HL Deb 09 June 1986 vol 476 cc61-70

6.59 p.m.

Baroness Gardner of Parkes

My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.

The safety of the people is one of the most important concerns of any Government. This Bill sets out to extend the scope of consumer protection in relation to unsafe and dangerous products by providing the appropriate enforcement authorities with increased powers. The purpose is to ensure that potentially dangerous goods are intercepted before they reach the shops.

I am sure that your Lordships will have seen many reports of the dreadful accidents that have befallen children and adults as a result of dangerous products. Many of these need not have happened. Each year some 3 million people require hospital treatment for injuries sustained in accidents in the home, and about 7,000 of them die. Many of these accidents, like the death in Leeds last Christmas of a five-month-old child who died from playing with an imported toy pony, are avoidable.

The Government themselves recognise the seriousness of the situation. They are committed to bringing in far-reaching reforms, including a general duty to trade safely. These were outlined in the 1984 White Paper, The Safety of Goods. Unfortunately sufficient parliamentary time has not yet been found to introduce these measures, although it is hoped that there will be an announcement in the next Queen's Speech.

The Consumer Safety (Amendment) Bill was introduced in the other place by the honourable Member for York, Mr. Conal Gregory. I am sure that your Lordships would wish to join me in paying tribute to his campaign to raise general standards of product safety in the United Kingdom, and in particular to his success in carrying forward this Bill through all its parliamentary stages in the other place.

The Bill would have the effect of implementing those sections of the White Paper most suited to a Private Member's Bill, and would do so in time to catch the Christmas trade this year. It has the support of the National Consumer Council and a wide range of consumer and business organisations; the National Federation of Consumer Groups; the British Standards Institution; the Confederation of British Industry; the Consumers Association; the Welsh Consumer Council; the Scottish Consumer Council; the General Consumer Council for Northern Ireland; the Institute of Trading Standards Association; the Association of County Councils; the Association of Metropolitan Authorities; and the British Toy and Hobby Manufacturers Association. That is quite a long and strong supportive list. The Bill has also received the active support of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Corporate and Consumer Affairs, Mr. Michael Howard.

During the passage of this Bill through the other place a great deal of effort went into fashioning a set of provisions which will bring significant benefits to both consumers and reputable traders. Extensive consultations were conducted to this end. I believe that this Bill, as amended by the other place, strikes a proper balance between the requirements of good business practice on the one hand and effective consumer protection on the other.

I realise the complexity of such a Bill. It contains 17 clauses and two schedules. It embraces not just toys, but all goods which are covered by existing consumer safety regulations, from faulty electrical products to children's nightware and cosmetics. It seeks to create new powers to enable enforcement authorities to act against unsafe goods at the factory gate or at the point of entry into the country. Instead of trading standards officers having to scour the shops to track down suspected goods, as happens at present, they will be able to prevent such goods from getting there in the first place.

Clause 1 gives Customs and Excise officials the power to inform enforcement authorities of incoming consignments of consumer goods as they enter the country. Clause 2 enables them to detain goods up to 48 hours to allow the enforcement authorities time to examine the test goods and, if necessary, to use their wider powers to detain or seize goods. Clause 3 provides that where a trading standards officer has reasonable cause to believe that safety regulations are being contravened he may serve the trader with a suspension notice prohibiting him from putting the goods on the market.

Clauses 4 and 5 set out appeal procedures that a trader who has been served with a suspension notice can use. Clauses 6, 7 and 8 allow a court to order the forfeiture or disposal of goods proved to have contravened safety regulations. Clauses 9 and 10 provide for further appeal against decisions concerning suspension notices, seizures, and forfeitures. Clause 11 sets out under what circumstances information obtained under powers provided in the Bill can be disclosed. Clause 12 prevents traders from disclaiming liability for unsafe products by invoking the defence of due diligence without just cause.

Clause 13 lays down the circumstances under which the enforcement authority can be reimbursed for the costs incurred in seizing, destroying, or detaining goods. Clause 14 and Schedule 1 allow for the seizure of newly manufactured or imported goods for testing, and allow trading standards officers to seize any goods they reasonably suspect of contravening safety requirements. The schedule contains new provisions for compensation if, in the event of goods being seized or suspended, these do not contravene safety regulations.

