Meeting of the Parliament 23 January 2020
I thank the clerks of the Economy, Energy and Fair Work Committee, the Scottish Parliament information centre and all those who gave evidence on the bill.
I have to be honest and say that, when the bill was introduced, I was sceptical of the need for it. Scotland has not had a statutory body concerned with consumer affairs since the demise, in 2008, of the Scottish Consumer Council, which had been set up by the UK Parliament. My recollections of that body include its very effective engagement, in around 2000, in the lead-up to the abolition of feudal tenure. The council identified that as an important consumer issue, as the owners of homes were subject to unfair, archaic and arbitrary feudal burdens that imposed private regulation of the use of their homes. The council’s perspective was extremely valuable, coming from perhaps an unexpected source. I am therefore sympathetic to the need to have a statutory consumer body, although we need to discuss its powers in detail.
Scotland has a long history of statutory consumer law, which dates back to long before the union of 1707. Someone drew my attention to the sumptuary laws, which regulated the private consumption of goods. In 1433, an act of the Scottish Parliament limited the use of pies and baked meats to those who held the rank of baron or higher. In 1471, the Parliament restricted the wearing of silk to knights, minstrels, heralds, high-ranking burgesses and those in receipt of £100 of annual rent. Mr Stevenson may know all about that.