Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Bill

Debate between Catherine West and Stella Creasy

2nd reading
Friday 9th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) on introducing the Bill. It reflects not a recent concern, but years and generations of campaigners and women speaking out about the most basic and fundamental thing: freedom. At its heart, the Bill is about our freedom as women to lead the same lives as men in where we go and what we do.

I will start by adding to the list of organisations and campaigners that we acknowledge and recognise for their work on this issue. They include Our Streets Now, Plan International UK, Citizens UK, the Fawcett Society, Stonewall, Tell MAMA, Nottingham Women’s Centre, Dimensions, René Cassin, Refuge, Hope not Hate, Sister Supporter, the Jo Cox Foundation, the Young Women’s Trust, Safe & The City, Nottingham Trent University and the University of Nottingham. I also pay tribute to the work done in the other place by Lord Russell and Baroness Newlove.

The right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells talked about his shock that women in Tunbridge Wells felt unsafe walking their streets. Every woman in this Chamber was not surprised by the picture that he painted. It is the culture we grow up in, and we should start by recognising and naming that culture: misogyny. This is about the sense that 51% of the population do not have the same rights and freedoms to move around and to be seen as others do.

It is fantastic that the Bill learns lessons from what we know from the police about how to recognise that and how it drives crime, and I will root my support for the Bill in that. I hope that the Government will support this move because it reflects Government consultation, and I will make suggestions about how we can further develop the Bill so that it truly is the landmark Bill that it can be. Twelve police forces out of 44 are now united with those campaigners and the people who the right hon. Member talked about in recognising that women are disproportionately subject to harassment.

I say to the hon. Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans): this is not about dark streets. This is one of the few crimes where we always challenge the victim. We query them: “What were you wearing? Where were you going? Did you have your headphones on? Were you carrying your keys? Were you sensible?” We tell young women that it is their responsibility to protect themselves, in a way that we would never do with any other crime. We hold education sessions, which we would not do for burglary. Yet somehow, when it comes to the basic freedom of women and girls to go about their daily business, we ask them to be responsible, rather than holding those who seek to abuse that freedom accountable.

I often hear—from men, I am afraid—this idea of them having had a “revelation” that safety should be an important thing. I hear some men—indeed, men in positions of serious importance—talk about how being a father of girls has opened their eyes to the need to tackle these issues. I like to call that the Jay-Z defence, because he said the same thing about having a girl while being married to Beyoncé. This kind of legislation is not just about daughters. It is about wives, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, friends, neighbours and co-workers. Women are everywhere, but we do not get to go everywhere without being frightened—without that daily experience of thinking, “What route should I take? Should I put my keys in my hand? Should I be frightened about going down this street? It’s a cold night now, so maybe I won’t go out in the dark.” It is not the dark that is the problem; it is the people. That is what we need to tackle and that is what the Bill does.

According to data from the Office for National Statistics, every single day 24,000 women in this country experience public harassment, with those from minority communities much more likely to be affected. Frankly, I will stop campaigning for misogyny to be recognised as a driver of crime when I go to a wedding and the bride gets up and says, “Well, he followed me down a dark street, demanding to touch my breasts, and I thought it was the most romantic thing I’d ever heard. I had to stop and get in his van.” It does not happen. Yet millions of women have a story like that—a story about the fear and the impact it had on their lives.

No other crime is so prevalent that it is shrugged off as a fact of life, yet the harassment of woman has been for too long. Why is that? It is because when women come forward to report, often they get asked whether they did something to generate that experience. Often, the experience women then have is that they are told—I am sorry to say that this goes for both the police and the Crown Prosecution Service—that it is too difficult to find the person or that it was perhaps a misunderstanding.

I want to be very clear in supporting the Bill: this is not about bad manners between men and women. We are talking about crimes and offences. When we started campaigning for misogyny to be recognised as part of hate crime, we were told we were somehow criminalising wolf-whistling. One of the things I find really powerful is that people have now finally recognised that any form of harassment or unwanted attention in the streets is not endearing. It enables a culture in which it is acceptable to target women. That is what we have to change.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for her excellent campaigning in this area, and I thank the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) for bringing forward the Bill in a joint, cross-party way. Does she agree that the Bill will only be successful if the enforcement of this important legislation is properly resourced?

