High-Cost Credit and Debt Management

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I take this opportunity to thank my noble friend for her services at the Department for Work and Pensions up to last July—services which are missed by nobody more than myself as I now have to do some of her work. So far as cold calling for pensions is concerned, I note that my noble friend has taken this up since people have been able to switch their pot out of their providers and into something else. I cannot say whether this will be swept up in the review of high-cost credit and debt management but I will certainly see that the point is taken on board elsewhere.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, many of the calls that people receive are clearly mendacious. They say, “We are representing a British bank” and then something about compensation, which is just not the case. Will the credibility of any code not depend on the industry itself having a financial responsibility for recompense?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am sure that the noble Lord is correct in what he said but I did not quite catch his question. Perhaps he could repeat it.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

Will the credibility of any code, to which reference has been made, not depend on the industry accepting financial responsibility for compensating the people who have been in some sense the losers from the mendacity of the original caller?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

That is exactly why the FCA has been instituting these fines. As I said, last month it ordered a payday loan firm to repay £34 million to 97,000 customers for unfair practices. Another firm which acquired customer bank details in an underhand way has agreed to a £20 million redress scheme. There is built into this scheme the necessity of those who break the rules compensating those who have been hard done by.