I laid a successful amendment against the Commerce and Employment Department’s policy letter on trading standards. My speech is below.
Sir, This is quite a straightforward amendment
And deals with an omission from the policy letter. Whilst paragraph 7.10 discusses price indications and essentially the need for fair and transparent pricing of products it does not specifically consider sales, offers or price comparisons. I can only believe this was an oversight as these play an important part of any retailer’s operations.
I had originally thought it would be sufficient just to add to 1g, the line, including sales offers and price comparisons. However, advice from Crown Advocate and HM Comptroller was that as thing stand there are not enough policy instructions to refer to. Hence the amendment in this form.
Now, I’m not one to want add more burden to businesses, however I do believe there is a need for some form of protection to the consumer in this area and this is not something that should concern any retailer who acts in an ethical manner. Perhaps as someone with a retail business I see where others may be trying it on. For instance, those that seem to have year round sales, where the original price probably only existed for 1 week in February. Also, seeing a growing trend to display sale offers through comparisons with the UK. For example, stating that an item is now 25% the UK price. That is misaleading and irrelevant.
So, this amendment merely seeks that the department comes back with proposals to deal with a matter that I think should really have been included in this policy letter.