Government plans a new Consumer Bill of Rights - Turn2us

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has launched a consultation on proposals for a new Consumer Bill of Rights, seeking your views on strengthening and modernising consumer law.

The proposed bill will set out in one place a clear code of shopping rights and simple standardised remedies for when things go wrong.

New proposals

Most consumer law was written about thirty years ago and does not clearly cover digital content like music, software or games so consumers are poorly protected by the law. The consultation proposes clear rights for consumers of digital content to bring the law up to date.

The proposed changes will:

Clarify the nature of consumers’ rights and remedies in relation to the supply of goods, which is currently an area where the law is unnecessarily complex.

• Bring the services regime more in line with the regime for goods, by strengthening consumer rights and remedies in relation to faulty services. The changes proposed include establishing a statutory guarantee and statutory remedies when the rights are breached, and the consultation also asks whether there should be a new legal right to certain services being judged on their outcome, rather than the way they are performed
• Modernise the law on digital content to protect consumers, by establishing a clear digital content regime with its own tailored set of rights and associated remedies.

The consultation is open until 5 October.

Source: Gov.UK (link opens in a new window)