On 31 July last year the UK Statement of Principles on Parcel Deliveries, developed through collaboration between Citizens Advice and the British Retail Consortium, was published. The Principles set out best practice for businesses, such as parcel delivery firms, on how they can ensure fair delivery prices, consumers can obtain delivery cost information upfront and get clear directions to the terms and conditions. This will help consumers to be better informed about online retailers’ pricing policies in particular with regard to delivering to consumers in remote communities. The Statement of Principles is available on the Citizens Advice website: http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/scotland/news/whats_new_sep14_statement_of_principles_for_parcel_deliveries_now_covers_the_uk.htm.

If a consumer has a problem with a parcel delivery firm they can contact the Citizens Advice consumer helpline on 08454 04 05 06 or through their website (https://www.adviceguide.org.uk) which offers a free service on how consumers can proceed with their complaints.

Citizens Advice provides guidance on what consumers can do if they suffer delivery problems. This advice can be found on their website: http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/england/consumer_e/consumer_common_problems_with_products_e/consumer_problems_with_delivery_e.htm.

In addition, the Consumer Rights Bill which is currently before Parliament, will clarify and enhance consumer rights and remedies when contracting with traders for the provision of services, such as parcel delivery firms. This will make it clear for the first time that if traders breach the rights set out in the Bill, the trader is required to re-perform the service to bring it up to scratch or failing that offers a reduction in price. We have been working closely with consumer groups, including Citizens Advice, to develop an effective publicity campaign, including the use of social media to raise consumers’ awareness of these new rights. The Citizens Advice website will be updated by 1 October 2015 when the Bill is anticipated to come into force.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills ran a formal consultation on the Product Safety and Market Surveillance Package from 10 July 2013 to 4 September 2013. Details of the Consultation can be found on the following link to the Gov.UK website:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/product-safety-and-market-surveillance-package-proposal-for-new-european-regulations

In response to the specific question about country of origin marking contained in the Consultation paper we received responses from a wide range of stakeholders including 25 trade associations, but only 2 of these indicated to us that they agreed with the proposed mandatory requirements for all consumer products to bear indication of origin marking

I would of course welcome any evidence Steelite International may have on the cost benefits of mandatory country of origin marking for consumer products and I will ask my officials to meet them to discuss this.

The UK’s position on the product safety and market surveillance package remains unchanged: we oppose the inclusion of mandatory country of origin marking in the consumer product safety regulation. The issue was briefly raised at the Competitiveness Council meeting on 4 December, but no formal discussion or decisions were taken.

I thank the Minister for that reply, but I am disappointed. On the grounds of public health and putting British manufacturing on a level playing field, we desperately need to hold a consultation and do the necessary research to make the case for compulsory country of origin marking, so that when we turn over a

cup or saucer we know exactly where it was manufactured. Why cannot the Government abandon their opposition to that deregulatory measure?

TrustMark (2005) Ltd (TrustMark) operate the TrustMark Scheme. TrustMark aims to marginalise unscrupulous traders by identifying to consumers traders who have been inspected for both trade competence and good trading practice.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) receives a small volume of correspondence from individuals each year relating to TrustMark. These communications are passed to the TrustMark Board to investigate the actions of their Scheme Operators which would include NAPIT should the case arise. The Department does not hold records of communications about specific Scheme Operators as these are audited and monitored by TrustMark and not BIS.

In 2011 a consumer body provided views about the scheme to the Department; those views were fed into a review of the scheme which the TrustMark Board undertook in 2013.

The Government aims to foster greater collaboration between schemes aimed at protecting the consumer as it believes that such collaborations will both enhance clarity and protection to the consumer and thus further marginalise the unscrupulous trader. To support these ambitions relevant Departments are engaged in exploratory discussions to foster closer working between government-sponsored schemes in the home repair, maintenance and improvement (RMI) market.

The Government believes that the consumer is best served by the operation of open competition between companies, and does not generally intervene to regulate what businesses may or may not charge consumers for goods or services. Pricing policies such as these are commercial decisions for the trader, and are best left to the market. However, if there is evidence of collusion that is harming consumers, this should be provided to the Competition and Markets Authority, as the UK’s independent competition authority, who will consider it for investigation in line with their prioritisation principles.

The EU consumer law landscape is constantly evolving. The UK therefore actively engages on an ongoing basis to influence new proposals as they emerge and to ensure UK interests are reflected when opportunities arise to amend EU legislation.