[Stella Creasy]

I completely agree. Indeed, one of the frustrations that many of us have had through the years has been police sources in forces that do not adopt this approach saying that it is a resourcing issue. There is no other form of crime to which we say, “Look, there’s just so much of it that we’re not going to do anything about it.”

We know how serious these crimes are. We look at the histories of offenders involved in rape or serious sexual assault and we see the escalation process; because, oddly enough, the person who starts by following women down the street does not usually stop there. Tackling that is absolutely crucial to addressing these crimes. That is why I want to pay tribute to Sue Fish. Anybody who has spoken to Sue Fish, who started off by recording misogyny as hate crime in Nottingham, knows how powerful and transformative her approach has been in Nottingham, and there are now 12 police forces taking this approach. They have recognised how it is driving crime. One crucial aspect to this issue is change to the culture within the local police. Some 80% of women do not report crimes to the police, because they do not believe that the police will take them seriously. I have been in meetings where the police have said, “Well, the women have to come forward.” They do not recognise that they are not creating an environment in which women feel they will be taken seriously.

As an MP in London, I am dealing with a dramatic loss of confidence in the police because of institutional misogyny, institutional racism and homophobia. The differences seen in the police forces that have introduced this policy are one reason why I have been such a passionate champion of it and why I have challenged my local police to pick it up too. Misogyny is at the root of many crimes against women. This is not just about public harassment; it is about changing the culture in our police forces and, indeed, as the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells said, in our society. We have normalised the harassment of women and an environment in which it is acceptable to target women, and then we blame women for not taking the joke and not thinking that it is a fair game or that it is nice that somebody is attracted to them—it is never about attraction.

The 12 police forces currently recording where a crime is motivated by a victim’s sex or where their sex is a factor in it have clearly stated the benefits of that approach, and the Bill will underpin and enhance it. One of my frustrations is that, nearly two years ago, the Government agreed that police forces should record that data, but some forces are yet to implement that policy. Therefore, all the benefits of institutional change and reporting change that we have seen in Nottingham, North Yorkshire, Devon, Somerset and Gloucestershire have not yet been rolled out across the country. Residents in those communities are clear that the policy has increased police confidence and changed the way the police deal with serious sexual assault. Oddly enough, when forces have this policy, it is not wolf-whistling that people come forward to report, but rape, kidnapping and assault. People recognise that the police will not only believe them, but treat those things as the crimes they are.

I want to be very clear that, in some ways, we should not need this Bill, because it does not criminalise anything that is not already criminal. Nothing has been more frustrating for me, as the person who secured the Law Commission review into misogyny as hate crime, than hearing people ponder whether we should make street harassment, or public harassment, an offence—it already is. The point about the Bill is the uplift, and that is why this is such a powerful moment, because we are mimicking the idea of bringing misogyny into hate crime legislation. We can argue about and debate cut-outs, where the Law Commission got to and why it has taken so long to get here, but I really welcome the fact that we are here, and I hope the Bill will be the start of something much bigger. This will be the first time that every police force has had to record this data. Therefore, every police force will have to be trained in what it is looking for and how to recognise it.

That change matters, not least for those who are affected by these things. Right now, we ask women to pick a side of their identity in order for a crime to be recognised as targeting them. Particularly with women from minority communities, we have to ask, “Is it because you’re a Muslim? Is it because you’re gay? Is it because you’re disabled?” It may be all those things, but we are asking women to fit a box, rather than recognising all those things. That is why the Bill is so powerful and why it is so important that it is about public harassment, not sexual harassment.

A couple of years ago, somebody in my local community was targeting Muslim women and pulling off their hijabs. That was not just about Islamophobia; it was also about misogyny, because this person was not targeting Muslim men. The offences in the Bill would allow us to recognise that and to see the victims for who they are, rather than asking them to fit a box. The Bill also covers men, which is important, but I note the data from the police forces that are already putting this policy into practice, which show that 80% to 90% of the victims coming forward are women. The Bill will help us to start changing the culture.

