Financial Guidance and Claims Bill [HL]

Earl of Kinnoull Excerpts

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

[Baroness Altmann]

My Lords, I too once again thank the Minister and all parties who have worked so hard on this Bill. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, who initially raised the issue of Scotland. It is excellent that the whole of Great Britain is included in the Bill. I thank the department for all the hard work that it has done to achieve this.

I too am delighted to see a cap on the PPI claims management fee. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, I would very much have liked the Government to agree that the parties responsible for the mis-selling would pay the fee rather than taking it out of the compensation that is paid to the customer. I understand that there may be an issue over the profitability of the claims management company itself but perhaps a compromise would be to split the 20% so that the customer gets 90% of what is due and the financial firm that has done the mis-selling perhaps pays 10% as well to the claims management firm. Having said that, I certainly welcome a 20% cap. I once again thank the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson, Lord Sharkey and Lord McKenzie, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Kramer and Lady Drake, the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and all other noble Lords who have made such great improvements to the Bill.

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, I cannot resist speaking briefly because of the good news in this group on the Scottish side. I pay tribute to and thank the Minister and her colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham—he of the very early morning email, which I received so often during the process of the Bill and which made me feel jolly lazy. I also pay tribute to and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, who added her name to my Scottish amendments; they were of course badly drafted, and I thank the parliamentary draftsman for correcting all that.