Consumer Credit Regulation
Debate between Andrew Bingham and Baroness Burt of SolihullWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)
I shall be very brief. I congratulate the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) on introducing the debate on those very important issues. She has certainly done her research. The previous Government did some very good work on the regulation of consumer credit, with the Consumer Credit Act 2006. Coming down the line in February 2011 we have the EU directive, and the main thing that that will introduce is the provision that in any credit agreement the customer has to be given standard information. I hope that that, too, will be helpful.
The quality of the contributions to the debate illustrates how complex this issue is—there are other sides to the story. I was speaking to the Finance and Leasing Association this morning, and it is concerned that excessive regulation will shrink the market. The market is contracting at the moment, and that might polarise it.
Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)
We could be in danger of using a blunt instrument here, and as has been said, if we knock an apple down, it will bob up somewhere else as an alternative product that cannot be legislated against, so we will continually be revisiting legislation. As was mentioned, the answer is more in education, so that people get the difference between the costs of credit.