Lord Taverne
Main Page: Lord Taverne (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Consumer Rights Bill
Lord Taverne Excerpts
Lord Taverne
“Product description and advertisement
(1) Subject to subsection (2), where any specification, description or advertisement of goods, services or land or property offered for sale, hire or lease, or any instructions or maintenance manual relating to such goods or services includes one or more units of measurement, those units shall be—
(a) those set out in Schedule 1 of the Units of Measurement Regulations 1986 (S.I. 1986/1082) (as amended); or(b) any multiples or submultiples of those units as set out in Schedule 2 of those Regulations.(2) Subsection (1) shall not apply to products listed in Schedule (Product description and advertisement).
(3) Subject to subsection (4), supplementary indications may be used in addition to the units authorised in subsection (1).
(4) Where supplementary indications are used—
(a) in the case of a conflict between an indication of quantity expressed in an authorised unit and a supplementary indication, the authorised unit shall prevail; and(b) the authorised unit shall appear first, and any characters employed in the marking of quantity in relation to a supplementary indication shall be no larger and no more prominent than those employed in the marking of quantity expressed in the authorised unit.(5) In this section—
(a) an “authorised unit” means a unit of measurement specified in Schedule 1 of the Units of Measurement Regulations 1986 (as amended) or any multiples or submultiples of those units as set out in Schedule 2 of those Regulations,(b) a “supplementary indication” means one or more indications of quantity expressed in a unit of measurement, other than an authorised unit, which is used in conjunction with an indication of quantity expressed in an authorised unit,(c) “unit of measurement” does not include arbitrary sizes such as sizes of shoes or clothing, paper and stationery or eggs,(d) a “year” is not to be treated as a unit of measurement.”
Lord Taverne (LD)
My Lords, I start with an apology to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey. In Committee I said that I would certainly look at the idea of somewhat broadening the scope of what we were considering. However, I received the official reply very late, and I have also suffered, as I hope will not be too much in evidence as I move the amendment, from a chest infection, which means that I dissolve into coughing fits from time to time. Therefore, I was unable to pursue the matter further and I apologise to the noble Lord.
I moved this amendment in Committee because the present law—at least, as widely understood—causes confusion. In descriptions or advertisements, there is no need as in other transactions to quote metric as the primary measurement. I shall give two examples. Some estate agents describe properties in square feet, others in square metres. As carpets are normally sold in square metres, it is hard for a would-be customer to know whether a carpet will fit into a room in a flat or house which they want to buy if it is advertised in square feet. The other example that I gave in Committee was that a retailer may offer in his showroom two comparable fridges—one whose capacity is described in litres and the other in cubic feet.
It appeared that the present Government’s view is that descriptions and advertisements are covered by the Weights and Measures Act, but David Willetts, the previous Minister concerned, held the view that they were not. Trading standards officers responsible for enforcement of the law believe that the law does not apply. They have given me examples of where they understand certain terminology to be legal and where similar terminology is illegal. One described the law on this subject as “a ass”.
This morning I met the Minister. It was a heart-warming occasion. My noble friend the Minister and her officials were the soul of reason and agreed to advise the professions and trading standards officers that the law did require the primary description to be metric, with every right to quote imperial measures as well. Therefore, the position should now be clarified and I am most grateful to all of them.
I have one reservation, which I hope will give rise to some discussion before I announce what I will do with my amendments. I was told that the Government have no intention to make any further moves towards metrication. They are happy to let two separate systems—conflicting systems, in some ways—coexist, whatever the confusion and cost that may cause for ever and ever.
I mentioned in Committee that in 1970, as Financial Secretary when Roy Jenkins was Chancellor, I helped to prepare the change to decimalisation, which was subsequently carried out by the Heath Government in 1971. We sounded out no focus groups and commissioned no opinion polls. We thought that opinion might well be rather against the move and many people forecast chaos. However, the decimalisation board made the most careful preparations and explained everything very clearly. There was no chaos and everything went smoothly, and who now doubts in retrospect—except, no doubt, some irrational UKIPers—that the change made life simpler for consumers?
The then Prime Minister had set up the Metrication Board to do for metrication what was so successfully done for decimalisation, but Mrs Thatcher abolished the board. It nevertheless continued to be government policy in principle to move towards metrication, but slowly and very cautiously, at a snail’s pace. Even that has now been abandoned. Everyone else—except, as far as I know, Britain and the United States—has gone metric, including, for example, the Commonwealth.
