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- I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make requirements regarding the minimum size of print in certain documents, including those relating to advertising and contracts; and for connected purposes. The Bill’s objective is simple: it is not to impose any additional regulations on the content of terms and conditions in advertisements or contracts, but to ensure that customers are reasonably able to read what they say. It is easy to say “Let the buyer beware”, but if the buyer cannot read the contract, how is he or she supposed to beware? I shall give an example that happened to me personally just last week. It is not a particularly severe example compared with some of the others that I shall cite, but it illustrates the point. People who make an online purchase, as I did last week, may be offered a voucher if they make another purchase from the same firm—in this case, Expedia. If they click on that offer, they find that they have signed up to pay £8 a month for ever, until they cancel it, for a package of discount vouchers that they will get in the future. The website does not spell out what the vouchers are or their value. More to the point, the deal is in small print and people have to look for it to see that that is what they are signing up for. I noticed the offer because a constituent raised the matter with me a few weeks ago, after he had ordered some flowers online. He accepted the offer and, as a result, a couple of months later he noticed he had been paying £8 a month to a company that he had never heard of. He inquired why and found out that he had been fooled by the small print. Much more serious examples have come up in my discussions with non-governmental organisations, in relation to matters such as the redemption payment to be made when a mortgage is redeemed, which may be much more substantial than the mortgage holder expects. In a lease, the fine print relating to rental arrangements governs when the deposit is to be returned. Often the deposit is never seen again because of something deep down in the contract, especially if a person is a relatively vulnerable renter who is not used to the formalities of legal contracts and who has difficulty burrowing into small print deep in the contract. In the case of insurance policies, insurance companies are happy to take people’s money no matter how old they are, but when policyholders come to claim, they find that in the small print there is an exclusion based on their age. The Bill has widespread support. The phrase “in the small print” has become a standard metaphor for evasive and devious modification of what appears to be on offer. I am grateful for the help of the Royal National Institute of the Blind and the Plain English Campaign in preparing the Bill. I welcome the support of Age Concern, Help the Aged and the Trading Standards Institute, which was helpfully brought in by my co-sponsor, my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Mr. Truswell). I thank the other co-sponsors present—my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac), and the hon. Members for Lewes (Norman Baker) and for Richmond Park (Susan Kramer). If I have missed anyone, I apologise. I am grateful for the all-party support and for the support of my local newspaper, the Nottingham Evening Post. In fairness, amid the orgy of congratulation, I have had a critical note from the Advertising Standards Authority, which has reservations about the Bill and does not believe there is a problem. It says that it already has the power to regulate the area adequately. With all due respect to the Advertising Standards Authority, that does not seem in practice to prevent widespread use of small print with the objective of obscuring unwelcome terms and conditions. As we all know, ten-minute Bills tend to have a sad fate in the eternal grey waiting room of the pending section of the Order Paper, but I am glad to say that in this case a Minister from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform has agreed to take the matter up, and I will meet him next week to see whether the issue can be addressed as part of the new EU directive on consumer protection. There might be those who have their doubts about the EU but I hope that on this issue at least we are of one mind in saying that the consumer deserves protection against manipulation in the small print. I commend the Bill to the House. Question put and agreed to. Bill ordered to be brought in by Dr. Nick Palmer, Mr. Graham Allen, Norman Baker, Michael Jabez Foster, Mr. Fabian Hamilton, John Hemming, Susan Kramer, Dr. Julian Lewis, Shona McIsaac and Mr. Paul Truswell. Small Print Dr. Nick Palmer accordingly presented a Bill to make requirements regarding the minimum size of print in certain documents, including those relating to advertising and contracts; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 14 March, and to be printed [Bill 76]. BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (LISBON TREATY) (No. 6) Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Order [28 January], That the Order of 28th January be further amended as follows: in the Table, in the entry for Allotted Day 7, in the third column: (a) for ‘4½ hours’ substitute ‘3 hours’, and (b) for ‘1½ hours’ substitute ‘3 hours’.—[Ms Diana R. Johnson.] Question agreed to.
Dr. Nick Palmer (Broxtowe) (Lab)Labour
Mr. Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)Liberal Democrat
Mr. Nick Clegg (Sheffield, Hallam) (LD)Liberal Democrat
Mr. William Cash (Stone) (Con)Conservative
Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey) (LD)Liberal Democrat
Julia Goldsworthy (Falmouth and Camborne) (LD)Liberal Democrat
Norman Baker (Lewes) (LD)Liberal Democrat
The Minister for Europe (Mr. Jim Murphy)Labour