Plain Language (Hansard, 8 December 1992)

§ Mr. Gyles Brandreth (City of Chester)
I have no problem with either the technology or the amplification, Madam Speaker.
I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to secure improvements to the language and layout of certain contracts. Language is what disinguishes the human race; it is the characteristic that sets us apart and makes us unique. Even I, as an ardent animal lover, must acknowledge that, however eloquently a dog may bark, he cannot tell us that his parents were poor but honest. Language makes us unique, and we in this country are born with the privilege of having a unique language as our parent tongue—English, the richest language in the history of humanity.
Our language is rich precisely because it is not pure. Emerson called it the sea which receives tributaries from every region under heaven. It is the language of Chaucer and the King James Bible; of Keats, Joyce, Anthony Trollope and Anthony Burgess. It has taken 2,000 years to reach this far—and where is it now, in 1992? Let me show you, Madam Speaker, by quoting from the terms of sale offered by that excellent builders' merchant, Jewson Ltd: If and to the extent that any person by whom the Seller has been supplied with the goods supplied hereunder (hereinafter referred to as 'the Supplier') validly excludes restricts or limits his liability to the Seller in respect of the said goods or of any loss or damage arising in connection therewith the liability of the Seller to the Buyer in respect of the said goods or of any loss or damage arising in connection therewith shall be correspondingly excluded restricted or limited. There you have it, Madam Speaker: the English language today—and those were just five of more than 100 such lines that feature on the back of the Jewson delivery note. When the driver drops off the breeze block and says, "Sign here, guy", what I have just read out constitutes 5 per cent. of what the recipient is agreeing to—whether he likes it or not, and whether he understands it or not.
Does it matter? Yes, I believe that it does. It cannot be good that people regularly sign contracts that they do not understand, and, indeed, are not meant to understand.

§ Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)
Has the hon. Gentleman read the Maastricht treaty?

§ Mr. Brandreth
As it happens, I have and I understood it, but I can understand that it might be a little sophisticated for the hon. Gentleman. However, the rest of this is in plain English, so he will feel wholly at home.
Costly mistakes can be made. A constituent of mine discovered that when he signed an incomprehensible contract to lease a photocopier. When he wanted to change the photocopier, he was faced with the option of a so-called settlement charge of about £10,000, which was three times the value of the original equipment, or the prospect of leasing the equipment, whose lifetime according to the manufacturer was three years, for a total of seven years. None of that was clear from the contract whose wording was deliberately obfuscatory and arcane. [Interruption.] Translation will come later!
The Bill is designed to encourage the use of clear, plain language in commercial contracts and to prevent the unscrupulous, arrogant or incompetent from hiding 697 behind legalese, jargon, gobbledegook or small print. It would apply to consumer contracts, consumer credit contracts—think of all the confusion that we would all be spared if we understood the small print that comes with our Access cards—and housing contracts.
The plain language that I have in mind is not so much the language of Shakespeare as that of Dickens, not William Shakespeare but Geoffrey Dickens—clear, no-nonsense language that says what it means and means what it says, language that is indeed a lean, mean fighting machine.
A plain language law might appear to be a contradiction in terms because is it not the law and lawyers which are responsible for much of the gobbledegook found in contracts? I believe I am right in saying that in 1595 an English Chancellor chose to make an example of a particularly wordy document filed in his court. He ordered a hole to be cut in the centre of the document—all 120 pages of it—and had the author's head stuffed through it. The offender was then led around Westminster hall, 100 yards from where we are now—even 100 metres—as an example to all and sundry. Alas, that Elizabethan lesson did not stick; and that is where I come in, four centuries later but not a moment too soon.
I propose that the contracts covered by the Bill should be written in clear and readily understandable language using words with common and every-day meanings, be arranged in a logical order, be suitably divided into paragraphs and headings, be clearly laid out and be easily legible.
It is not asking much, but you, Madam Speaker, might well ask, "Why do people sign contracts they don't understand?" Often it is because they are in no position to negotiate. Most consumer contracts are in standard form, drawn up by the supplier and offered on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. The Bill would help consumers. It would also help businesses because those which have taken voluntary steps in the right direction have learnt that clear contracts have advantages and that intelligible contracts promote customers' trust and loyalty and encourage consumers to stick to their contracts. They also achieve savings in management and staff time. The new law would encourage better practice and, if necessary, would enforce it, although the sanctions that I propose are moderate.
The experience in the United States is that a plain language law such as this would immediately improve practice and standards, but, if a contract did not comply with the Act, the party which made the contract in the course of business would be liable to an action for damages brought by the other party—so there is also something in this for the lawyers.
That said, there is no question of any form of criminal penalty. Offending contracts would not be void, unenforceable or voidable. I propose compensation for the consumer who can show actual loss and, in some cases, a small sum of additional damages. I also propose, as back-up, an extension of the existing powers of the Director General of Fair Trading to deal directly with businesses which ignore the new law.
The case for such a law is overwhelming. Clear, coherent, easy-to-read consumer contracts bring advantages to consumers and to business, but the signs of voluntary implementation are piecemeal. I believe that, as 698 in the United States, the chief merit of the new law would be its impetus for change. Alas, only legislation will prompt businesses to sit up and start to take notice of their own paperwork.
I trust that the advantages of the Bill will be obvious to the House. Inevitably, some people will not see its virtues, but then, as the saying has it, a slight inclination of the cranium is as adequate as a spasmodic movement of one optic to an equine quadruped utterly devoid of visionary capacity.

§ Mr. Paul Flynn (Newport, West)
I shall not detain the House unduly, but I think that a protest must be made against the linguistic chauvinism of the speech by the hon. Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth). He referred to English being the mother tongue of all hon. Members, ignoring the native British languages which were spoken in this country when the speakers of Anglo-Saxon were howling, pagan barbarians.
If I were to speak in the language of this country, and if I were to say to you, Madam Speaker: When that Aprill with his shoures soote The droghte of March hath perced to the roote"——

§ Madam Speaker
Order. I would respond to the hon. Gentleman by saying that that is not understood in this House.

§ Mr. Flynn
With respect, Madam Speaker, it is in order because the language I am speaking is English. It is the English of Chaucer, to which the hon. Member for City of Chester referred. If I went on to quote in the beautiful language of Chaucer, I should be incomprehensible to you, Madam Speaker, and to every other hon. Member. I am allowed to use the language of Chaucer, but I am not allowed to use the language of Wales, which is understood by many people.
This is the only Parliament that Wales has, yet the language of Wales, the language of Scotland and the ancient language of Ireland are forbidden here. There are Parliaments that conduct their business in a dozen languages. I make that point because of the comments made by the hon. Member for City of Chester. His Bill called for plain English, but it should also call for plain Welsh, plain Gaelic and plain Irish Gaelic.