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Confident Consumers

I am more than happy to meet my hon. Friend and his trading standards posse. I have not read his Adjournment debate, but I will put it in my red box—there is a name to drop—for this weekend. The problem that he refers to is a genuine one. I have visited some of these posh addresses, a number of which are in the City of London. Often, there is a very nice office full of display cabinets, all of which are locked. They contain the records of scam companies that every day throughout Britain are scamming pensioners and other vulnerable people and those who are unsure of their rights. Trading standards officers write to, or visit, the posh addresses given. The records are filed, and that is the last than anyone sees of them. These companies know that they are operating in this way. Those looking after such records know that such schemes are scams, and they are making a living out of doing so. We can do more, and should be doing more, to bring together all the enforcement bodies—trading standards officers, the police and others—to tackle the problem of dead postal addresses, which are a cover-up for illegal scams that cause misery in many parts of the country. Unfortunately, when they are closed down they often reappear. I will definitely meet my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Mr. Truswell) and his delegation to discuss this issue. However, as the proposals that I have set out show, the Government are very much on the front foot in dealing with it. On enforcement, we are making great strides in developing policies to deal with those who flout the law and harm consumers. In the long term, competition punishes bad business; in the short term, rogue traders can undercut decent firms and dent consumer confidence in the market. We need to protect vulnerable consumers, the vast majority of decent businesses and the market itself by cracking down on these crooks. That means effective enforcement. The Department of Trade and Industry’s company investigation branch is a powerful weapon in the fight against undesirables such as those whom my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey is probably going to tell me about later. Investigations can lead to companies being wound up in the public interest. We are tackling scams on consumers and we work closely with trading standards, the Office of Fair Trading and the police. Last year, the Company Investigation Branch conducted 162 investigations and wound up 121 companies. A plethora of con artists, running charity scams, buy-to-let scams and dodgy ticket agencies, were targeted and have now been dealt with effectively. The amounts of money involved are staggering, but we have the power to put the firms out of business and we will be aggressive about doing so. Those targeted will include cowboy builders who cost homeowners thousands of pounds in shoddy and unnecessary building work; illegal doorstep salespeople, including those trying to sell financial and credit services; counterfeiters; and those who prey on the unsuspecting at car boot sales.