High-Cost Credit and Debt Management

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I pay tribute to the initiative taken by the most reverend Primate in his setting up of LifeSavers, a joint project by the Church and credit unions which the Government helped to finance. That is helping children develop good financial habits at a young age by setting up saving clubs in primary schools, in partnership with credit unions. I also welcome the initiative of the Church of England in establishing the Just Finance Foundation to develop and implement the most reverend Primate’s vision of creating a fairer and more just financial system. Of course I will take on board the suggestions he made in his question.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, do the Government agree that part of the problem is that we have so many different regulators involved with different products—whether it is the Information Commissioner, trading standards or the FCA—that there is complete chaos and no one quite knows where they are protected with which product or who to contact when there is a problem? Is the Minister indicating that in the legislation the Government will bring forward, there will be one responsible individual across the board to co-ordinate that, or is the role he proposes for the Information Commissioner a very narrow one?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Of course, the Information Commissioner covers a wide variety of cold callers, whereas this Question is about high-cost credit and debt management solutions. The FCA is currently going through a process of authorising debt management firms and high-cost credit companies, and if they do not meet the high standards of the FCA, they simply will not be allowed to go on carrying out their business. It is not a complete shambles, which I think was what the noble Baroness said. We transferred responsibility from the OFT to the FCA simply because it has a more robust regime for dealing with any misuse of cold calling.