Financial Services Bill

Lord Stewartby Excerpts

Wednesday 18th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stewartby]

A brief point of order: the screen has got stuck.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, my noble friend has moved a very interesting amendment. We may be in danger of confusing two issues. The noble Baroness referred to impenetrable language. I quite accept that, but that is a question not of financial literacy but of improving the form in which the communication is made. To try and deal with financial literacy is a much narrower issue than impenetrable language. I support her entirely, but I would also add the form and content. How often do we get a letter from our credit card company saying that it is going to amend the terms in which the credit card is offered? It is four pages of closely packed print and what do we do but drop it straight in the waste paper basket. However, the company has complied with the requirement. In those cases, the famous phrases “less is more”—less information, better focused—is what we should be all about.

That is an important point though not exactly what my noble friend was driving at. I think my noble friend was driving at something designed to deal with people at an earlier stage of their life. In particular, it has relevance to Amendment 104C, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Peston and Lord Barnett, about the unavoidability of some risk. One of the issues that has somehow got about in the world is that we can actually insulate people from risk. When we have financial literacy lessons, we need to emphasise to everybody that there is no product anywhere that does not carry some level of risk. I am looking forward to hearing the two noble Lords on this issue in a few minutes. I have only one question on my noble friend’s amendment. Who pays for all this?