Financial Guidance and Claims Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Finlay of Llandaff and Baroness Kramer

3rd reading (Minutes of Proceedings): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I add my most sincere thanks to those of my noble friend Lady Coussins. This new clause is incredibly important. Yesterday, this was unanimously welcomed at the National Mental Capacity Forum leadership group, including by all those from the financial sector represented in the group, as being a very important way forward to make sure that our society is increasingly integrated and recognises the needs of those with permanent and transient impairments and incapacity, and those who may temporarily have been put in extremely vulnerable circumstances.

I also thank the Minister for the way she has listened and stayed in communication with us as the wording has been developed. It really was a very positive and constructive dialogue.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, as well as congratulating the Minister on bringing the language of “vulnerable circumstances” to the Bill, I want to congratulate the others who have made this issue so clear during our very positive and engaged debates; namely, the noble Baronesses, Lady Coussins, Lady Finlay and Lady Hollins. When the Minister first put down a slightly earlier draft of the amendment, which reordered some of the opening sections of Clause 2, because I am a naturally suspicious person, I tried to see whether there was some bear trap in there or something that I should be afraid of. I could find no such bear trap—and nor could my colleague, my noble friend Lord Sharkey, who I think now has a reputation for the most incisive examination of language in a Bill. I fully understand the desire of the Government to be clear and transparent—they seem very positive. I shall have more to say about the Bill in later stages—but, with this first grouping, we start off on a rather good note for the opening of Third Reading.

Financial Guidance and Claims Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Finlay of Llandaff and Baroness Kramer

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Tuesday 24th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer]

Obviously, we support these amendments. The Government’s argument has always been that this issue will act as a constraint. However, we think it draws attention to the problem and empowers people. One of our great dissatisfactions historically with the provision of financial education and financial capability is that it does not seem to create people who are more financially capable when they need to be. Amendment 10 raises once again the issue of timing and relevance. We are all human beings and we can go through various forms of training but if we then never use those skills or that information but require it 10, 15 or 20 years later, that is the point at which it needs to be recalled rather than having a tick-box exercise to show that at the age of 16 we took a class on those issues. We want this education to be relevant and to underscore the direction that I hope very much the single financial guidance body will want to take, but is by no means required to take, of looking for relevance and at situations where there is critical need, care leavers being one of the most obvious examples of that. We have known for years that care leavers get themselves into enormous trouble because of their lack of awareness of these issues but no body has felt it necessary to step into the breach. Here we have the perfect body to step into the breach. That would be entirely consistent with what it is doing. That is the mood and spirit of these amendments. I hope very much that the Government take the issues on board because were we not to see results that responded to the spirit and meaning behind these amendments, we would have a body that was very suboptimal. I think the House would agree with that.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for his very important comments in introducing these amendments. He has covered some issues that I was going to cover in relation to my amendment, which is next. I wonder whether he feels my amendment covers some of the things he is concerned about, because care leavers are just one group in vulnerable circumstances—we all know that—but there are other groups as well. I have a slight concern that once we start to put lots of different lists in the Bill, somebody will be left out. I will explain why our amendment is worded as it is and I am very grateful for the support from his Benches, but I raise that as a question.

Financial Guidance and Claims Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Finlay of Llandaff and Baroness Kramer

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 6th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, first, I declare my interest as chair of the National Mental Capacity Forum. I join in the comments of my noble friends Lady Coussins and Lord Listowel in welcoming the spirit of these amendments. Perhaps I may flag up, as I would be glad to have it on the record, that these amendments may not go far enough for those who have difficulty with financial issues.

Capacity impairments are related not only to mental ill-health. They may be related to frailty and there may be fluctuating mental capacity. For a group of people with communication difficulties, since banks are closing and local branches are no longer there, there is no one with whom they can communicate. If they have speech difficulties, they certainly cannot communicate well over the phone. They may have a mobility tremor, for example, which makes it difficult for them to use the internet without assistance, yet they may want to manage their affairs with a degree of privacy, which they can do in a face-to-face consultation with somebody in a bank.

In addition to impaired capacity and disability issues, there is another difficulty we increasingly see, particularly among the older population: coercion, which may be from other family members and a form of elder abuse. It can be very subtle indeed. I had a meeting this morning with Building Societies Association representatives, who are certainly detecting coercion in face-to-face encounters. But I also asked them whether there is any evidence of detecting coercion in the online systems that are in place. There is none, which becomes worrying. Although this group is right on the borderline of impaired capacity, they are inhibited from exercising their capacity because they are frightened of being intimidated by others.

Another group of concern is those with addictive behaviours such as the hypomania the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, referred to in his opening remarks. For example, people may have a gambling addiction—a very defined addiction—and be increasingly enticed into spending more or doing a great deal of shopping during the night, when they are hypomanic. The control options on accounts should really be strengthened, so that someone can put them on but not have the ability to take them off themselves without a consultative delay period. The problem is that when they are hypomanic, they think it very reasonable to spend or gamble massively, but later they realise they did not have the capacity to do so. I hope the Government will look very favourably on these amendments and that when we come back on Report, they might even consider extending them a bit further.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, if I may join in the general chorus, the concern that these amendments express—that the single financial guidance body is not directed to look at the issue of financial exclusion—is a serious lost opportunity. This body primarily directs channels of communication to all kinds of people about how to manage their money, whether that is in time of crisis or to maximise the opportunity for a good pension in old age, for example. As a result, it is in contact with people and is therefore aware of them in a way that, for example, a formal regulator such as the FCA can never be. Not to try to tackle the very individual and human complexities of financial exclusion seems a lost opportunity, given the palette of opportunity being created by the structure of the body. Financial exclusion matters greatly. We all know about growing inequality within our society and how it undermines the progress we wish to make. The contribution this body could make in this arena could help tip the balance in the direction in which we all hope to go.