My Lords, the Bill offers an excellent opportunity to simplify and improve the consumer rights and redress landscape across the UK. Much of the Bill is certainly to be welcomed, consolidating and simplifying the existing landscape surrounding consumer redress as it does. However, it is notable that reference to alternative dispute resolution —ADR—as provided by ombudsman schemes and strongly backed by Which?, is absent from the Bill.
ADR provides benefits to both customers and businesses. For consumers, it offers free, fast and effective redress when things go wrong. For businesses, it provides a cost-effective way of improving the trust in and performance of their organisation. However, the current landscape surrounding ADR is complex and confused. ADR is available in some sectors but not others. In some sectors, ADR schemes cover only part of the market; in others, multiple ombudsman schemes exist. This patchwork of provision means that consumers face a complicated and confusing landscape and are often unaware of what support is available to them. I believe that my amendment would help to improve the situation.
In keeping with the ethos of the Bill, the amendment would simplify the ADR landscape and, importantly, strengthen access to redress for consumers across all sectors. Importantly, too, the new clause would formally set out the existing rights to redress that consumers have and ensure that all ADR schemes are consistent in standards and quality of services, improving the support and protection available to consumers. It would also ensure that the Bill complements work currently being undertaken as part of the transposition of the EU directive on ADR. The directive, to be transposed by spring 2015, requires businesses across all sectors to offer redress via an ADR scheme, either as a specific scheme or as part of a wider residual scheme. Lastly,
and equally importantly, it would provide for a single point of contact for consumers, who could then be directed to the relevant ADR scheme depending on the nature of their problem.
The amendment would materially benefit consumers across all sectors by formally establishing the right to redress through ADR, paving the way for wider coverage of ADR schemes and achieving simplification in the system. I beg to move, and would welcome the views of the Government and others on the amendment.