Consumer Rights Bill

Lord Stoneham of Droxford Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, I think we are straying into unnecessary territory here—very philosophical points which are no doubt extremely interesting. I will not rehearse at length the argument I made when this Committee last discussed this matter. However, there is an obligation on government as far as this is concerned because government do not enable us to have some simple system of verifying who we are. When we need to verify our identity, we are required to turn up with a paper copy, sent to us via the post, of a utility bill. All my utilities are trying to move over to sending everything electronically but an electronic copy does not suffice for those purposes. Until such time as we have a system of identify verification, people will rely on receiving paper utility bills.

I have one other point why paper utility bills are important. We are encouraged by government to switch suppliers. This is part of the philosophy of improving competition. You switch suppliers. You move to another supplier. You have a new website to go into and a new password. All these passwords, I am sure, we do our best to remember and not write down somewhere. Of course, you can no longer access the website of your previous supplier because you are no longer their customer. If you need to check back on whether the prices are indeed comparable, that data are no longer available unless you, the customer, spend money on printing them out and keep a paper copy. Surely that is the wrong way round.

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

My Lords, I am slightly reluctant to speak against the experience of the noble Baroness, Lady Oppenheim-Barnes, and indeed that of my noble friend Lady Maddock, but, going against the grain of the debate, I think that I ought to do so. We have to say that the digital economy has provided huge savings and efficiencies in payment, booking and ticket systems, and the consumer should be allowed to benefit from that. We have to encourage these changes and simply to say that we are not going to do so is basically saying that the future is the past. I do not think we can ignore them.

I take the example of easyJet, an independent company away from the utilities. Are we saying that the equivalent of easyJet, which started competing against British Airways, would not have been allowed to discount its prices and reward customers who book online? I just do not think that that is the way forward. By all means say that we do not want extra charges put on people who are paying by cheque during the transition, but do not say, as it does in this amendment, that we should not offer a discount to those who are actually giving up their money more quickly by paying with a card or by direct debit. They are allowing the banks to release the money four days ahead, so why should they not get the benefit of that? It is a cheaper way of paying. It is wrong to say that this form of progress should be held up.

The other thing I would say is that I find it slightly patronising of older people. I chair a housing association for retired people. I was staggered when we did a survey for our annual conference, where the average age was the late 70s. We asked people whether they used IT to do a certain number of things. Some 80% said that they used the internet as a phone because they were using Skype, which is cheaper. Some 80% said that they bought tickets and booked their holidays on the internet because it is cheaper. What really shocked me as someone who worked in the newspaper industry and who thought that newspapers would always have a future because retired people would always want to read a newspaper was that 80% of them get their news from the internet. We cannot ignore these changes. What we should be concentrating on here is what the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, was talking about in the debate last week. We want regular paper records to be sent to customers who are using the internet process as well as to people who pay by cheque. But please do not let us say that we are going to go back to the past by letting the banks hold on to our money for four days when we can pay directly and get a cheaper price by doing so. Retired people can get that benefit as well. We must not end that progress.

[Lord Blencathra]

My Lords, I strongly support almost all of this amendment except that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham of Droxford, that we should not penalise those who pay by direct debit. I also agree that there should be incentives for people to pay by direct debit if they wish to do so. But the danger is that we are heading towards it becoming compulsory for all. Whether it is old people, young people or old gits like me, we have the right to get things on paper and not be cajoled, threatened and blackmailed by the utility companies and others into making all our transactions by direct debit.

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford]

Can I interrupt the noble Lord? Fifty years ago my father used to go to the retailers and pay every single bill in cash. Are we saying that progress should not have allowed him to pay by cheque?

[Lord Blencathra]

Of course not. The point I am making is that we should have the freedom to choose. I am one of those who for contrary and bloody-minded reasons goes to the Post Office in the Central Lobby to collect £145-worth of postal orders to pay my TV licence. I do that because I resent the fact that the Post Office is losing that business. It costs me an extra £10 or £12, but over the years I have despaired as all Governments have accidentally or deliberately driven business away from the Post Office and have moved more and more things on to direct debit. What would we have said 30 years ago if a Government had said, “We’re going to drive all those old age pensioners into getting their money in their bank accounts and they won’t be able to get it in cash”? We would have been appalled, but we are rapidly heading that way. All Governments are enthusiastically persuading pensioners to do that.