I hope that your Lordships will support this Bill. It is recognised on all sides that more will need to be done. It is a beginning. The general duty proposed by the Government and supported by the Opposition awaits parliamentary scrutiny and approval. The Bill is not over-ambitious, but neither is it excessively modest. It expresses the view that where regulations exist in the public interest they should be enforced. Enforcement authorities need strong but reasonable powers if the consumer is indeed to be protected. I commend the Bill to your Lordships' House. I beg to move.

Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Baroness Gardner of Parkes.)

7.7 p.m.

Lord Airedale

My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Baroness for introducing this Bill to us and for explaining it so lucidly. She put into our minds the question, why should a Private Member's Bill, modest in scope like this, have to occupy 17 clauses, two schedules, and be destined to occupy 17 pages of the statute book? Is this because the parliamentary draftsman is unduly verbose and ought to be taught to express himself more concisely?

I do not think that that would be really a fair criticism. Most Bills of this kind contain matter ancillary to its main purpose—things like appeal procedures, non-disclosure of confidential information, the defence of due diligence, and so on. I suppose we might have a standard clauses Bill on the lines of the Interpretation Act. Then each Bill could say, when it came to the ancillary matters, "Standard Clauses 3, 7, 18 and 24", or whatever it was, "shall apply to this Bill".

That would shorten the Bill and the statute book, but the objection to that would be that the reader would have to look in two places instead of one, and up to now we have always had all the ancillary matter separately stated in each Bill; and so we get a fat statute book at the end of the year. But it is not all the fault of the parliamentary draftsmen.

Coming to the Bill itself, the maxim caveat emptor is no longer the answer to nearly all of the problems about the sale of goods. This is because goods nowadays are becoming more and more sophisticated. It is quite impossible for the shopper to examine an electrical appliance in the shop and come to an opinion about its safety. That work has to be done for him before the appliance arrives in the shop.

There has been some discussion about the compensation provision in Schedule I—quite understandably so. The enforcement officer feels entitled to say, "If I am acting on well-founded suspicion, I do not expect to have to pay compensation even if the goods do turn out to be perfectly safe". On the other hand, the trader feels that he is entitled to say, "Why, owing to the interference of the enforcement officer, should I be put to expense over goods which are perfectly safe?" I think that in practice the compensation provisions will work satisfactorily because presumably in most cases the goods will eventually be sold normally and there will be no claim or very little claim to compensation. But if we have an exceptional case where a good deal of compensation is going to be claimed, it will be for the trader to warn the enforcement officer about this and it will count against him if he does not.

Then presumably the enforcement officer will act with due speed to try to minimise the compensation which is going to be payable; so that I think that that probably will work out all right in practice after a bit of experience. Subject to that, I think that this is a good Bill and I wish it well.

7.11 p.m.

Baroness Stedman

My Lords, I too should like to thank the noble Baroness for the clear way in which she introduced the Bill. I welcome the intentions behind the Bill because I believe that we need to have a balance between the interests of the owners of the goods and those of the public at large and that we have to ensure that neither an innocent trader nor the trading standards authority acting in good faith should be penalised by anything in this Bill. If legislation is to be enforced it has to be based upon a reasonableness of action by the enforcement authority.

I have received representations from the Association of County Councils, of which I am a vice-president, and also from some of the individual authorities. They all want to see improvements in legislation to enable dangerous goods to be kept off the market. They, all of them, accept very willingly that there is an urgent need for a general duty to trade safely which would cover all the dangerous goods. Their concern lies specifically with two amendments that were made to the Bill in another place which they believe are likely to prejudice the effectiveness of the legislation now before us. I hope to return to those in more detail at Committee stage.

The first concern is about the compensation provisions in Schedule 1, paragraph 14. If a trading standards officer is faced with goods whose appearance and origin seem to be similar to those of goods which had previously been found to be unsafe, and with no further information, I would not consider it unreasonable for that trading standards officer to require that those goods be detained for testing. Under the present provisions, such action could be penalised by the compensation payment if the goods turned out to be satisfactory. My noble friend Lord Airedale has already referred to that.

