Compensation Bill [HL]

I had not finished discussing this point; I was moving on to advertising and the Internet as a way of bringing together two issues. I will just deal with this particular point. It is a question for not merely the Advertising Standards Authority but the ministerial group because, as the noble Lord rightly indicated, these adverts often appear on public premises. One of my concerns—and I feel very strongly about this—is that we give credibility to advertisements if they appear, for example, in a hospital or a police station. That is not appropriate. People assume that if an advert appears in such a place it has been in some sense endorsed. I am in regular contact with colleagues at the Department of Health and the Home Office. The Department of Health has issued guidance to all NHS trusts, advising them not to encourage advertising by claims management companies on their premises. Recently, the Department of Health reinforced this message to the NHS Confederation. Advice includes—and I just give three or four elements of it—that posters should contain only material non-offensive to patients, visitors and staff; that monitoring arrangements must be put in place to ensure that inappropriate advertising by fly-posters is not put up; and that NHS trusts which have contracts with firms which produce materials such as posters or appointment cards free, paid for by advertising from third parties, should when reviewing such contracts consider the range of third-party advertising considered suitable for an NHS setting. The Home Office has written to the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Police Authorities to advise against the use of promotional or display material on police premises or property relating to claims, and to replace it with the DCA’s—my department’s—consumer guidance. We are also taking the misuse of the NHS brand very seriously. The logo is a registered trade mark. Its use must be authorised by the Department of Health. If a company is found to be misusing the trade mark, the department will now pursue it and take authoritative action. I hope that gives some reassurance specifically on that. I could not agree more with the noble Lord—I feel very strongly about some of these abuses. I hope that he will recognise that the work of the group I chair is taking us in the right direction on this, beyond what the ASA would be doing. Going back to the question of Internet advertising, the ASA has given me a long piece that I was going to copy in a letter to the noble Lord rather than read out. We asked it to consider the question, and it has returned with its thoughts. To give an essence of it, the ASA is saying that it can act. It is not important where the advertiser is based, but where the publishing media are based. Advertising self-regulation in the UK works because of the strong involvement of the publishing media within the system. The ASA can and does ask advertisers to comply with the codes and to cease placing harmful or misleading advertising where they have been found to be doing so. The ASA’s remit extends to electronic advertising, including advertising in paid-for spaces on the Internet—banners and pop-ups. Again, where the publishing media are UK-based, the ASA can take action. It becomes more difficult, as the noble Lord I am sure would recognise, when an overseas advertiser uses overseas-based media to publish or deliver its advertising—an email sent from abroad, or an advertisement published by a non-UK based Internet service. The ASA is now working as closely as it can with, in particular, the European Advertising Standards Alliance, which is a body that co-ordinates cross-border complaints among the various advertising and self-regulatory organisations throughout the 25 nations of the European Union. Obviously it becomes more difficult when it is broader than that, mainly because advertising regulatory systems differ from country to country, with some countries having no regulator at all. There is a familiar problem in trying to deal with that, but we have sought to tackle it by working together with regulators overseas to try and find solutions. I think the noble Lord will agree that consumer education is critical to minimise the impact of some of those practices and to make sure that at least people understand where this is coming from. I hope that on advertising generally, and on this subject in particular, the noble Lord will feel that we have begun to tackle this very seriously. I will of course send him the full note from the Advertising Standards Authority. Amendment No. 95 was about cold calling. The noble Lord raised the Telephone Preference Service; I am a user of it and it has worked effectively for me, but you have to know about it to be able to use it. The DTI is looking at the range of important issues. An unfair commercial practices directive is coming into national law in 2007, looking at cold calling but not banning it per se. The example that I have been using with officials—it is very familiar to them—is my fish man, who arrives with his catch from Grimsby and knocks at the door to see whether you want to buy any fish. He is a cold caller. Some cold callers operate perfectly legitimately; I would certainly not want to ban them. There are many other examples. If I am being followed as closely as the noble Lord, I expect to be inundated with fish men over the next few weeks. That example is not what we want to stop, so we have to be careful about not capturing people who legitimately pursue their businesses, knock on doors and provide a very good service. There will be lots of cold fish jokes coming; I can sense it. I am very sympathetic to what the noble Lord seeks to do. We are in discussion with the DTI about how we might pursue the matter appropriately, and whether there is something we can do within the rules and codes of practice that the regulator will have about the way in which people operate. The point is well made. I turn to Amendment No. 96. As the noble Lord knows, there are clear requirements on traders to apply statutory rules in relation to cooling-off periods. We need to make sure that the rules do not conflict with those requirements. In general the legislation in the area requires a cooling-off period of seven days, but I understand that in many instances providers give longer; the amendment suggests 14 days. The Office of Fair Trading has indicated that, in relation to claims management services, a cooling-off period of 14 days should be the absolute minimum. I hope that I will be able—within the rules—to tackle that point specifically. Of course I am looking carefully at what the Office of Fair Trading has recommended to us on that. I hope that I have dealt with the points raised by the noble Lord and that he will feel reassured that, one way or another, we will deal with them appropriately and in the right place. I have indicated that I will be looking at mandatory rules as a possibility. On that basis, I hope that he will feel able to withdraw his amendment.