Farepak

Debate between Lord Beith and Jessica Morden

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Jessica Morden]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. There are a whole range of prepayment schemes. She mentioned prepayment for funerals, which is a huge issue that I shall address later.

Farepak customers were on modest incomes, and in October 2006 their Christmas was destroyed. All their carefully saved money disappeared overnight. These are people who did the right thing. They planned how they were going to pay for Christmas, they worked hard all year round, they made their monthly payments and Christmas was going to be sorted. They are predominantly women managing household finances to provide for their families. They were doing what we ask people to do. When Farepak went bust, Christmas was ruined for many. They were on modest incomes and could not get money out of the bank to cover the loss.

The Government owe it to Farepak victims to do the right thing. Farepak is a special case and the Government should step in and help. We did it for Equitable Life victims; quite rightly, the Government are stepping in to the tune of £500 million for them this year. Farepak victims are owed around £38 million. In the same way as we did with the banks, we should send the right signal to savers on modest incomes that their money is safe in the event of bankruptcy.

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

I commend the hon. Lady for securing the debate. It is important that people are very careful about putting their money in schemes of this kind after the experience of Farepak. Before putting in their money, they should look for firm guarantees such as the banks must now have. Money is precious when it is from a hard-earned small income.

[Jessica Morden]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Obviously, that is where the CPA and self-regulation come in. Many of the Farepak victims that I have spoken to saved with friends because they trusted them. We must address the whole issue in the industry.

Despite all that has happened to her and her friends, the priority of my constituent, Mrs Deborah Harvey, is to ensure that the situation never happens again. On behalf of her and many others, I say to the Minister that Farepak victims want justice, adequate compensation, enhanced regulation for all firms engaged in prepayment schemes, and key figures in Farepak to be held accountable for what they did. That is how we shall ensure that decent people doing the right thing never again lose out in that way.