Financial Guidance and Claims Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting)

Debate between Guy Opperman and Yvonne Fovargue

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Guy Opperman]

It is a delight to respond to a very important and legitimate point. I should make a number of declarations at the outset: I know LawWorks very well, I set up a free representation unit and a pro bono unit, and two Labour Peers have given me awards for my pro bono works in the past. Lord Goldsmith and Baroness Scotland were both most ill advised in giving me the pro bono lawyer of the year and then a pro bono hero award for exactly this sort of work, although not in respect of debt advice. I have great sympathy with the hon. Lady’s point. I will address it briefly now but am happy to discuss it in more detail.

There are a number of easy arguments to make. Most importantly, this is a matter that the single financial guidance body can already address. Clause 3(5), (9) and (10) give capacity for the single financial guidance body to review the provision of those types of arrangements, and to make recommendations once it has come to a conclusion on whether it is an appropriate way forward.

I accept and acknowledge that the FCA transfer has created some anomalies, but there is a reason why. The hon. Lady will fully understand that the Government are keen to ensure that consumers in problem debt have access to high-quality, regulated debt advice. The new body will, to a great degree, go a long way to ensure that that specific goal is met, but there are a couple of extra points I will make.

First, it is important to note that, during the transfer of debt advice regulation to the FCA, the not-for-profit debt advice providers widely supported the FCA regulation of their activity because they felt it was important to ensure that all debt advice was of a high quality. Secondly, with great respect to LawWorks and the point made, I do not believe the assertion made is appropriate. Of course, individual organisations can apply to be regulated if they so choose, or to get a group regulation under FCA rules, but I think it appropriate that we consider it in more detail and invite the SFGB to go away and decide whether it is something it would recommend as part of the statutory remit we have set up under clause 3. In those circumstances, I invite the hon. Lady not to pursue her new clause.

[Yvonne Fovargue]

I thank the Minister for his reply and I am pleased that he has taken on board the principle. Certainly we do not want to deregulate the Debt Advice Network. I am in favour of it being a regulated body so that we can have high-quality advice. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

[Guy Opperman]

Am I correct that we have now finished all particular clauses that need to be decided thus far?

Financial Guidance and Claims Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Debate between Guy Opperman and Yvonne Fovargue

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 1st February 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Guy Opperman]

I will come to the comprehension point in a second, if the hon. Lady will permit. I will deal with all three points.

After the legislation was suitably amended, debated, discussed and agreed with their lordships, it was specifically written into the Bill that the information, guidance and advice should be free and impartial. I take the point that the hon. Member for Makerfield raises, but I hope that she is reassured that that has been specifically written into the Bill, and is addressed there.

On the definition of terms, may I address the points made by the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South that go to the fundamentals of her amendment? One of the key recommendations of the financial advice market review—sometimes known as FAMR—was to clarify the regulatory definition of financial advice. The Government consulted on revising the definition of regulated advice in the existing Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities) Order 2001, so that regulated advice was based on a personal recommendation. That definition is in line with the EU definition set out in the markets in financial instruments directive 2004, catchily known as MFID. The Government agreed that revision, which came into force in early January 2018. We therefore suggest that introducing a new definition of advice in the Bill is unnecessary and potentially duplicative. It would cut across existing regulatory architecture, not just in respect of what the Bill is trying to do and the clients it covers, but across other aspects of the Treasury and dealings with the Financial Conduct Authority and industry and consumer groups. In addition, using legislation to establish definitions for those terms would not provide the flexibility in the future to adapt the definitions appropriately, if and when that needed to take place.

I also take issue with a number of points regarding the amendment. First, the three organisations that we are merging to form the single body do not seek the definitions that the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South is seeking to persuade us of. Those organisations are a pretty good guide to what the Government are doing, because we have consulted at length, asked them what they want us to do, and they most definitely have not said, “Go away and define those individual points.” They want the degree of latitude to continue.