Compensation will be payable by an authority where the supply of goods turns out to be safe whether or not the action in suspending them was reasonable. Officers might be faced with a very large consignment of goods of a type or from a source which has been shown previously to be unsafe. Where the importer has neither carried out the tests nor checked with the supplier that testing has been done then surely, with the Bill as it now stands, no authority would be prepared to place itself at risk of paying high compensation should those goods turn out to be safe.

The Bill as it stands seems to be taking account only of the traders' interests. If the legislation is to work it has to be based upon reasonableness of action by the enforecment authority. I believe that if the onus were to be placed on the enforcement authority to prove that its officer had acted reasonably in suspending the supply of goods, that might well overcome the difficulties of proof which were raised by respresentatives of trade interests. Whatever the final outcome, legislation that is enforceable is in the interests both of British industry and of the consumers. The trading standards authorities, the local authorities, take the view that the original period of 72 hours for the detention of goods is essential if effective action is to be taken to check imported goods or to prevent unsafe goods being put on the market. They feel very strongly that the 48 hours put into the Bill by the amendment is insufficient and could deter enforcement action by the trading standards officers.

I hope that the Government and the noble Baroness may be persuaded to revert to 72 hours in Clause 2(1). I believe that the 72 hours' detention originally specified would recognise the problems of obtaining information either at home or abroad, at weekends or on public holidays. The enforcement officers must be given time to check with the importer whether the goods have been tested; because Customs and Excise may not be willing to use their powers to seize the goods unless this information is available. I understand that the reason given in another place for reducing the period from 72 to 48 hours was that it was in the interests of safeguarding the measure as a whole from successful challenge in the European Court.

Can the noble Baroness or the Minister tell the House whether any check has been made with the European Commission as to whether 72 hours or 48 hours would be acceptable or unacceptable? It seems to me that perhaps Article 36 of the Treaty of Rome allows for restrictions on health and safety grounds. Is it not a fact, as the noble Baroness has said, that the British Toy Manufacturers' Association not only supports this Bill but also gives its full support to a 72-hour detention period? I hope that at Committee stage the noble Baroness may accept that 72 hours would be preferable to 48 hours, and I hope also that the requirement for reasonableness of action by the enforcement authority and its officers may be reinserted.

7.18 p.m.

Baroness Fisher of Rednal

My Lords, I have already spoken to the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, to say that I was going to intervene. It will not be at great length. I too welcome the Bill. I just want to draw attention to the powers that will be given to the Customs and Excise officers at ports of entry to disclose information. Presumably the disclosure of the information will be to the trading standards officers in the area. Therefore I can see that there is going to be a great need for a closer working relationship between the Customs and Excise and the trading standards officers (or the duly authorised people if they do not have trading standards officers) who are in the areas where goods are being brought into the country.

Unless that closer working relationship takes place, we shall not see the outcome of this Bill that is desirable. As the noble Baroness has already outlined, if this co-operation can be achieved obviously it lessens the work of the trading standards officers in trying to track down what are unsafe goods that can be distributed in so many outlets throughout the length and breadth of the country. Many of those unsafe goods find themselves not in what we call the recognised shops but in many markets in various localities up and down the country into which people are moving from day to day.

As the noble Baroness has said and as we all know, there is a particular problem at Christmastime with toys, as in the very serious case that she outlined. However, electrical goods—hair dryers, hair curlers, irons and those kinds of things—are constantly coming into the country as imports. I feel that perhaps the Bill does not go far enough; because our own manufacturers in this country have to conform very strictly either to British Standards Institution standards or to British electrical standards. They are in the unfortunate position, because they conform to our high standards so that we do not have unsafe goods, of having to compete against cheap imports which very often are proved to be unsafe. Obviously that does not help our own manufactured goods. So one would hope that in the foreseeable future we shall get safety of goods legislation which covers not only goods of British manufacture but also goods which are imported into the country.