Black Friday: Financial Products

Debate between Catherine West and Stella Creasy

Tuesday 23rd November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered promotion and regulation of financial products on Black Friday.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Robertson. May I associate myself with your comments? I had the honour and pleasure of taking part in debates chaired by Sir David. He was always a fair and very fun Chair to have around; we shall miss him terribly.

I want to be clear from the start that I do not think that anybody in this room is green—green in the sense of being the Grinch. This is not a debate about whether people should be able to spend money, which is a personal decision. As we come up to Christmas, it is important to recognise that for many families this year will be an extra special one, given what we have been through over the past two years. I recognise that it is very easy, when we talk about consumer credit, to sound like the Grinch, as though we are saying it is all so complicated and difficult and that nobody should spend any money. Let me be clear that it is not my intention to come without good Christmas cheer.

Indeed, I note that many retailers are taking advantage to promote the idea that this is the year that one should really indulge and go all out. Tesco tells us, “Don’t stop me now,” when it comes to shopping. Argos tells us, “Baubles to last year,” and Debenham’s says, “Christmas like never before.” Aldi tells us not to be a Scrooge—at least, I think that is what they are telling us with the Christmas carrot. Sports Direct is more direct than ever, telling consumers to “Go all out!”

My point is more simple. We want families to be able to celebrate with their families and not be worried. One thing we know that causes the most worry to families is money. We are a nation that has not done as well in the G7 as some others, but we are second highest among the G7 countries for household debt. That is one competition we do not want to win as a nation—but we do. We have always been more comfortable with borrowing and credit than other nations.

My point in calling the debate on Black Friday and the run-up to Christmas is to recognise that this is a time when for many families getting into debt seems the right thing to do, because it is about being able to treat loved ones. When we have had so little time with our loved ones and been so apart—I hope we can be together this year—being able to do that feels even more important. As a result, the risks that families face are even higher.

I recognise that the Minister cares passionately about the subject and has done a lot of work on it. My call is about how we will help those families have a good Christmas, so that the new year is not a time of further worry and distress caused by debt. The honest truth is that as much as people talk about the pandemic as a time when some families have paid down debt and saved money, since they have not been able to go on expensive foreign holidays, for many others it has been a time of further financial distress. I used the word “further” critically, because we are a nation that has a problem with household debt, and has had that for some time prior to the pandemic.

Prior to the pandemic, Experian found that 40% of people would not be able to pay their mortgage or rent if it increased by £50 or more a month. Just an extra £50 and they were sunk. A total of 10% of this nation was constantly overdrawn, and that figure has remained pretty stable for many years. As many as 2.8 million people have persistent credit card debt, which means that they are paying more in interest fees and charges than in paying off the debt.

For some people in this nation, saving is a habit, while for others it will always be an ambition. Some 34% of adults have never had any savings or have savings of less than £1,000. There were many people in this country who were struggling financially before the pandemic. What the pandemic has done for that group of people—people for whom a foreign holiday was never a possibility —is throw into sharp relief just how difficult their finances were. Many of those are in precarious jobs, such as in retail or hospitality, and they were hit even harder when the pandemic came.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. I place on record her excellent background in holding to account Wonga and a number of other loan sharks through other Parliaments, as well as work on other topics she is well known for. This issue is particularly important right now, as we come out of coronavirus. Is my hon. Friend aware that Citizens Advice found that 40% of buy now, pay later customers have been unable to pay for essentials such as food, rent or bills? This is a particularly difficult time as people come back into work, with the insecurity of work underlined in many of our workplaces, and bills—particularly fuel bills—going through the roof.

[Stella Creasy]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If both Scrooge and the Grinch are misunderstood, I very much believe that buy now, pay later companies could become the true villains of Christmas rather than them —[Interruption.] It might be tenuous, Minister, but it is a link.

I recognise that during the pandemic, debt has become a lot worse for many people; when I say a lot worse, I mean it is less likely that they will ever be able to get out of it. Many people live with debt, and while sometimes it is a debt they can manage, an awful lot of people are drowning, not waving.