Secondly, the hon. Lady asked the body to do this within three months. To answer my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire on timings, we hope that the body will be created—subject to the good will of the House and Her Majesty signing on the dotted line—between the end of October and the beginning of December. Asking the body to make, within three months of its creation, having merged three organisations, a definition that would probably apply across all financial sectors is, with respect, putting quite a big burden on the body. Also, it is not the appropriate organisation to do that. That should be done by the independent Financial Conduct Authority, suitably engaged in consultation with wider parties. We have done that in relation to advice; that is why we had the FAMR review. To be fair to the FCA, it took two years of long, hard struggle to come up with the specific definition that all parties were content with. I go back to the point that while those particular points are not sought by the individuals, I believe that it is not appropriate to give the definitions.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire asked about timings. We will be up and running, with a fair wind, in winter 2018—but beware of Ministers who say when things will happen, and of course winter in parliamentary terms can stretch a long time. The standards by which the single financial guidance body will be judged are set out in clause 10, on which I am delighted to be addressing the Committee this afternoon, so I will not go into detail about the standards now but will ensure I set out a bit of detail in answer to that question when we debate clause 10, so bear with me. He also made a point about resilience and life events, which I will address briefly.

A simple point is made about resilience, as set out in clause 2 through the various objectives described, whether the consumer protection or the strategic function. It is also fundamentally set out in clause 3(9), which mentions

“financial capability of members of the public”.

One may use “resilience” or “capability”, but the words—without getting too much into definitions—are all but interchangeable and, in the circumstances, we believe that those provisions address capability and the points made by my hon. Friend.

Regarding preparation for life events, my hon. Friend is a passionate supporter, as am I, of the concept of the mid-life MOT, which has been pioneered by certain companies, including Aviva. As a Government, in particular the Department for Work and Pensions, we are looking at the idea of people, at different critical points of their life, the middle point in particular, assessing where they are in terms of finances, pensions, guidance and everything. That seems eminently sensible to us, and we encourage all private sector organisations to do it. We are formulating plans.

[Yvonne Fovargue]

But does the Minister agree that it is not only major life events that can cause a problem? In connection with financial resilience, we all know that it might be the broken washing machine that can cause a bump for people who do not have that amount of savings. On financial capability, does the Bill look at addressing the need for people to build up a small pot of savings?

[Guy Opperman]

The answer is yes. Capability is about the ability to deal with life events, whether the traditional ones such as marriage, birth of a child, retirement or the middle of one’s life generally, or—the hon. Lady is dead right—the washing machine or the car breaking down. There is formulated, as I am sure she is aware, things such as the sidecar proposal that is attached to auto-enrolment specifically to provide a savings pot to deal with life events, so that people are not affected by the sudden events involving £100 or £200 and so on. The Department is definitely working on such things, as we will seek to work with the single financial guidance body to ensure that it formulates those strategies. As the BBC puts it, there are other providers, such as Moneybox, Plum or—the name of the third one that I am particularly impressed by—Chip, which allow people to make small savings through day-to-day earnings and usage, giving them a pocket of savings to deal with things. We very much support all such organisations, and I utterly endorse the points made.

Financial Guidance and Claims Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting)

Debate between Guy Opperman and Yvonne Fovargue

Thursday 1st February 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

I rise to recount some of my own experience. I was fortunate enough to employ a financial capability adviser from 2000 to 2010, when I left, although I have to say that every time we applied for funding he changed his job title. That adviser went into primary schools as well.

I am wary about adding things to the curriculum, because I understand that teachers are hard-pressed, but it does not have to be teachers who do this work. We sent in the adviser; he did a recognised course with a teacher, which gave the teacher confidence to carry on his work later. The primary school children were really engaged in the lesson, because somebody from outside had come in, and we also went in with the credit unions, to encourage the children to start an early habit of saving, as well.

That is when children are really keen. It is competitive—who can save the most in their little account out of their pocket money and so on? It was really successful. The schools liked it. I would love to get the funding to go back now, to see how those “adults” are coping after having had that education at primary school level, but unfortunately that was not possible. However, I believe that that work helped.

