Written question asked by Lord Birt (Crossbench) on Monday, 29 October 2018, in the House of Lords. It was due for an answer on Monday, 12 November 2018. It was answered by Lord Henley (Conservative) on Monday, 5 November 2018 on behalf of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

Printing Machinery

Question: To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the (1) competitiveness, and (2) fair trading practices of the home printer and printer cartridge market.

Answer: Responsibility for addressing competition and consumer protection issues within markets lies with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The CMA’s predecessor, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) carried out a market study in 2001 on consumer IT goods and services, including the printer and cartridge market. Its main finding on this market was that consumers found it difficult to identify lifetime cost of ownership. The OFT worked with the industry to introduce a labelling scheme to help consumers to consider both purchase price and running costs.

Secondary information