7.21 p.m.

Lord Bruce of Donington

My Lords, we on this side of the House are grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, and indeed to her colleague in another place, for having brought the Bill before us. To the formidable list of supporters that the noble Baroness was good enough to recount to us when she introduced the Bill there must now be added the supreme accolade of the support of Her Majesty's Opposition.

I listened with very great interest to the remarks that fell from the lips of the noble Lord, Lord Airedale. I, too, have several reservations about the drafting of the Bill, but I am due to encounter parliamentary draftsmen in the course of debates on other and more contentious Bills and I do not wish at this stage to get their backs up in any way by adding any criticisms further to those which have already been uttered, albeit indirectly, by the noble Lord, Lord Airedale.

The best support we can give to the noble Baroness in connection with this Bill is to ensure that when it reaches the statute book Her Majesty's Government themselves have adequate powers, in terms of personnel, to enforce its provisions. Therefore, I have a question to ask of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth—it is quite a direct one and is capable of being answered either in the affirmative or the negative without any qualification—as to whether he is satisfied that the enforcement officers themselves have sufficient resources at their disposal to enable proper enforcement of the provisions of the Bill. That is the first question.

The second question arises on the regulations that are already in force in regard to the safety of goods. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, will remember that he and I have exchanged views across the Floor of the House concerning the enforcement provisions of the many regulations that have passed through this House over the last couple of years. As the noble Lord will know, each of the regulations makes its own provision as to the method of enforcement or in respect of the periods of delay which may be involved in connection with enforcement. What I should like to know from the noble Lord is the fate of the existing regulations which make provision for enforcement on terms rather more lax than those that are contained in the Bill. Is it the noble Lord's intention to produce further regulations under the provisions of this Bill in amendment of the regulations already in force which may be far less stringent? That is something about which I believe the House ought to be informed.

I should like also to add my support to the suggestion made by the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, concerning extending the period from 48 hours to 72. Our Customs officers in the United Kingdom may be the most skilled, intelligent and perceptive officials on the face of the earth, but even they require expert opinion from time to time. If it be the case, and only if it be the case, that 72 hours would make them more effective, I would unhesitatingly support the suggestion put forward by the noble Baroness. However, that is presumably a matter which can be dealt with at the Committee stage.

As I say, this is only the Second Reading, and there may be points to put in Committee. One hopes that there will be contributions from all sides of the Chamber which may make for constructive detailed improvement of the Bill. In the meantime we on this side are all in favour of any endeavours that can be made, particularly in the light of the Government's comprehensive White Paper, to improve the safety of goods and to reduce the quite unnecessary and very often ghastly toll of injury and death which takes place when shoddy and unsafe goods get on to the market. We welcome the Bill and reiterate our thanks to the noble Baroness for introducing it this evening.

7.26 p.m.

Lord Lucas of Chilworth

My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend, Lady Gardner of Parkes for having taken up the cause of consumer safety in introducing this Bill to your Lordships this evening. Let me say straight away that this measure, though not a Government Bill, has the full support of the Government. It seeks to implement in part some of the proposals we put foward in July 1984 in our White Paper on the safety of goods. These are important proposals to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the enforcement of existing safety regulations.

This Bill now before your Lordships contains important new powers enabling Customs and Excise officers to co-operate with trading standards officers in identifying and, if necessary, halting the supply of potentially dangerous imports. It enables trading standards officers to suspend the supply of goods which they suspect of being unsafe or, if necessary, to seize those goods pending further examination and/or prosecution. It also empowers the courts to make orders for the forfeiture of goods where those goods have been found to contravene safety requirements.

In endorsing these new powers the Government have not forgotten the essential principle that regulations should be kept to the minimum necessary to ensure fair and safe trading and, in particular, that the innocent trader who suffers as a result of the use of such powers should be fully compensated for any loss he has incurred. I shall return to the question of compensation in a moment; but perhaps I may say that we have therefore insisted that the promoters of the Bill, as a condition of our support, see to it that there is a fair provision for compensation in the event that goods suspended or seized by enforcement officers turn out to be perfectly safe. We are satisfied that, with the compensation provision, the Bill as a whole is a balanced package which will certainly ease current problems of enforcement without creating any significant new burdens on traders.