Data from StepChange is clear that as a consequence of the coronavirus lockdown period, 2.8 million people have fallen into arrears: most frequently on utilities, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) said. That is on fuel and water, on keeping the basics of the house going. Some 820,000 people have fallen into arrears on their council tax—a debt to the public sector—and about 500,000 people have fallen into arrears on their rent. We have seen a massive explosion in the number of people who will never own their own homes and will always be in the rental sector, particularly in areas where the cost of living is particularly high. My constituency has the 10th highest level of child poverty in the country, and that is because of the cost of living and the cost of renting in my local community. We know that those people, who have struggled to stay in our area, were particularly hit by the restrictions on their working practices in lockdown and have now found that they simply cannot afford the roof over their heads.

Little wonder that nearly 4 million of us have borrowed to make ends meet during the lockdown period, with 1.7 million often using a credit card, 1.6 million using an overdraft and nearly 1 million using a high-cost credit product. That borrowing is not, perhaps, the stereotype of borrowing in order to buy goods—going back to my original point about people wanting to treat a family member. Instead, people have borrowed during lockdown to keep things going: to keep food on the table; to keep their car working, so that when they can go to work, they can get to work; and, perhaps, to pay for heating, especially in the cold weather.

It is striking that there has been a 267% increase in the number of consumer county court judgments issued. Those numbers were depressed by the covid forbearance measures. I recognise that schemes such as the furlough scheme and the self-employment income support scheme helped to mitigate the impact of that. My point when talking about consumer debt and consumer credit is that we are coming out of a period when many people were vulnerable anyway because of long-standing household debts, and that those debts have been made a lot worse. Add into the mix the fact that we expect those people to spend money and help to get our economy back on track. It does not take a rocket scientist to recognise that at the heart of that mix is something very potent that could lead to real poverty and destitution for many people.

[Stella Creasy]

My hon. Friend makes her point incredibly well and she will not be surprised to learn that, yes, I absolutely agree with her. Indeed, it is striking that just before the pandemic hit we had the first year in this country when more purchases were made online than in bricks-and-mortar shops, and of course during the pandemic people’s switch to shopping online has become even starker. The state of our high streets is a debate for another time, but we have all seen that change and I do not think that it will go backwards. People’s comfort with shopping online had already been set in place before the pandemic hit; now, for most people, that is the first place that they look, rather than the last.

In 2020, 9 million people were forced to increase their borrowing to cope with the pandemic. That is a phenomenal statistic. The press and media have been full of people paying down their debts, and the silent minority of people for whom debt has increased have not been heard. Today’s debate is about that group of people, and what support and advice we are giving them, because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) said, being able to treat our family members, especially when we have been through such tough times, becomes even more important for everyone. That means that we must ensure that everybody can access credit in a fair and affordable way.

My argument with the Minister today—he will know it, because we have been having it for many years—is about what more we can do to ensure that there is a fair and level playing field, that consumers are armed with the best information and that companies cannot exploit the situation in which there are so many people in our communities who are drowning in debt and will never get out of it. They will always live with a level of debt that might be exacerbated so that one single thing can tip them over into a financial crisis, as opposed to just a financial meltdown, which is what they might be in right now without realising it. Indeed, many of us may have had the experience of talking to people in our constituencies who say, “Well, I don’t have any debt”, and then we ask them if they have a credit card and they say, “Yes, of course”, as if a credit card is not debt.

My hon. Friends the Members for Hornsey and Wood Green and for Hampstead and Kilburn are right to prefigure the particular type of debt that I am concerned about. The Minister knows that I am concerned about it and I know that he agrees with me that there is a problem with this type of credit, which needs to be regulated. My point today about the buy now, pay later industry is that there are echoes of previous examples in our communities where new, or relatively new, forms of credit that might have seemed niche when they first came to the UK market explode very quickly, become commonplace among millions of people and, without proper regulation or scrutiny, cause many more people to get into debt as a result. We saw that with the payday lending industry, which exploded in the UK in the early 2010s, and the honest truth is that it took politicians from all sides too long to recognise just how much damage could be done by a high-interest loan.

