Consumer Rights Act 2015 (Enforcement) (Amendment) Order 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-06-25
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Oliver Michael Robert Eden (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am grateful for the general support for the order from my noble friend and the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayter and Lady Burt, and for the questions they have asked I am also grateful, as always, to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, for offering me drafting advice, with a number of different options as to which word I could use for when a consumer White Paper might come out. I think I have used all those words at one time or another in the past; I even tried to tell the House many years ago that something would be published later that spring—I have to admit, in July it was quite difficult to argue that it was still spring. On this occasion I will try to be even more helpful to the noble Baroness. It will be published later this year; that gives her a final cut-off point. It will be there during 2019. If it is not there, she will have to come back to me and tell me that I have misled the House. If so, I will make the appropriate apology, but here is an assurance that it will be there I also assure my noble friend and the two noble Baronesses—I am grateful for everything that they have said—how important we think this is. This order is obviously essential as part of the process that the Government maintain as a priority to ensure that people across the United Kingdom continue to have confidence in the safety of all products that they buy and use every day. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, that without this order the Secretary of State would not be able to fulfil as effectively his lead role in managing national product safety incidents through the Office for Product Safety & Standards. He would not be able to assist the investigations of local authority trading standards in Great Britain, and district councils in Northern Ireland, that require the specialist expertise and capacity that the office can provide A number of questions have been raised, and I will deal with them in turn. I will start by giving an update on Whirlpool, which my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe asked about. As she knows, we made a Statement which was repeated in this House only a week or so ago. I assure her that the investigation into Whirlpool is ongoing. We will need to write further to her and others on the specifics of the case, but the statutory instrument adds to the enforcement regime of the OPSS and allows it to offer further support on that to local authorities However, as my noble friend will be aware, I can confirm that Whirlpool responded to the notification of intent from the Office for Product Safety & Standards to issue a recall notice on unmodified dryers. It is currently reviewing the information provided in detail, and we continue to urge anyone with an unmodified machine to unplug it and contact Whirlpool. Again, as I made clear to the House when I repeated the Statement, those who have a modified machine can be assured that it, as far as possible, will be safe—in so far as anything can be safe. It would probably be better if I wrote in further detail to my noble friend on the process and copied it to others, because obviously that process is ongoing.