The United States and Britain have paid for that. If you run two systems side by side, there will be mistakes, some of which will be very costly. There was the orbiter disaster in the United States. In Canada, the so-called Gimli Glider ran out of fuel because of the same mistake and nearly killed hundreds of people. In Britain, only in the past few weeks, we have heard about the difficulties of Network Rail. A BBC reporter was told about maintenance crews across Britain who record what they do in different ways. He said:
“Network Rail told me that in some parts of the country they use miles, in other parts they use kilometres, so when two teams record the fact that they’ve fixed ‘three units’ of line, some mean three miles, others mean three kilometres. I don’t need to spell out what a mess that makes”.
Baroness Jolly
My Lords, I start by thanking my noble friend Lord Taverne for his well considered speech and the thorough explanation of his amendments. UK weights and measures legislation works by focusing regulation on measurements and equipment that are in “use for trade”. This ensures that the primary focus is on those transactions where consumers need to know the quantity they are purchasing, how it compares to alternatives, and that they can rely on the quantity being accurate. The fundamental principle behind weights and measures policy is that every measurement used for the purpose of “use for trade” should be subject to the minimum level of regulation to ensure that businesses and consumers are protected against short measure and can have confidence in measurements.
Any transactions being made by reference to quantity or any statement of quantity made or implied in relation to a transaction is caught by the term “use for trade”. It applies widely and is intended to apply not just to the transaction itself but to any use,
“in connection with or with a view to”,
a use for trade—perhaps that is B2B. That would already cover most advertisements or product descriptions for goods. However, there are some cases, of which my noble friend highlighted several examples, where a product is not being sold on the basis of quantity and so the unit itself is not being used “in use for trade”. In these cases the usage would fall within the more general rules on what constitutes a legal unit as set out in the Units of Measurement Regulations.
This additional legislation, outside the Weights and Measures Act, makes it clear that metric units are the legal unit for any purposes beyond “use for trade”. Therefore, the use of a non-metric unit in the examples given by my noble friend are already not legal uses under the existing legislation. The Government are not aware of any significant demand from business or consumers to extend the scope of offences under the Weights and Measures Act to cover uses of units of measurement beyond “use for trade” or to extend what is caught by “use for trade”.
However, this morning I was glad to meet my noble friend and officials in order to talk through the issue. He raised an important point about how product descriptions and advertisements are being used in the marketplace, and the potential impact on consumer protection. We have tried to clarify the issue. The Government will commit to taking this forward with the relevant industry bodies to remind them of the current legal position and the importance of providing clarity for consumers. I hope that in due course we will not have a mixture of square metres and square feet when describing rooms so that we can purchase carpets more easily. As my noble friend stated, the Government do not believe that it is in the national interest for further metrication to take place against the wishes of the UK public. I fear that my noble friend’s bid for total metrification will have to wait a while—but I sincerely hope not 800 years.
While my noble friend has clearly targeted his amendments at units of measurement, I would be concerned at the risk of unintended consequences from making any extension to the scope of weights and measures law and the risk of causing confusion by duplicating existing legislation. The UK is already a metric nation, along with most of the rest of the world, as my noble friend said. The majority of UK businesses and the public sector switched to metric units almost 20 years ago. The vast majority of trade is now undertaken using metric units, and metric has been taught as the primary unit of measurement in UK schools ever since 1974. Over time, public support for metric units is increasing, and as we have heard, especially among young people. Businesses that are not providing metric units risk losing business as more and more people are using metric in everyday life. My noble friend Lord Deben asked why single units could not be required for other purposes. These uses are already regulated, and metric units are the legal measurements required under the Units of Measurement Regulations. However, imperial units can always be permitted as a supplementary indicator.
I hope that noble Lords are reassured that “use for trade” already applies widely and catches all transactions which are based on quantity. Even in those cases where “use for trade” does not apply, the legal units are already defined in law. Therefore, I ask my noble friend to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Taverne
My Lords, my Amendment 40B might possibly have unintended consequences and I was not going to move it. If the Government do in fact live up to their promise and ensure that the professions and those responsible for enforcement tell people exactly what the law is, which is that it requires that metric units should take priority even in advertisements and descriptions, that will meet my objections. I am very happy to withdraw the amendment.