[Guy Opperman]

The hon. Lady will be very pleased to know that Her Majesty’s Treasury, present in the form of the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, provides the LifeSavers programme, which I am lucky to have bid for on behalf of my constituency, and which does exactly what she has just described. Her speech might be seen as a bid to continue the LifeSavers programme—it obviously has a life span—and then she would be able to bid for her community to be part of the programme in partnership with the Church of England and whichever credit union she wishes to support.

[Yvonne Fovargue]

I shall make sure that Unify, my local credit union, gets a copy of that information.

One of the side effects of sending the adviser into schools, badged as the citizens advice bureau adviser, was that we encountered an upsurge in parents coming to us who were prepared to discuss their debts. It was as if having someone there who was talking to the children made them examine their finances; the children were going home and saying, “Look! We’ve been looking at this!” prompting their parents to examine their own finances, and then they already knew where to go to talk about their debt. So the work had that unintended consequence, which I must admit we found hard to deal with, given the resources we had. Nevertheless, it was really beneficial, so I would encourage the Minister to consider that as a proposal.

[Guy Opperman]

I should have said before that it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Rosindell, and I welcome you to the Committee.

The hon. Member for Makerfield is right that a significant number of organisations provide, in a primary school setting, particular aspects of financial education in various shapes and forms, whether it is the Association for Citizenship Teaching, MyBnk, the Personal Finance Education Group or a variety of other organisations, and I would happily talk for some considerable period of time and overindulge the Committee on LifeSavers. As she knows, I set up a community bank in my constituency with Archbishop John Sentamu on 5 November 2015, and that community bank has bid for the LifeSavers project in Northumberland, and provides six schools with that financial education. We run six different banks in six different schools in my community. That work is extraordinarily successful. The original pioneer is in Lewisham, which I know the Opposition Whip, the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford, will be interested to hear, and the success rate has been wonderful.

The proposal is that the single financial guidance body should have a look at, and then come up with a strategic assessment of, what the provision of financial education of children and young people should be. I take issue with the Opposition on whether Ofsted should judge schools on the basis of financial education. I say, with respect, that it most definitely should not. Ofsted itself does not seek that, so I definitely disagree with paragraph (a) of the amendment. Ofsted, which has been consulted in broad terms, thinks that it would be inappropriate to inspect financial education specifically, since it usually inspects not individual subjects but the curriculum as a whole.

On the broader points raised by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington, the curriculum is ultimately a matter for the Department for Education. He is right that financial education was brought into the secondary context under the coalition Government. Successive Governments have drilled down on the importance of maths, which is an absolute prerequisite and is fundamental to the education of our young people. The maths curriculum has been strengthened to give pupils from five to 16 the necessary maths skills, and I am sure he has seen in his own constituency the success of mental maths and advanced maths in primary schools. We responded to the House of Lords Committee’s report on financial exclusion in a similar way—I make the same case here.

It will be for the single financial guidance body to target specific areas of need, and to match individual funders and providers of education projects and initiatives aimed at children. The amendment is very broad brush. I would prefer the guidance body to be able to zero in on particular areas. That is the purpose of making overall assessment one of its strategic functions. That means that it will be better able to deliver what we all want: enhanced financial education for our children.

We agree about objectives, but I am not sure that we agree about the way forward for delivery. With respect, I invite the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment.

Financial Guidance and Claims Bill [Lords]

Debate between Guy Opperman and Yvonne Fovargue

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

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan). Unsurprisingly, I will talk about debt later.

I welcome the thrust of the Bill. Consolidating the three bodies into one makes sense, but the new one must be well run. It may be a little churlish, but I would point out that the Money Advice Service has rightly been criticised over the years, not least in this place, for its attempts to duplicate the work undertaken by more experienced agencies that are better known to the public. It has spent an inordinate amount on a fancy website and on television adverts—£26 million in one year—which did little to raise its profile. After all, who apart from me remembers, “What would MA say?” in its adverts? I remember that only because I used to swear at the television when they came on.

The new body has to be leaner. The thrust of its role must be to facilitate the work of others. That is where the money should go: not on promoting itself—not on fancy adverts—but on facilitating the work of others that already have brand recognition. Frontline delivery should be key, and it should not duplicate existing services, but focus on filling the gaps using existing high-quality not-for-profit providers.

