Consultation on enhancing consumer confidence by clarifying consumer law

Please note: the full consultation document and response form is available below, but to respond quickly and easily there is a short online version of the consultation that you can access here.

Consumers who understand their rights can play a strong part in driving growth because they force businesses to innovate and pursue efficiency.  For this they need both competitive markets and a strong framework of consumer law that can be effectively enforced. There is widespread agreement that current consumer law is not fit for purpose because rights and obligations are unclear.

The proposals in this consultation are intended to create a simple and modern framework of consumer law written in plain language that consumers and businesses can confidently use for themselves. They form part of a package of measures to simplify consumer law.

The proposals have two aims:

• To increase growth, by reducing the burden on business of over-complex and unclear law and increasing consumer confidence
  
• To promote fairness, by enabling consumers to understand and assert their rights when they buy substandard goods, services or digital content

The core reforms considered in this consultation are:

• Goods: establish clear rules where uncertainty about rights and remedies is causing disputes, including a defined period for the short term right to reject within which consumers can get a full refund for faulty goods
  
• Services: bring the services regime more in line with goods by introducing a statutory guarantee and statutory remedies which a service provider would have to offer when the service was inadequate
  
• Digital content: establish clear protection for digital content such as music, software and games, where the law is currently uncertain, through a separate digital content regime with its own tailored set of rights and associated remedies

Download the consultation

• Enhancing consumer confidence by clarifying consumer law: consultation on the supply of goods, services and digital content (PDF, 1.1 Mb) 
• Enhancing consumer confidence by clarifying consumer law: consultation on rationalising and modernising consumer law on the sale of goods, services and digital content. Response form (DOC, 216 Kb) 
• Cyfreithiau symlach, hawliau cadarnach: fersiwn gryno o ymgynghoriad y llywodraeth ar gyflenwi nwyddau, gwasanaethau a chynnwys digidol (PDF, 193 Kb) 
• The supply of goods: a new statutory scheme of guarantees. Impact assessment (PDF, 279 Kb) 
• The supply of goods: the short term right to reject faulty goods. Impact assessment (PDF, 304 Kb) 
• The supply of goods: the repair or replacement of faulty goods. Impact assessment (PDF, 343 Kb) 
• The supply of goods: the deduction from refund for use at rescission of contract. Impact assessment (PDF, 356 Kb) 
• The supply of goods: a single scheme of remedies for faulty goods. Impact assessment (PDF, 293 Kb) 
• The supply of services: impact assessment (PDF, 257 Kb) 
• The supply of digital content: impact assessment (PDF, 475 Kb)