Those in the buy now, pay later industry will say that they are not a payday loan. Indeed, they are not—they are not capped, for a start, which is one of the things that helps to protect people from getting into debt through a payday loan. Buy now, pay later companies will say that they do not charge interest to consumers, so we should not view them in the same way as payday lenders—that this is apples and oranges. But both types of high-cost credit—they are high-cost credit, because they come with late fees if people do not pay them back on time—share a similar marketing tactic, which is about forming a habit. It is about getting people to see them as the main way to make ends meet; the main way for people to deal with having too much month at the end of their money.

Whereas the payday lender said, “We’ll give you a short-term loan and you’ll pay it back very quickly, and you’ll never notice, and it will just tide you over”, the buy now, pay later companies say, “Spread the cost. It will make it much more manageable, and you will be able to get the things that you need at the time that you want to.” Let me be very clear that for some people, there may well be a perfectly reasonable use of buy now, pay later, in the same way that for some people there is a perfectly reasonable use of a payday loan. The problem is that for many people buy now, pay later is a form of credit that they cannot afford, because they cannot afford the goods in the first place.

Experian data shows us that 30% of people using buy now, pay later say they use it for items that they otherwise could not afford, and in an environment where inflation might top 4%, where wages have struggled to keep up and where we have a cost-of-living crisis, that is pouring fuel on to the fire for many people and the debt problems that they face.

For those who may not be familiar with buy now, pay later, it is a simple premise. The payments are spread over a number of weeks or months with these companies, and there are variations of the same model. What does that mean for a consumer in practice? A £100 pair of trainers will, perhaps, suddenly become £25 at the point of sale, because the £75 will be paid off at later points throughout the year to recoup the cost. Crucially, the consumer is not officially paying the fees, because the retailer pays to use the service, although one innovation we have noticed in the market in the last year alone has been the move to be able to allow the company to have a direct relationship with the consumers. What they call a one-time card can be created and purchased from a website without the retailer ever being involved. That in itself is problematic, because it prompts the question of how they are deciding what someone can afford to pay.

Let us stick with the original business model. How these companies make their money is very simple. When a £100 pair of trainers suddenly looks as if it only costs £25, people think, “Well, I might buy the trousers and jacket to go with it, because I thought I was going to spend £100 today, and I’m only spending £25”. On average, consumers spend 20% to 30% more when they can spread the payments. For the retailers, it is worth paying the fees of these companies, because people will spend more and they will get more purchases from them.

Many retailers are very up front about that. It is a massive part of their forthcoming business strategy, particularly in relation to Black Friday and Christmas, to encourage consumers to use buy now, pay later because they will end up spending more than they would have done if they had used another form of credit. I reiterate: for some people, that may be perfectly reasonable. They are spending future money, but they have that future money, so it is an acceptable way to do it. They can splash out this Christmas knowing that pay packets in January, February and March will cover the cost. However, a large group of people is spending money that they simply do not have and getting into debt. As my hon. Friends the Members for Hornsey and Wood Green and for Hampstead and Kilburn have pointed out, because this is a new form of credit, many people do not realise it is a form of credit and what can happen if they do not pay back. The late fees, the credit checking, the credit reference agencies and the debt collection agencies are all part of the mix and experience of using these companies.

In the pandemic, spending on buy now, pay later has gone up 60% to 70%. For some age groups in this country now, buy now, pay later is used more than credit cards. It is a revolution in how we use credit in this country and it has gone relatively unnoticed, except by those who cannot afford to pay and have ended up with a big hole.

[Catherine West]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent argument. Does she agree that the quality of financial education in the UK is not what it should be? The 60% to 70% increase in debt from these sort of products would primarily affect a younger age group to begin with, because of their propensity to use the internet. Does she agree that much more needs to be done on financial education, hopefully led by the Treasury and spread across the appropriate level of education online?

[Stella Creasy]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about financial education. I am pleased to see it is now part of the curriculum. She is also right that a cohort of people who did not have financial education are absolutely at the forefront of using this form of credit. Half of all online shoppers aged 24 to 35 have used buy now, pay later. What is challenging is how often they are using it.

If people think that this is about a one-off purchase of a pair of shoes, a dress for a special occasion, or Christmas presents, looking at the one in 20 consumers who use it more than once a week should make us worry about what it is about their finances that means they need to spread payments because they cannot afford to make a payment in a week. Some 35% of consumers aged 18 to 35 report using buy now, pay later more than once a week.

