Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Love Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

1. When he expects to publish the consultation document on tackling excessive card surcharges.

[Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)]

8. When he expects to publish the consultation document on tackling excessive card surcharges.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)]

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is taking forward work on excessive credit card surcharges. I understand that the consultation to seek views on how and when a ban might be applied is going on in the summer.

[Mr Hoban]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to highlight the costs imposed by this on our constituents. Our estimate was that in 2010 nearly £500 million was spent by consumers on surcharges. It is still our intention to ban them. Both consumers and businesses should be clear that after many years of inaction by our predecessors, it is this Government’s intention to ban these excessive charges.

[Mr Love]

The super-complaint was upheld in December last year. The Government have not even started the consultation that would be necessary to introduce this measure. Meanwhile, £8 million a month has been lost just by those suffering surcharges on flights from this country. When are we going to get some action?

[Mr Hoban]

As I said, we are going to publish a consultation this summer and take action to ban these surcharges as soon as possible after that. We should be very clear not only that we are going to ban them, but that some firms have already responded to the action we are going to take, with a number of them reducing their charges on credit and debit card use. That shows that even without legislative action, consumers are getting a better deal as a consequence of our policy.