I am a little alarmed that the recent contract round included for-profit providers. I worked at a debt advice charity when A4E got contracts, and I remember what a disaster it was during those contracts. Given the recent privatisation of Carillion and the problems it has had, perhaps we should focus on not-for-profit agencies that have existed for a very long time. In fact, the 80th anniversary of Citizens Advice is coming up shortly. It has existed for over 70 years with very little funding, so it—we—can manage money.

Clause 3(10) makes it clear that the new body needs to “work with others” in carrying out its strategic function. I interpret this as meaning that it should take a collaborative approach, and I hope that that will be the case. Any standards put in place should be designed in conjunction with the relevant providers and other bodies, and designed around people’s needs—those of the people who use the service and of the people who deliver it—and what works in practice. I must say that quantity does not always equal quality and good outcomes for people using the service.

There should be different channels with different funding. People may sometimes want to start on one channel and move to another. Face-to-face access can be more important, but people sometimes need an initial contact. As I always say, it used to be a black joke in the citizens advice bureau where I worked that if someone walked in with a carrier bag with unopened bills, we would say, “Aha! That’s a debt client.” If such people cannot even open their bills, they are not going to go online.

The object of the single financial guidance body is to ensure that the public have access to good-quality, free and impartial financial guidance, pension advice and debt advice. That aim is fine, but if the new body is to work well, we must ensure that its objectives and functions are clear and comprehensive; that the governance and oversight structure, under the Department to which it is responsible, is robust; and that it does not stray into trying to raise awareness of itself and conduct its own research. I want the body to have a laser-like focus on commissioning high-quality, independent services that will help more people to avoid financial difficulty and debt.

Improvements were made in the Lords to the Bill as originally drafted, and I welcome them. For example, the consumer protection function is really vital, and I hope that the Government will not to remove the provision when the Bill goes into Committee. The same goes for cold calling. That amendment gives the new body the power to advise the Secretary of State to ban cold calling for pensions.

We have heard enough on both sides of the House to be able to say that such a ban should apply across the board. There is a strength of feeling in favour of saying that cold calling is not helping consumers or anyone else. I get cold calls asking whether I have had an accident, but I have not had an accident in my car—touch wood—for 25 years. When I had such a call last week, I got the name of the company and its telephone number, and I reported it to the Telephone Preference Service, but the TPS still could not find the company—it was a shell company—and that is not good enough.

To be fair, the Minister in the other place did listen, and on Third Reading the Government introduced their own amendment to add the objective that the new body should bear in mind

“the needs of people in vulnerable circumstances”.

That is a real move forward, but it would be good to link this more explicitly with the promotion of financial inclusion, and it is a real shame that that was missed. It is a real boon to have Ministers with responsibility for financial inclusion—they are a bit like buses: we wait for one, and then two come along at once—but there is a worry that something may fall through the cracks. I believe that the Lords Financial Exclusion Committee, which looked at this issue, was right to say that there should be a financial inclusion Minister who works across the board. How many Departments have been mentioned already today? We have heard about BEIS, DCMS, the Treasury, the DWP and the Ministry of Justice. We need somebody who can look at this across all Departments and have a proper financial inclusion strategy.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)]

I merely make the point that my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury and I will be hosting the financial inclusion policy forum together. Surely the whole purpose of the response to the Financial Exclusion Committee’s report was to ensure joined-up Government by the two principal Departments holding other Departments’ feet to the fire, and I assure the hon. Lady that that is what we intend most fully to do.

[Yvonne Fovargue]

I am very pleased to hear that, but I think financial inclusion is so important on so many levels that it needs a Cabinet position, and having one Minister responsible for it would be really helpful.

I am pleased to hear about the breathing space, for which there is cross-party support. It is long overdue, and we need to ensure that it is up and running as soon as possible. We should not really wait for the creation of the financial guidance body as is proposed in the Bill, because that will be at an uncertain date and we need a timeframe now. After all, six in 10 people, while they are waiting for advice, take out more credit while they are not protected and are being chased by creditors, because it is very easy to promise something to the last person who rings them or knocks on the door.