Buy now, pay later is a game-changer in how debt is being created, generated, and maintained in our economy, but it is going under the radar. Little wonder that two-thirds of merchants are using this form of credit. It is now in over 20,000 major brands in the UK including Marks & Spencer, Pennies, Halfords, Asos, PrettyLittleThing, and I SAW IT FIRST.

Klarna was valued at £46 billion as a business in the last investment round—I believe that is more than several of our public services—and claims to have 13 million customers in the UK. That is across every single one of our constituencies, but disproportionately in the poorer constituencies where people are struggling, and people are being targeted.

Citizens Advice reports that 41% of buy now, pay later users have struggled to make a repayment, one in 10 have been chased by debt collectors, rising to one in eight for young people and 25% have fallen behind on another household bill in order to pay a buy now, pay later bill. It does not take a rocket scientist to work out that if there are debt collection agencies at the door, a person is probably going to pay them before their council tax, but we know the consequences that can have.

Time and time again, studies show that people do not realise what they are signing up for. Forty per cent. say that they used it without realising; 42% did not realise what they were signing up for; 26% regretted it. One in four people regretted using buy now, pay later because of the problems it created. As a consequence, many are generating late repayment fees.

The Financial Conduct Authority agrees. In January, the Woolard review called for the industry to be regulated as a matter of urgency. That regulation is critical. One of the things that most consumers do not realise is that, unlike any other form of credit, including a payday loan, there is no regulation of the buy now, pay later companies. In layman’s terms, if someone gets into difficulty, they can only appeal to the companies themselves to treat them fairly—and good luck with that. They cannot appeal to the Financial Ombudsman Service as can be done with a payday loan or a credit card.

There are many particular problems that need to be sorted out by regulation. First, there is conflict of interest. Many of these companies will tell you that they do credit checks. After all, they say, they do not want to lend to people who cannot afford to repay them. However, their definition of repayment is open to interpretation, just as it is for payday lenders. One of the things that worries me when I talk to the companies, which I have done substantially, is that they will let someone miss a payment, make a payment, and then continue to lend to them. They will let someone express behaviour showing that they have a problem with debt, and then carry on lending to them. As the companies rely on merchant fees, it is not about the consumer for them. It is all about the retailer, all about what they can get out of the retailer, and the retailer wants that 20% to 30% more in interest.

It is also about overspending. As I have said, there is 40% more spending—of course that means that consumers will spend more than they can afford. However, it also means that they can get multiple buy now, pay later loans, just as we saw with payday lenders—people going from company to company. Many people are not just going to Klarna, but also to Laybuy, Clearpay, and the buy now, pay later schemes that retailers have themselves. It is meaningless to suggest that they are doing soft credit checks, because they would not know who else had lent to an individual. They would not know if that person had £500 worth of debt with Klarna as well as £50 debt with Laybuy to inform whether they should be able to take out another £200 of debt with Clearpay.

Crucially, the fact that they are not required to report means that there is no clear assessment for affordability; they decide what a person can pay, rather than applying consistent affordability criteria. That is a particular concern of mine as we have seen this industry evolve so quickly over the past year, and we have seen banks start to offer buy now, pay later. The very people who manage our money are deciding how much of it we can pay out and how much they can then charge fees on. It could be argued that that is like an overdraft, but at least with an overdraft we know that it is one, and consumers can be aware of that. I would wager that people are much more aware of the risks of an overdraft than they are of buy now, pay later.

Little wonder that there was a call earlier this year for urgent regulation. That is why today I am asking the Minister what he is going to do, because we have not yet had that regulation. It is welcome that the consultation on what that regulation should be has been published, but it was only published this month. We have had eight or nine months now of those companies knowing that regulation is coming, but with no clarity as to what that regulation might be, or, crucially, when it might be enacted. Little wonder that many consumer groups are very worried.

A Which? investigation in October found that of 111 major retailers of fashion, baby and child and homewares, 62 offered at least one buy, now lay later scheme, and the majority did not provide any information about late fees. This afternoon I was looking at various websites to see what information these companies provide about the risks of the debt that people could get into—the sort of information that we would expect as standard from regulated companies. Very few provide that information.

