Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of increasing penalties for firms found to have mislead consumers about their rights.

This is an important issue which the Government has committed to act on shortly. We will introduce new civil monetary penalties for breaches of consumer law. The Government will do so through the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Bill which will be brought forward in this session of Parliament.

This means that anyone ripping off consumers with misleading claims, unfair terms and conditions and hard-to-exit contracts may be penalised up to 10% of annual global turnover, or £300,000, whichever is higher.

Under these plans, the Competition and Markets Authority will be given direct fining powers, alongside the civil courts which would be able to act on application from enforcers like sector regulators and local authority trading standards departments.