Financial Guidance and Claims Bill [Lords]

Eddie Hughes Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 22nd January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)]

I believe protocol dictates that I should say that it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith), but anyway.

[Richard Graham]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way as the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith), having accused me of moaning, did not wish to do so. I simply say to her: I do not do moaning.

[Eddie Hughes]

And I have certainly not witnessed any—nothing but good grace from my hon. Friend in the past.

I want to touch briefly on the name of the single financial guidance body, when we get it. The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) was right to highlight this point, because what we call it is critical. My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) suggested that we will need a good marketing strategy to go with it because, let us face it, we have to reach out to a broad section of the population, from the very youngest to the very oldest. I want to discuss predominantly the youngest.

We cannot start too soon in engaging young people in financial business. I know that HSBC operates a school bank service where it goes into primary schools for seven to 12-year-olds to introduce them to the concept of banking and explains the different roles of people within the bank. It also explains how someone setting up their own business might go about obtaining a loan and funding that business.

Right from the earliest age, we should engage with young people. Why is that important? The Money Advice Service released a report this month following some qualitative and quantitative analysis during which it engaged with 470 young people. What did it find? It found that 61% of those young people felt that their lives would be better if they had better financial management skills, but 85% felt that they had not been given sufficient financial guidance when they were at school. That puts them in a precarious position because, all of a sudden as young adults, they are exposed to the opportunity of debt. Indeed, one of those taking part suggested that credit cards should be treated in the same way as cigarette and tobacco packets: there should be photos on a credit card that in some way convey the danger associated with them, because young people with access to cheap debt can easily get into difficult financial positions. That is not a question of ineptitude, as referred to by the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones); it is just that if people have not had that financial education and training, they can find themselves in a difficult position.

For example, at the weekend I spoke to a young man of 26 in Walsall. He had been down in London and he somehow managed to get on the bus without the fact that he had used his card to pay for the ticket being recorded. When the passengers were checked, he was asked to get off the bus and prove that he had paid for his ticket. He could not do so. He was fined, I believe, £80 and given a short period to pay, otherwise the fine would double. He did not pay as he did not have the money at the time. He did not prioritise that debt, so he did not pay it. The fine increased to £180. By then, it was Christmas and he could not afford to pay, so he procrastinated further until the bailiffs were knocking on his mother’s door at the weekend, seeking £750 because he had not paid a £1.50 bus fare. Sometimes, it is not just that people do not have the money; they do not understand which debts must be prioritised to prevent further hardship down the line.

It is incredibly important that we increase the financial capability of everybody across the UK, from the very youngest, when they set out as young adults with access to credit cards, to the very oldest, who will be drawing down their pensions. They all need our support and this Government are on the side of them all.