We are still seeing the influx of advertising from these companies—we cannot avoid it—pressing and pushing buy now, pay later. Now it is linked to Black Friday, which is a relatively recent concept in the UK, but we are very keen on it and account for 10% of all global Black Friday searches. We are a nation who want to know whether we are going to get a good deal and when it will happen. It is a toxic mix, and one that we must address urgently.

It is right to consult on what the regulations should be, and I hope the Minister will confirm that it is crucial to regulate these companies as we regulate others. First, it is a form of credit, so why should these firms not have the special affordability rules that we ask of other companies? Secondly, if we start picking off various types of credit and offering them different types of regulation, we will quickly undo the regulation that we have and see a race to the bottom, rather than the standards that we all want for our constituents. He must also recognise that the length of time that it has taken to get to regulation has offered these companies an open goal, and it is one that they have taken through the evolution of offering immediate credit cards themselves direct to consumers to make purchases—Amazon may say that it does not accept Klarna, but people can use the Klarna app to buy from Amazon—and in the types of products that can be bought using buy now, pay later. Betting sites now offer buy now, pay later options. Food sites offer buy now, pay later. Zilch can be used to buy a Domino’s pizza.

Think about that for a moment. Spreading the cost of a pizza over months tells us something about the cost of living crisis and how desperate people must be if they have to spread payments for a pizza. This is not about buying fancy tellies any more; we are back in the territory that we got into with payday lending, where people use this form of credit to make ends meet because they have got too much month at the end of their money.

The Minister will say that a consultation is ongoing, but it closes after Christmas, so it is too late for Christmas this year. In this environment, it would be helpful to hear that he recognises the risk of Christmas. We know that one pound in every four spent last Christmas was on buy now, pay later, and it will be a lot more this year, so the risk of people getting into the difficulties that the CAB and Which? outlined so well is even higher. What will he do to warn people that such credit is unregulated, so they do not have the consumer protection that they might expect from other forms of credit? What is he doing to hold to account those retailers telling us to go out, spend money and treat our dearest and loved ones while creating websites on which it is practically impossible not to get into using buy now, pay later as the default option? What is he doing to ensure that advertising is clear about the risks of the debt that people could get into? When people look at the JD Sports site, which has six different options for buy now, pay later, they need to understand that all those options come with a higher risk than other forms of credit because they are not regulated.

The Minister will say that the Government want to make good legislation, and I agree, but he must take responsibility for the length of time it is taking to regulate these companies, because they have evolved and are exploiting people at the same speed at which the payday lending industry moved to exploit people. The problem with leaving these legal loan sharks to prey on our communities is that we will all pay the cost at a later date. We will all pay the cost when Government is slow and FinTech is quick, yet that is the situation that we are in.

Will the Minister join me in calling on responsible retailers to rejig their websites so that buy now, pay later is not the default option but one that comes with a severe financial health warning? Will he join me in asking major transport agencies not to take these companies’ adverts until their costs are clear and they admit that when they say, “No late repayment fees; no charges,” that will not necessarily be true? Will he set out a clear timetable for when he expects that the regulations will come in and these companies will have to abide by common rules on affordability and credit checking and treat our constituents fairly?

I am really worried about this Christmas and how many people will get into debt trying to do the completely understandable thing of not being the Grinch. However, I am even more worried about the message that we are sending. Just as Wonga came along and then came Klarna, so another FinTech will come in the future. Every single time we pause—every single time we as a nation say, “Well, there might be unintended consequences if we don’t act”—we are offering up our indebted constituents as guinea pigs for these industries, and I know that is not what the Minister wants to do. We have to be as quick as them, if not quicker, in recognising the risk and stamping down on it.

I hope the Minister understands where I am coming from and why I believe it is so important that Parliament sends the message that Black Friday should be a time when we are all very aware of our finances as well as the deals that we are offered. We should be warning everybody about buy now, pay later. I hope the Minister will agree that we have to get much quicker at dealing with these risks, for the benefit of all our constituents.