. That applies right across Whitehall, so that, for example, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury has been talking to consumer groups—because, of course, financial services are very important—and there have been talks between MoJ and the Legal Services Consumer Panel. It is clear to me that we will be able to highlight, well before March, the particular pinch points, so that in our negotiations we will know which are the important areas that we need to preserve. This is an important piece of work, and I am grateful to the noble Lord for his comments.

[Lord Christopher (Lab)]

My Lords, we do not need to wait for Europe to part company with us—there are already problems. Ryanair has already given an indication of its intention that claims against it by passengers should be made in Irish courts. If I may say so, there is a lot to be done now with consumer rights that is not happening. My personal recent experience was that the telegraph and postal system refused to give a cash refund for faulty goods that it supplied until I suggested that we went to court. It has now said that it will pay. This is happening on a wide scale to those who are making online purchases from companies which are doing rather less than they should.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

In general, consumers enjoy strong protections in this country, and we want to seek to preserve those. But where markets fail—the noble Lord has given an example—and competition is not as strong as it needs to be, they may not get a good deal, and the Government will not hesitate to take steps where we need to. We are bringing forward a Green Paper in the spring of next year that will closely examine markets that are not working fairly for consumers. It will look at both specific markets and cross-cutting items, and I look forward to hearing more on those sorts of issues so we can ensure that they are properly looked at as part of that process.