We have to get the scheme details right, as has been said. It should not just act as a moratorium or a freeze. It should introduce a statutory repayment plan so that debtors are protected while they repay their debts, and the period needs to be long enough for the debt solution to be put in place after seeking advice. Six weeks is not long enough. Frankly, when somebody brings in all their debts, they often forget one. When people write to creditors, some reply immediately while others delay, thinking, “If we don’t bother, we can put a bit of pressure on.” Then the person finds another debt that they had forgotten about, so they have to write again and do another financial statement. Six months is the minimum amount of time to get everything back and to work out a proper financial statement that covers all creditors. Twelve months is probably reasonable, but there should be a minimum period and an option to extend. It should be a reward for those people who are doing the right thing and seeking debt advice.

The scheme needs to include all debt, including that owed to central and local government, which have the worst record on forbearance. In fact, the utility companies, which are often derided, are often better. On council tax arrears, bailiffs are called in far too early and far too often.

It is crucial that the Government get it right when replacing the Money Advice Service. Getting effective financial guidance to people early is key to improving household finances and economic security. We need a body that recognises that people often need help before they reach crisis point. Moreover, once they reach that crisis point, they need to be able to access debt advice quickly, and they need to go to the right body. It is after they have sought debt advice and have a financial statement that they will focus on budgeting for the future, so let us give them guidance after they have had debt advice, because that is when they will concentrate on household bills and what they will do in the future.

The scheme also has to recognise that it does not take a lot to push those on low income into financial difficulty and a spiral of debt. It only takes an income shock. It does not always have to be a big thing such as divorce, job loss or bereavement. It is often something simple such as the washing machine breaking down or expensive repairs to the car they need to get to work. A little resilience and savings would help to address such issues. I want a scheme that helps people save, and the new body could play its part in that. Yes, there is the savings gateway, but, frankly, that expects people to design their lives around the savings scheme, which will not work. People on a low income regularly have small income shocks and saving every month is not always feasible.

I am keen on the work of the Behavioural Insights Team and the interesting developments it has seen on how to save. For example, some supermarket bills say, “You have saved £2 by using this supermarket”, and that money could be put into a savings scheme. People have to be able to say, “This week I cannot or can afford to save.” A regular amount is not really possible in today’s climate.

The Bill has been improved in the Lords and I hope that it can be further improved in this place, to produce a Bill that makes a real difference to people—not just those on a low income, but anyone who receives an income shock, is having problems managing their finances or needs a bit of help budgeting. Financial education in schools is really important. It is important that we teach children how to deal with their finances, but when the washing machine breaks down, speed trumps any form of lessons, interest rates and so on, and that is why the companies say—we have seen the adverts—“I can get the money to you tomorrow.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Guy Opperman and Yvonne Fovargue

Monday 13th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

6. What assessment the Government have made of the equity of pension provision between men and women.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)]

In 2012, overall participation of female eligible employees in a workplace pension was 58%, but since the introduction of automatic enrolment this had increased to 80% in 2016. For males, this has increased from 52% to 76% in the same period.

[Guy Opperman]

The Government will not be revisiting the state pension age arrangements for women born in the 1950s who are affected by the Pensions Acts of 1995, 2007 and 2011. This would require people of working age, and more specifically younger people, to bear an even greater share of the cost of the pension system.

[Yvonne Fovargue]

The Government’s former Pensions Minister, Baroness Altmann, has said that she regrets the Government’s failure to properly communicate state pension age equalisation, an approach she described as

“a massive failure in public policy.”

Does the Minister appreciate how much this failure has affected the ability of the 1950s-born women to plan for a happy and secure retirement, and their sense of outrage about this issue?

[Guy Opperman]

Since 1995 successive Governments, including Labour Governments, have gone to significant lengths to communicate the changes, including through targeted communications, hundreds of press reports, parliamentary debates, advertising and millions of letters, and in the past 17 years the Department has also provided over 18 million personalised state pension estimates.