The question of the other major proposals in our White Paper on safety of goods has been raised, particularly regarding the confirmation of the position at this moment. I can assure your Lordships' House that the proposal to introduce a general safety duty will be included in legislation to which the Government are committed. However, I have to say to my noble friend that I cannot go quite so firmly as she did in so far as the date is concerned when she offered the thought that perhaps there might be an announcement in the Queen's Speech. I can only say at this moment that it will be brought forward with other measures on the consumer front as soon as parliamentary time permits.

Perhaps I may touch on those very few questions which noble Lords have addressed to me, rather than to my noble friend. I note the point that the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, made with regard to compensation which, very broadly, is exactly the same point that the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, raised, although she also asked about the Customs' detention power, as did the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington.

It is vital to put a strict time limit on this power of Customs officers to detain goods, in order to reduce the risk of successful challenge to the Bill under Article 30 of the Treaty of Rome. That article prohibits measures which have the effect of restricting imports, and although Article 36 of the treaty to which the noble Baroness referred permits exceptions to this rule on the grounds of health and safety, any measures taken on these grounds must be strictly proportionate to the health and safety risk in question. There is no black and white answer to the question of how long a period of detention would be considered proportionate, but we have essentially in this Bill to look at the purpose of the detention provision.

The noble Baroness, Lady Fisher of Rednal, raised a point on the disclosure of information. Perhaps I may just say to her at this stage that we consider it an important principle that public authorities should not be allowed very wide access to information about business and businessmen, as they are under this Bill, without imposing clear penalties in the event that this authority is abused. The provision in this Bill restricting disclosure of information is based closely on the tried and tested provisions in the Consumer Safety Act 1978 and the related legislation. This provision makes it an offence, subject to certain specified exceptions, to disclose any information falling into certain closely defined categories. It is not widely understood that the categories of information, disclosure of which is made an offence, are very restricted in scope.

The noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, asked me specifically whether we were satisfied that when this Bill, to which he has given his support, becomes an Act the Customs and Excise authorities on the one hand, and the trading standards officers on the other, will have enough resource to meet the new commitment. Yes, my Lords, we believe that they will. The noble Lord will recall that it is the local authorities' responsibility in so far as trading standards officers are concerned.

But, in general, perhaps I may suggest to the House that the Bill will make enforcement more efficient and more effective, in so far as more can be done within the current level of resource, because it enables the enforcement officers on both sides of the fence, as it were, to carry out their duties at the point of first supply rather than, as at present, chasing around the country to thousands and thousands of retail and wholesale outlets.

The noble Lord asked a second fairly straightforward question: what will happen to the enforcement arrangements so far as existing regulations are concerned? The arrangements set out in this Bill override the previous arrangements for enforcement of regulations under the Act of 1961 and the Consumer Safety Act 1978.

I think that I have answered the questions directly put to me. We are quite sure that this legislation will make a large contribution towards the general safety of goods, particularly toys and those seasonal goods such as swimming pools, Christmas tree lights and so on, which I think is what my noble friend is seeking, and will most certainly be complementary to the wider consumer protection legislation which, as I have already indicated, the Government expect to introduce into Parliament as soon as time permits. I commend this Bill to your Lordships.

7.35 p.m.

Baroness Gardner of Parkes

My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have taken part in this Second Reading debate and who have made their points so clearly and succinctly. It is clear that we shall have quite a lot to discuss at the Committee stage in terms of compensation.

I thought that the case made by the noble Baroness was most interesting, as was the question of the period of time for which goods can be detained. Obviously there is much to consider on that. I thought that the two interests might be slightly in conflict, but perhaps the longer the detention proposed the less strong the case against compensation; and of those two I personally favour the compensation case made by the noble Baroness. We must look carefully into these matters. Meanwhile, I thank my noble friend the Minister for giving such a good reply and putting the Government's position so clearly for us, and I also thank those who have taken part in the debate.

On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.