Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 31st January 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a real pleasure to follow the noble Baroness and agree with every word that she said. I particularly applaud the specificity around software and hardware becoming obsolete by software not being maintained by the manufacturers who, in effect, make obsolete well before its time the hardware that sits alongside that.

I rise to speak to my Amendment 201. In many ways, the only build I would put on what the noble Baroness has said is around expanding to broader sectors the whole concept of right to repair. Perhaps before my time, or perhaps not, there used to be a symbol, a mark of quality, on many products: “Made in Britain; built to last”. That can go well beyond these shores, but it is not a bad line to consider when we think about right to repair.

All that my Amendment 201 seeks is for products to have their proper, natural and appropriate life cycle. We are in the middle of an environmental emergency, with difficult macroeconomic headwinds and a cost of living crisis. Right to repair speaks to all these issues. In no sense is it the silver bullet, but it is an important part of what we can practically and effectively and should do. It is not increased, burdensome regulation; it is taking a very British approach to a particular problem and with very little difficulty solving it within this Bill.

Amendment 201 proposes changing the Consumer Rights Act 2015 by inserting a right to repair so that, before a purchase is made, information must be provided on the repairability of a good, including whether it has been produced with repairability in mind, whether there are spare parts and how to access them, and the likely cost involved. Similarly, in situations where repairs can be performed safely by the purchaser, the information required includes whether information exists on how to do so, and, if so, how the purchaser can get their hands on it. It is straightforward and it makes economic, environmental and social sense.

To echo what the noble Baroness said, it is—this is positive—a particularly British way of going about things. We can cut those piles of unnecessary electric waste, change how technology operates and have a positive impact across so many sectors of our economy, positively benefiting our society. I look forward to the Minister’s response; this would be a good amendment to accept.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Holmes; I agree with the intent if not exactly the detail of his amendment—I will come back to that. It is also a great pleasure to take part in the debate on this group of amendments, so ably introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and following the powerful arguments presented by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. As at Second Reading, much of what she said about right to repair is exactly what I would have said, so I will not say it again; I will just cross-reference her speech, as I did at Second Reading on the same subject.

I have attached my name to Amendment 109 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, as well as her Amendment 134 on greenwashing. Had there been space, I would also have attached my name to the amendments on right to repair. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and I have been having a little race in various groups.

I start with Amendment 109. It is worth reflecting for a moment on the fact that, as a country, we have legally binding climate and emissions targets. The Committee on Climate Change has been awaiting a new chair for 18 months—reports suggest that at least two Members of your Lordships’ House are in line for that and waiting to find out their fate—and its chief executive has just stood down. Despite all that, it put out a statement yesterday—handily, given the timing of today’s Committee—stressing strongly that, following COP 28,

“the obligation on every country is now to push even harder”

on climate action. It said that the UK needs

“even greater domestic climate ambition to reinforce the UK’s international standing”—

something that the Government are often concerned about. Crucially, it noted

“a significant delivery gap to the UK’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) of reducing emissions by 68% by 2030”.

The independent Committee on Climate Change is saying that we are not doing enough, what we have now is not sufficient and we are not meeting the international obligations that we have signed up to. It is in that context that we need to look at Amendment 109, which could be hugely powerful. We are talking about commercial practices failing to protect consumers in the promotion and supply of goods and services by digital means. This relates to the detailed discussion we had on the previous group of amendments about flights and package holidays and the ways in which they are promoted and people are given information about their environmental impacts.

Since our conference in Brighton last autumn, the Green Party has been calling for a ban on high-carbon advertising. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, may not entirely thank me for this, but I suggest that this amendment, in essence, implies a ban on high-carbon advertising. For the avoidance of doubt, this is a suggestion not that we should stop anyone flying or taking any action that they need to, but about whether we should allow expensive, continual bombardment—on the internet, from digital screens everywhere we go, on public transport and from every quarter—to purchase things that we might not otherwise have purchased.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, before the Minister sits down, I come back to his response to Amendment 109 about not meeting our net-zero targets. I can probably paraphrase what he said as, “It’s all fine here and everything’s on track”. How would he align that with the statement from the Committee on Climate Change yesterday that there are significant delivery gaps for our NDCs for 2030?

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that. This is not a perfect science. We are on a journey to net zero and will get there by 2050. We have been very clear on the milestones that we need to hit along the way. As far as the UK is concerned, there is absolutely no going back on our commitment to hit that target, but it is a transition, and it will take a generation. I am very clear that we will get there.