My Lords, this is a different sort of amendment, which stands in the names of my noble friend Lord Stevenson and myself, and which seeks to protect the consumer who has had something done in their house and a faulty installation has occurred—not simply a faulty installation such as a table being put in the wrong way round, but where there is a risk to the person concerned. Instead of having to have the installers back in to try to put right whatever they have done wrong, it would give the person concerned the right to move to a refund without having to accept a repair first.
The rest of the Bill is very good where it says that there should be only one repair, and that, if that does not work, you can get the money back. However, there are circumstances in which we think they should not have to have a repair done first; they are in their own home and something has happened which makes them feel at risk. Examples of this sort of thing are where a trader has tried to install a dishwasher but floods the whole kitchen, a bathroom floods the kitchen below—which I have seen happen quite recently—or an electrician is sent to install a new shower, and manages to wire the shower to the electric light bulb rather than to the
mains. Again, sadly, that is not just a figment of my imagination. A gas engineer may make a complete mess of putting in a new boiler and cause a gas leak, leaving the consumer thinking, “I don’t want these people back in my house—they don’t know what they’re doing. I want them out before they do any more damage, and I want my money back so that I can get someone in who’s a little more trustworthy”. However, as the Bill stands at the moment, the trader may say, “No; I’ve got the right to come in and sort it out before I give you any money back”.
Our amendment would provide clarity for both parties in those circumstances, allowing customers to say: “I no longer trust you because I feel at risk—I want my money back”. I know from Committee that the Government have some sympathy with our point and with our concerns about this, but they argued that in such cases—which I think the Minister understood—the consumer retains the option to seek damages in court. However, that is not what the Bill should require. Taking a trader to court is very difficult for a consumer; they have to instigate legal action, which itself is complicated, expensive and uncertain. More than that, it takes a long time, and if you want a hot shower the next day you probably do not want to wait until your case comes to court before you can get someone in to put the hot water in the right place.
A survey undertaken by Which? showed that nearly half of consumers thought that you should not have to give the trader the chance to fix the problem in those circumstances. We know that the aim of the Bill is to provide clarity on consumer rights, both to the trader and to the consumer, so surely any of these sorts of disputes should be kept out of court and dealt with in this way. If a kitchen fitter says, “I don’t need to give you a refund now; I have the right to come back and repair this”, we do not want that conversation to end with, “I’ll see you in court”. We want the Bill to make it clear that the consumer can get a refund at that stage.
I hope that the Bill will mostly avoid taking the legal route, but it is a shame that it seems the Government felt that that would have to happen in these circumstances. We therefore hope that the Government, having thought about this amendment again, and given that it is only about residential premises, will support it. I beg to move.