Payday Loans: Advertisements

Baroness Benjamin Excerpts

Thursday 3rd April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I think it is right first to set out the scale of the problem. I am not doubting that there are issues, which is why the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice is looking explicitly at this matter. However, to set the issue in context, payday loan adverts in 2012 comprised 0.6% of TV ads seen by children aged four to 15, and, last year, all personal debt ads on children’s television amounted to 0.2% of total ad spend on children’s television. I am not saying that it is not an issue, but the number of ads being watched by children in this area is relatively modest—hardly more than one a week.

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, payday loans are a form of grooming. So, to protect our children, should there not be an additional clause in the Advertising Standards Authority’s children’s code that refers to the scheduling of adverts that encourage potentially harmful lifestyle choices such as easy access to borrowing, including payday loans?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, that is exactly why the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice is looking at this issue. We expect to hear from it in the next few months and there may be consequences for the ASA code. I have some difficulties about the use of the word “grooming” in this context. It has come to have a specific meaning in relation to sexual exploitation, and, whatever the problems with payday loans—and there are very considerable problems—they are not of that degree of difficulty.