Financial Education

Debate between Jim Dowd and Justin Tomlinson

Thursday 15th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention and I agree with him 100%. My speech and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) will cover those exact points.

To conclude this part of my speech, consumers too often take advantage of what they see as instant pain-free solutions without understanding the implications of what they are taking on.

[Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

Before the hon. Gentleman moves away from payday loans, does he not agree that anybody who finds themselves even contemplating taking one out—I accept his point that there are different ways of calculating the best way out of a situation—needs to address their whole financial position? It tends to be indicative of a problem, although I would not necessarily say that it was systemic. Once someone starts robbing from next week, they will be short then and it will go on and on. They need at that very moment to get the most careful and wise advice on their personal finances.

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. Let me be clear. Everyone has individual circumstances, priorities and challenges, and what one member of the public thinks is the right thing to do might be different to what the next person thinks. For me, the driving force is the idea that we have a duty to equip people to make informed decisions so that they can understand the implications of what they are doing and therefore do the very best according to their own priorities and circumstances. As we find in our debates, however, all too often people are not in a position to do that. MPs often end up referring to our casework because time and again we see people who have made wrong decisions not necessarily through any fault of their own, but because they did not have the skills to make the right decisions. Indeed, Citizens Advice has highlighted that 60% of its work is finance-related.

We have a competitive market and the Government have been encouraging people to take advantage of competition within the energy market. We say to people, “Go and shop around and look at energy tariffs,” but the market is incredibly complex and people need to be clued up if they are to be savvy consumers. I recently attempted to look at energy tariffs, but they are not all like for like, so consumers need a good level of skills to unravel that complicated market and seek out the best deal.

Another reason why I am passionate about this subject is that my generation could be pretty rubbish at handling money. We could go to university, drum up huge amounts of debt, including expensive debt on credit cards, and then secure our first graduate jobs—in my time that was relatively easy to do—get on to the housing ladder with a 100% or 100%-plus mortgage and watch house prices increase. When we had learned the error of our ways, we could reconsolidate our mortgage, pay off all our expensive debts and carry on, but that option will not be available to the next generation. As things stand, it is very difficult to get into the housing market and there is no guarantee that house prices will rise so that one could take advantage of that should one get on to the housing ladder. It is harder for young people to get credit and harder for people to correct any mistakes they may have made.