Financial Services Bill

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 24th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am pleased to speak in support of Amendment 1. First, I must apologise to the House that I have been unable to participate in earlier stages of the Bill—a matter of real regret to me—but I have been following proceedings closely. I declare an interest as a member of the Financial Inclusion Commission and president of the Money Advice Trust.

I am very keen to support this amendment, which takes forward a very important recommendation from the report of the Financial Exclusion Select Committee, which I chaired, in 2017. That report recommended an expansion of the remit of the Financial Conduct Authority to include both a statutory duty to promote financial inclusion, and a statutory duty of care. In my view, the two are closely linked, but I will obviously focus now on this very important duty of care amendment.

At the Liaison Committee’s follow-up inquiry on financial exclusion, held only last week, powerful evidence was received from charities and others active in the sector that the commercial model only goes so far, and that legislation is required to put an obligation on banks and other financial service providers to provide appropriate services to customers and have proper regard to inclusion.