Credit Unions

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to allow civil servants to join and save with a credit union using payroll deduction.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the Government support the work of the credit union sector and are investing up to £38 million in participating credit unions, to expand their service while reducing their delivery costs, by April 2015. The Government will not require departments to offer a facility for payroll deductions for their Civil Service workforce where these do not already exist. It will be for each department to consider the costs and benefits of offering such a facility.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, your Lordships’ House and the other place have given the Government a good example by setting up this facility a few weeks ago. Would the Minister meet with representatives of the credit union movement and me to explore how this could be rolled out across government? Also, what words does he have to encourage the private sector to offer such services to its staff as well?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have just read that the noble Lord, Lord Freud, and Mr Iain Duncan Smith have joined the London Mutual Credit Union. It is open to all Members and the staff of both Houses to join that union. Part of the problem, as the noble Lord well knows, is that most credit unions are locally based and for other departments—such as the Home Office or DWP, with employees scattered all the way across the country—the cost of joining employees into a very large number of credit unions is rather complicated.