Consumer Rights Bill

Debate between Baroness Crawley and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Wednesday 26th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Crawley (Lab)]

My Lords, I spoke on this subject in Committee. I will briefly speak to support the amendment before us and in particular acknowledge the work of my noble friend Lord Mitchell, who has done a tremendous amount in this vexed area of payday loans.

I said in Committee that I believe that the language of children’s protection has to be modernised. As the noble Baroness just said, we rightly rail against violence, pornography and other aspects of our society when there is abuse of its exposure to children and young people. However, the insidious manipulation of children, when it comes to payday lending and the payday lending industry, can no longer be overlooked or seen as a lesser evil than those of violence and pornography. We all know that the misuse of money can lead to terrible family misery. We harm children, often for the rest of their lives, if we make the notion popular for them that procuring money cheaply can be dressed up and sound like fun, or can be a solution to family pain.

When speaking about advertising rules, the Advertising Standards Authority states:

“The protection of young people is at the heart of the rules; they already prohibit payday loan ads from encouraging under-18s to either take out a loan or pester others to do so for them”.

It goes on:

“The rules also require that ads must be socially responsible, which we can apply to any ad that appears to target children directly”.

However, as other noble Lords have said, the ASA overstates its case. It is hard to see how anyone can recognise the term “socially responsible” when it comes to payday loans at, as the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury said, “usurious rates”. The European Union directive on this—the audiovisual media services directive—states that content which might “seriously impair” minors should not be included in any programme. It goes on to state that content which is “likely to impair” minors must be restricted,

“by selecting the time of the broadcast or by any technical measure”

necessary. I suggest to the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, that including the amendment before us in the Bill would be an appropriate measure, as the European directive states.

I read recently that the world’s top 10 PR companies, including UK ones, have pledged not to represent clients that deny manmade climate change. That was a huge step for these companies to take. What a powerful signal it would send if those same PR companies and their advertisers took a similar course of action when it comes to their industry producing payday loan adverts.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for speaking in the debate, and give special thanks to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham for taking on the amendment tabled by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Truro. He spoke extremely well—in borrowed shoes, perhaps, but he obviously felt the same as the right reverend Prelate did in his introductory remarks earlier. I declare my interest as the retiring chair of StepChange, the debt charity, which has a lot of experience in this area.

As we found in Committee, there is clearly an all-party consensus for action. It all boils down to the question of why, if it is right to have advertising restrictions on certain items viewed as harmful or inappropriate for children such as violence, junk food, gambling and alcohol, it is not right to do the same to prevent the harm caused by payday loans. We have clear evidence that there is significant pressure from parents and many campaign groups to place payday loans in the same category as the items that are already restricted, and we need to listen to that.

It is up to the Government to defend their position and explain why on earth they feel that they can resist this amendment. When it was debated in Grand Committee the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, said:

“The Government share the concerns of noble Lords that this market has caused serious problems for consumers, with unscrupulous lenders taking advantage of vulnerable consumers”.

I could not have put it better myself. She added that the Government were,

“committed to tackling abuse in the payday market wherever it occurs, including in the marketing of these loans. The Government strongly agree with noble Lords that it is unacceptable for payday lenders deliberately to target vulnerable consumers with their advertising material”.

Game over, it seems to me. So far, so good—but it went downhill from there. The Minister’s argument boiled down to the tired old saw that regulation, not legislation was the right answer, and that,

“a robust set of measures are now in place to protect the vulnerable from such practices”.—[Official Report, 3/11/14, col. GC 618.]

But they do not.

What do we want? We want legislation now. What are we being offered? Wishy-washy regulations that do not stop children seeing payday lenders’ advertisements, causing irreparable harm. The Government accept that these products, like alcohol and gambling, which I have already mentioned, are unsuitable for children. They agree that advertisements for those should not be targeted at children, but they are happy to let this go forward for payday lenders. This is not good policy-making.

The Government have a chance today to give the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, an early Christmas present and allow him to say that the job on payday lenders has been well done. This is a good thing to do. The time for reviews and evidence gathering is surely over, and I hope that the right reverend Prelate will not be dissuaded from testing the opinion of the House at the end of this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Higgins, may be right that that wording of the amendment is not exact enough, but that, of course, can be tidied up at Third Reading. We should not desist from testing the principle here simply because of difficulties with the wording. Sometimes you just have to do the right thing—and I hope we will.

[Baroness Jolly (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for raising the important issue of the payday lending industry again. I repeat what I said in Committee—that the strong feeling in the House on this matter is clear, and the Government share the concern that payday lenders’ advertising can encourage irresponsible borrowing and cause consumers real harm.

The Government have worked hard on this issue to listen to as many views as possible, both within this House and beyond. As was noted earlier, I have met and spoken to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Truro several times, and just this morning the Minister and I met the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham—who is an excellent understudy in this matter—and other noble Lords, to discuss their concerns.

It is worth reiterating all the action the Government have taken to protect consumers in this industry, because in Committee we were a very select bunch whereas on Report there is a wider audience. First, the Government have fundamentally reformed the regulation of the payday market. The Financial Conduct Authority’s new, more robust regulatory system is already having a significant impact: the FCA has found that the volume of payday loans has fallen by 35% since it took over regulation in April; that has happened in just seven months.

The Government have also legislated to require the FCA to introduce a cap on the cost of payday loans, to protect consumers from unfair costs. This cap, which will be in place from the turn of the year, will ensure that no customer ever has to pay back more than double the amount they have borrowed. The FCA has estimated that as a result of the cap, perhaps as few as three or four firms will be able to continue in the market. The Government remain committed to tackling abuse in the payday loan market wherever it occurs, including in the marketing of these loans.

Noble Lords raised specific concerns about the potential for payday loan advertising to target children. Members of the Consumer Finance Association, the main payday loan trade body, and Wonga, which is represented separately, all have explicit policies not to advertise on children’s TV. Ofcom has found that payday loan adverts comprise a relatively small 0.6% of TV adverts seen by children aged between four and 15, which is just over one a week. This is across all channels and time slots. Ofcom has also found that over a quarter of TV watched by four to 15 year-olds is after 9 pm, after the watershed. Therefore the key to protecting children must be to ensure that all adverts seen at any time of day—and this is the point that the noble Lord was making earlier—have appropriate content and are not targeted at children in any way.

Let me be clear. There are already robust content rules in place to protect children from payday loan advertisements. The Advertising Standards Authority enforces the rules set out in the UK Code of Broadcast Advertising, or the BCAP code. The BCAP code requires that all adverts are socially responsible and ensure that young people are protected from harm.