Common European Sales Law

Tom Brake Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I rise briefly to highlight some concerns with the proposals. The perspective of Which? and Consumer Focus is that the different contract laws do not stop consumers or businesses from cross-border trading to any significant degree. It is not clear that the proposal would lead to an expansion of such trade, and it could lead to greater complexity and therefore increase business transaction costs.

There is no legal certainty that the measure would be applied uniformly across the EU. It therefore has the potential to create legal uncertainty and confusion for customers, and it would not provide them with choice, because they would continue to be limited to accepting the contract offered to them by the supplier.

There are grave reservations in relation to the potential for the measure to lead to back-door harmonisation of contract law. I am sure that if my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) had been in a position to stay for the whole debate, he too would have made those points.

I understand the Government’s perspective of subsidiarity, but the measure is an optional change, not an imposed one. Can subsidiarity in all cases overrule something that is optional and not mandated? The Minister rightly said that the regulation would not be simple to use and that complexity is involved, but have the Government assessed whether the proposal is more complex than the current legislation? Do they recognise that the Federation of Small Businesses says that small businesses need to be able to afford to compete in different markets in the EU?

The proposal raises many more questions than it resolves, and therefore a detailed and extensive consultation is required.

[Mr Cash]

I rise simply to say that the City of London corporation has also provided a method of objection and to add it to the other representative organisations I mentioned.