Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Harris of Haringey and Lord Sharkey

Tuesday 3rd May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of the National Trading Standards board and welcome this government amendment to put the funding of the illegal money lending teams on a stable footing. As the Minister said, the teams do an enormous amount of extremely important and valuable work. A recent prosecution dealt with an individual who was charging those unfortunates whom he was offering allegedly to help interest rates of 400,000% per annum. Figures I have for England and Wales show that the work of the illegal money lending teams has led to the writing-off of debts in excess of £55 million. So the work is value for money and extremely important. It is quite right that the funding of these teams should now be put on a long-term, sustainable footing and it is entirely proper that the legitimate part of the lending industry should make sure that those who operate illegally and prey on people who are in a state of considerable distress are dealt with appropriately.

[Lord Sharkey]

My Lords, this is a very good amendment and we support it. Until now, funding for action against illegal money lending has come mostly from BIS with occasional help from the Treasury reserve. As Harriet Baldwin noted in the Commons committee, this funding was constantly being questioned in spending reviews and she rightly saw the need to protect it from the depredations of Chief Secretaries. This amendment does that by changing the funding mechanism to a levy on consumer credit firms. These firms benefit from being within a robustly enforced perimeter and we welcome this change. We welcome the move to provide sustainable and stable funding for the fight against illegal money lending.