My Lords, Amendment 19 allows the period within which a consumer can exercise the short-term right to reject to be extended beyond 30 days when necessary to give the consumer sufficient time to assess the goods. In other words, the amendment is about limited flexibility and maintaining rights available to consumers under current law.
When the Law Commission recommended a 30-day period for a consumer to exercise the initial right to reject, it was on the basis that 30 days would be the “normal period” but that there would be flexibility in appropriate circumstances. The Bill recognises that some goods will typically perish within 30 days, and in those cases a 30-day right-to-reject period clearly is not appropriate. However, the Bill does not recognise that a longer period may be needed in some circumstances. Under current law, a consumer has a “reasonable” period within which to exercise the initial right to reject. The Law Commission recognised that for many purchases a court may consider a reasonable time to be longer than 30 days. We have some of the current case law, including the court finding it reasonable for a consumer to reject a new car after seven months. Presumably without this amendment a consumer would not have that protection from the courts. A more obvious example is a pregnant woman buying a pram before her baby’s birth or goods bought out of season—skis during the summer, lawnmowers in the winter, or the obvious Christmas present scenario.
Without the ability to extend the right to reject in such circumstances, consumers might be worse off under the Bill than under the current law, which allows that reasonable period. That is obviously our concern—and not just ours: apart from the Law Commission, the BIS Select Committee recommended that,
“the Government reconsider an exception to the time limit for the early right to reject where it is reasonably foreseeable that the consumer would need a longer period to inspect the goods and to try them out in practice”.
Amendment 19 would implement that recommendation. I beg to move.