My Lords, I have some sympathy with the noble Baroness. Who wants to upset their mother? My mother-in-law is 95 tomorrow; I am taking her to see “War Horse” and I have paid the surplus on the tickets, so I understand the point. I am particularly interested in Amendment 50G because you might be left on these phones for a long time while trying to enforce your rights. That is an interesting matter for the Minister. There may be existing legislation to deal with that issue but it is worth following through.
I am much more concerned about Amendment 48B, the lead amendment, because its wording seems to run exceptionally widely. Thinking about how this might work, to take another example, you may buy a service as part of a package of services and not wish to buy all that package at once. An alarm for your house might be a plain alarm but you might have sensors or lights outside. You might or might not have it connected to a central station. It might be wireless or with a cable. You buy the basic system and later decide to upgrade it. You have the same service, but I am not clear what the requirement would be for a supplier of such equipment to fulfil any additional services fees or charges that could be incurred by the buyer. The buyer could incur quite a lot of charges if they chose to make changes along the way. Would they then be able to use this measure as a basis for defaulting on or changing the contract?
I found the wording potentially rather alarmingly wide. What the Government have in Clause 50(1) as it stands deals with the issues which I think are in the back of the noble Baroness’s mind. Proposed new subsection (1B) in Amendment 48B contains the word “portrayed”. If the information is to be portrayed for an internet purchase, which is the example that the noble Baroness gave, that is going to be quite difficult.
Although I have sympathy with Amendment 50G, I think that Amendment 48B is probably redundant, and the Minister may well say that Amendment 50G is covered by another piece of legislation.
5.30 pm