Policy paper

Consumer Rights Bill

Bill for a simple, modern framework of consumer rights.

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

Documents

Consumer Rights Bill: statement on policy reform and responses to pre-legislative scrutiny

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Draft Consumer Rights Bill

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Draft Consumer Rights Bill: written ministerial statement

Consumer Rights Bill: table of responses to consultations

Consumer rights and business practices: IFF report

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Consumer rights and economic growth: ICF GHK report

Draft Consumer Rights Bill: explanatory notes

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Details

Consumers struggle to enforce their rights because UK consumer law is unnecessarily complex, ambiguous in places and has not kept up with technological developments. The government therefore proposes a simple, modern framework of consumer rights, which is set out in the Consumer Rights Bill. This will:

  • streamline consumer rights covering contracts for goods, services, digital content and the law relating to unfair terms in consumer contracts into 1 place
  • clarify the law where it is confusing, or written in legal jargon
  • modernise the framework for the digital age
  • deregulate to reduce business burdens and costs
  • strengthen measures to protect consumers, where it is appropriate to do so

The bill aims to help consumers and their advocates understand their rights when things go wrong, to empower consumers and promote growth through competitive markets.

With the bill, we are publishing the government’s response to the Business Innovation and Skills Select Committee’s scrutiny of the previously published draft bill, recent consultations on consumer rights and other documents that have informed our proposals. In addition to the impact assessments listed above, the impact assessment on private actions in competition law (PDF, 405KB) relates to the bill.

For more information on the Consumer Rights Bill, visit the the Consumer Rights Bill website

See also the July 2012 ‘Consultation on Enhancing Consumer Confidence by Clarifying Consumer Law’.

Updates to this page

Published 23 January 2014

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