Insurance: Payment Protection Insurance

Debate between Lord Flight and Lord McNally

Monday 5th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

I would take the name of the company and report it to the Ministry of Justice. Cold-calling in person is banned; high-pressure telephone calling is banned; and unsolicited text messaging is banned. I am sure that noble Lords to whom this has happened for the first time have already realised that this is an industry where a lot of consumers’ money is at stake because of the success in making the banks take responsibility for this mis-selling. As the noble Baroness said, there is something like £8 billion or £9 billion that could be returned to consumers and, to put it no higher, there are some very dodgy practices at work with people trying to get their hands on that money. I can assure noble Lords that the Ministry of Justice will accept its responsibility in this area. We are talking to the Financial Ombudsman Service as well and we shall pursue this matter in the best interests of consumers.

[Lord Flight]

My Lords, would it not be appropriate for the head of the Financial Services Authority to warn consumers on this front? The whole point of having a financial regulator is to protect the public and, in the past, the head of the FSA regularly gave warnings to the public.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, the responsibility for this is with the Financial Ombudsman Service. The financial ombudsman has identified this and put out warnings. Both the Financial Ombudsman Service and the MoJ on their websites give clear directions to consumers about how they can make claims in this area without using these companies and at no cost to themselves.