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Consumer Rights

As I said in the previous debate, it is a great pleasure, Mr. Sheridan, to serve under what is I believe your first chairmanship in this Chamber. It is also good to see the Minister; and I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) on the very reasonable way in which he put across the problems in his constituency involving dealing with a property company at Corinthian Quay, the holiday company, First Choice, and look-alike websites. I want to deal with all three problems in the brief time available to me. I am also pleased to follow the hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt). Of course, consumer affairs is a tremendously broad term, covering all interactions between the entities that consume—principally, the general public and small businesses—and those that supply, which are often large firms. There is quite a lot going on, both by way of Government changes and, as the hon. Member for Solihull said, through the European consumer rights directive. We welcome the merging by the Government, on 1 October 2008, of Energywatch, Postwatch and the National Consumer Council, to form a new statutory consumer watchdog, called Consumer Focus. The new organisation fights to secure a fair deal for consumers throughout the United Kingdom. It has the right to investigate any consumer complaint, provided that it is of wider interest to the public, the power to conduct research and the ability to make an official super-complaint about failing services. It would be interesting to hear how the Minister feels the new, merged organisation is doing, particularly as there is now such a narrow focus in the ownership of the energy markets. Some accusations have been made of cartel activity in the energy markets and energy pricing, particularly in relation to fuel poverty. The hon. Member for Solihull referred to the consumer rights directive, which the current European Commission is considering, although it will of course probably have to be put through by the new Commission when that is adopted, probably in November. For the record, the proposal represents the most far-reaching change for European consumer law to date. It brings together four existing pieces of community legislation—on unfair contract terms, sales and guarantees, distance selling and doorstep selling—into a single horizontal consumer rights directive. It would be interesting to hear whether the Minister feels that the legislation on doorstep selling indeed deals with the points raised in an intervention by the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Susan Kramer) about the differences between guarantees affecting doorstep selling and selling on the internet.