Asked by: Mark Sewards (Labour - Leeds South West and Morley)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether his Department is taking steps to improve consumer rights protections.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Department for Business and Trade is implementing the new consumer rights introduced by the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. The new consumer enforcement regime – which we will commence in April – gives the CMA new direct enforcement powers and introduces monetary penalties of up to 10% of global turnover for businesses that exploit their customers. The Act also updates consumers protections from unfair commercial practices and introduces new rights in relation to subscription traps and prepayments to savings schemes.
Furthermore, amid a concerning feedback from consumers struggling to access tickets for popular events, the government has launched a public consultation on a range of measures in the ticket resale market that aim to better protect consumers and support the growth of the UK’s live events sector.
Asked by: Mark Sewards (Labour - Leeds South West and Morley)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps his Department is taking to help support business investment into (a) Yorkshire and (b) northern Lincolnshire.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Department works across the UK, including Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire, to showcase strong commercial investment opportunities to potential investors and support business to grow, and provides extensive support to small businesses through the network of Growth Hubs. This government is developing a modern industrial strategy to deliver the certainty and stability for business to invest and creating the National Wealth Fund to support its delivery and mobilise billions of pounds of investment in the UK’s growth industries. Through the Government owned British Business Bank, we are also investing over £1billion through their regional Investment Fund programmes, including supporting growing businesses across Yorkshire and northern Lincolnshire.