Financial Services Bill

Debate between John Hemming and Stella Creasy

Monday 6th February 2012 Commons Chamber

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

This is the third time that we on this side of the House have proposed legislative action on the high-cost credit market in the UK. As Mae West said:

“I’ll try anything once, twice if I like it, three times to make sure.”

I can tell the House that we are absolutely committed to the argument that something needs to change drastically in our consumer credit markets. This Bill offers the potential to address some of those concerns. We have had a positive debate today about some of the large-scale problems in our financial markets, but I want to set out the other picture. I shall talk about those people at the other end of our financial markets, the people who are called the “under-banked”. There is now irrefutable evidence that millions of people in this country are unable to access credit in a manner that is positive and constructive to their financial health. We should consider that one in six of us is now what are called “zombie debtors”—paying off the interest on our debts, not the capital.

A perfect storm has hit UK consumers in the last couple of years as pay freezes, rises in unemployment, rises in the cost of living and a lack of regulation of the consumer credit market has made us a fertile territory for the high-cost credit industry. It is not by coincidence that these companies have flourished in Britain in the last couple of years, as there has been a 200% increase in the numbers of people borrowing from payday loan companies and a similar increase in the amount of money they are making from British consumers in the last 18 months alone.

With a mind to what we could do to the Financial Services Bill, let me set out what the prices are and what they mean to British consumers. Many Members will be familiar with my own personal travails with a company called Wonga whose rates are 4,214% representative APR in a year. Some may be familiar with QuickQuid whose rates are 1,734% representative APR, while some may have come across the Money Shop in their constituencies, with a mere 219% representative APR. Some may be familiar with some of the newer players in the market—for example, Ferratum, a major European payday loan company, which has a mere 3,113% APR. Then there is Peachy Loans, which will lend people £100 at a time, with £15 interest every 10 days. That works out at a representative APR of 16,381% every year. This is not to mention companies like Borrow, recently advertising themselves on the radio and TV, which encourages people to borrow £10,000 a year at an APR of 68%.

Before we discuss any legislation, it is worth thinking about this industry and how it operates. It wants to paint itself as the new industry, the new form of financial credit that Britons are crying out for, that the Facebook generation wants, that is online, quick, easy and consumable. There is another side to this story, however, as many will have seen the people who are struggling because of the toxicities in this market. When we know that 30% of payday loans are taken out to pay off other payday loans, that should tell us that something is going drastically wrong that needs addressing.

Payplan, a debt charity company, says that 46% of its clients had six or more payday loans in the last year alone. This is not a short-term temporary measure; this is a way of life for millions of people in our country nowadays. More than half the people going to Payplan for debt advice owed more than £500 to these companies, and 61% had more than one at a time. Most crucially, 86% of its clients were using the loans for basics—food, transport and the basic costs of everyday living, not luxuries. This is not a market that is working for British consumers; it is not an industry that wants to lend people money and have them pay it off within a reasonable length of time. It is an industry that wants to lend to people, to keep lending to them and to keep taking money from them, drips at a time, raising the interest rate as it goes along, and adding money to the bill every single month.

The rates in themselves mean that debt is more likely. That is the challenge we have to address with our consumer credit regulations. We are talking about people who are short of cash now. They are not using it as a temporary stop-gap; they are struggling in Britain today. We need to be aware that 7 million Britons last year put their mortgages on their credit cards and 1 million people used payday loans to pay their mortgages. That is the sort of challenge we have to address. It is also the opportunity we have with the new Financial Conduct Authority.

I welcome the fact that Ministers have listened to the advice I gave them on 16 June last year when I suggested that the FCA could indeed take over this role and look at this industry. I welcome that, as I say, but I know there are issues over how the FCA should deal with the promotion of competition and over the real powers that the FCA needs to address these companies and to regulate this market. Indeed, I note that other consumer organisations such as Consumer Focus, Citizens Advice and the Financial Services Consumer Panel have written to the Minister asking for the FCA to have specific powers for product intervention. This must go beyond the point, which I recognise the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert) mentioned, about the paucity of the response that the Office of Fair Trading has been able to make to these companies. I know all too well myself from when I tried to get the OFT to act on companies that did not display their APR how difficult it is to make progress. This goes beyond advertising and people knowing what the price is. It is about the fact that the prices reflected in the APRs I mentioned show that this is not a free market and that competition in itself is unable in this market to ensure that consumers are not put in detriment.

I know that many Members agree that things could be done, so let us give the FCA the power to intervene to make sure that there is competition and to use price as an indicator of competition. Let us give the FCA the real power it needs finally to address this country’s legal loan sharking. I agree with the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) that there is a challenge with unauthorised overdrafts and credit cards, so let us use the FCA finally to make good on this Government’s broken promise to tackle the exorbitant rates on credit cards and unauthorised overdraft charges and cap those prices.

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

I share the hon. Lady’s concern about the very high levels of interest rates charged on certain debts. Does she share my concern about the effect of continual late payment fees, which have exactly the same effect?

[Stella Creasy]

Yes, I agree, and I hope that Government Members will join me in condemning those banks and credit card companies that, at the very time when millions of British consumers are struggling, are ratcheting up their interest rates, following the lack of regulation on excessive interest rates on our credit cards.

[John Hemming]

rose—

[Stella Creasy]

I hope the hon. Gentleman is on his feet to agree with me that this must be stopped.

[John Hemming]

I wanted to make reference to my entry in the register, as I have certain banking shares.

[Stella Creasy]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will use the fact that he has shares to make representations to his bank about the consumer credit market in the UK.

The consequence of doing nothing about this industry and doing nothing about how British families are being made to struggle because of the cost of credit are far too great to see. Frankly, it is not good enough for the Chancellor and the Minister to say, “Well, we have to wait until we see the research from BIS.” We have been waiting years—yes, years—for action on this issue since it was first put to Ministers.