In recent years we have played an active role in negotiations on significant new proposals such as the Consumer Rights Directive and the Directive on Alternative Dispute Resolution, to ensure a balance was struck between consumer and business interests. Currently we are engaged in negotiations for a Common European Sales Law and a revised Package Travel Directive.

The UK is also actively involved in the ongoing negotiation of the EU Product Safety and Market Surveillance Package. This legislation is designed to ensure that products brought onto the market are compliant with EU legislation and are safe to use and that there is a level playing field for businesses within the EU Single market.

The European Commission has recently reviewed the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive and concluded that no change is necessary at present; we ensured that the UK position was been made clear during the Commission's consideration.

There are further proposals in the pipeline, such as a review of the Directive on Timeshare, Long Term Holiday, Resale and Exchange Contracts and proposals to amend the Misleading and Comparative Advertising Directive. We will continue to work with the European Commission and other member states to ensure that the need for any change is justified and that the necessary protections for consumers are in place.

Existing rules apply in key service sectors to ensure that where different prices apply they are clear and properly justified by differences in processing costs to the business. Paper bills will not always be the best choice for more vulnerable customers who should seek advice on the most appropriate payment method and provider for their circumstances. For example, cheaper tariffs are made available to certain qualifying customers.

I have no plans for additional measures at this time and rules already exist in key service sectors. Many businesses offer cheaper tariffs to their more vulnerable customers and legislative safeguards exist so that regulators can act on excessive charges.

What prices a business charges its customers is a commercial matter for them. Where there are different prices for electronic and paper bill recipients these should be clear and justified by differences in the cost of processing payment receipts.

The effect on customers will differ depending on circumstances and the reasons they have chosen to have paper bills, but many business offer cheaper tariffs to certain qualifying customers.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills carried out two surveys over the summer to test how well payday lenders have been complying with their customer charter and improved codes of practice.

The first survey was targeted at payday lending customers and we received over 4,000 replies. The second survey was aimed at payday lenders and 44 lenders responded.

On 3 October, BIS published a report setting out the findings of the survey. This report can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/payday-lending-research-reports

The report confirms that, overall, most payday lenders are failing to comply with the key provisions of the charter and codes of practice. On none of the key measures tested do consumers say that industry is complying fully. There were particularly poor customer responses when it came to some key features of payday loans, notably on rollovers and the use of continuous payment authority and also when it came to how lenders treat consumers struggling to repay their loans. Consumers generally rated smaller lenders less well than larger lenders in living up to the code commitments.

The results of the surveys show that self-regulation in the payday sector has not been working across the board. The Government strongly welcomes the tough new rules announced by the FCA on 3 October:

http://www.fca.org.uk/news/firms/consumer-credit-detail

They will provide targeted interventions to address the key problems highlighted in our report—with new rules in the regulation of advertising, affordability checks, rollovers, and use of continuous payment authority.

The Office of Fair Trading has in the last year been looking at supermarket pricing promotions to ensure they are fair and meaningful and last year eight supermarkets agreed to a set of principles covering these:

http://www.oft.gov.uk/news-and-updates/press/2012/116-12

In its market investigation into the supply of groceries in the UK completed in 2008, the Competition Commission looked at the competition implications of below-cost selling and promotions. It concluded that these did not adversely affect competition or mislead consumers and could benefit shoppers—although without examining the effect on any specific category of customer. The CC noted that temporary promotions on some products to attract consumers and increase total sales (commonly referred to as loss leading) may constitute efficient pricing for grocery retailers and that such competition between grocery retailers may benefit consumers by reducing the average price for a basket of products.

Under the consumer rights directive agreed in December 2011, consumers ringing a trader about something they have purchased must not be charged more than the ‘basic’ rate for that call. Our consultation on the implementation of the directive, which ran from August to November last year, invited comments from a wide variety of organisations. We have engaged with stakeholders, including UK companies, and consumer groups, to ensure that our implementation of the basic rate requirement is as clear and fair as

possible. We will shortly be publishing the Government response together with draft regulations, and will be welcoming comments.

The Department does not collect this type of information. The Office for National Statistics publishes 'Family Spending' which contains data on household expenditure of decile groups. The latest edition is available on their website at:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/family-spending/family-spending/family-spending-2012-edition/index.html

The Government will publish its response in spring 2013.