Credit Unions

Lord Clarke of Hampstead Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, the Government have legislated several times to modernise the law in respect of credit unions. The proposals of the Labour Party are based on an assumption that payday lenders represent a large stock of cash. The way in which the payday lending industry is going suggests that there simply will not be that amount of resource available from the sector.

[Lord Clarke of Hampstead (Lab)]

My Lords, when this subject was discussed on a previous occasion, I asked the Minister if he would liaise with the Department for Education to see if some sort of campaign could be set up to get children at school learning about the benefits of credit unions. St Albans credit union, of which I am a member, has links with a number of schools. This helps children get into the habit of understanding the need to save before they borrow. Did any talks ever take place between the two departments, and if not, will they go ahead and do so now?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, as I have said, the Government are working with the Archbishop of Canterbury’s task force to get credit unions into schools, initially in Lewisham, Bradford and Nottingham, but with a view to rolling the project out in the near future to 100 schools and involving 30,000 children. Also, for the first time last autumn, we instituted financial literacy as a compulsory part of the national curriculum.