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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what sanctions Trading Standards is able to apply to companies which are found to be operating in unacceptable ways; and if he will make a statement.

Given the wide variety of legislation which Trading Standards can enforce, I am limiting my answer to consumer law.

Where a company has committed a criminal breach of consumer law under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations (2008), Trading Standards can prosecute in the criminal court and the court can impose a fine or imprisonment for a serious offence.

However, there are no equivalent sanctions available to Trading Standards in the civil courts and the Government has therefore committed to introducing court based civil sanctions for breaches of civil law. We are also considering further options to ensure that our system of consumer protection provides a robust response to both local and national threats following the Modernising Consumer Markets Green Paper in 2018.