Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Consumer Credit) (Designated Activities) Order 2014

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Sharkey (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak to both orders. The first takes up little more than a page, while the Explanatory Memorandum attached to it takes up 49 pages. The second order takes up 30 pages and the Explanatory Memorandum for that also takes up 49 pages, but is essentially the same text as the first one. That is not a complaint: the Explanatory Memorandum is a model of its kind—it is clear, thorough and indicates clearly areas of doubt or uncertainty.

There is one area of doubt or uncertainty arising: the effect on SMEs—not as providers of credit but as customers of credit providers. The impact assessment estimates the cost of the measures over 10 years at £336 billion and the benefit at £689 million—an estimated net benefit of £353 billion. However, the impact assessment does not say how this net benefit is distributed. That is my first question: are SMEs net beneficiaries or is all the benefit delivered elsewhere?

The impact assessment also makes it clear that it expects a shrinking of the credit market. It estimates that 9,000, or 20%, of credit organisations will exit the market. It is true that these organisations represent only a small percentage by volume of total credit, but is this lost lending concentrated in the SME sector? That is my second question to the Minister. We know that net lending to SMEs continues to decline. Can the Minister provide some general reassurance that the measures before us will not make the position worse?

The note in paragraph 53 on page 13 of the impact assessment makes the point that the FCA’s most effective regulatory tools and framework to be brought about by these orders will be,

“effective in tackling known consumer detriment occurring in the non-mainstream lending market such as: payday loans, credit brokerage, debt management and home collected credit”.

That is an important improvement and I welcome it, especially as it will apply to payday loans. However, at first reading there seem to be some areas missing from the list. The impact assessment notes in paragraph 25 on page 8, as a rationale for intervention,

“that the market is not functioning as well as it should and the regulatory regime cannot keep pace with the market”.

However, as far as I can detect, no explicit mention is made anywhere in the orders or the Explanatory Memorandums of crowdfunding or peer-to-peer lending. As the Minister knows, these are rapidly growing credit areas, and ones that offer additional opportunities for SME funding. Can the Minister confirm for the Committee that crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending will fall within the ambit of these orders? I think I heard the Minister say that that is the case for peer-to-peer lending, but I should like to know whether it is also the case for crowdfunding.

Before I conclude, I should like to ask the Minister a little more about the effects of these orders on payday lenders. The Minister has previously confirmed elsewhere that under the terms of the EU e-commerce directive, the UK has no power to cap the cost of payday loans extended by companies based in the EEA and trading only electronically in the UK. However, I notice in paragraph (5)(e) on page 16 of the second order that the authority has the power to prohibit the entry into credit agreements by an EEA authorised payment institution if that institution,

“engages in business practices appearing to the Authority to be deceitful or oppressive or otherwise unfair or improper (including practices that appear to the Authority to involve irresponsible lending)”.

Does this provision apply to payday lenders based in the EEA and operating only electronically here in the UK?

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome these two orders. It is the duty of Her Majesty’s Opposition to study secondary legislation and then to oppose it where we find errors and faults, but I have to say that I have not been as successful as the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, in finding questions to pose to the Minister, so at least my words will give him a little time to collect together his notes on those technical areas. While we welcome the orders, my honourable friend in another place did ask one or two questions which seemed to be answered satisfactorily. As far as I can tell, the orders do their job. With the permission of the Committee, I should like in a sense to celebrate these orders because they represent the last hurdles of effecting the transfer of responsibilities for consumer credit from the OFT to the FCA. Over the past many months, we have all been concerned about the consumer credit market, in particular its grey areas and payday lending.

I, too, have studied all 49 pages of the impact assessment, although I did not find the same inconsistencies as the noble Lord. I did pick up an implication that the resources to be devoted to the area seem to be tripling from around £10 million per annum to £30 million, and I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm the extent to which new resources are being made available for this new activity. What does this represent in terms of resources and people at the FCA devoted to the consumer credit market? Will it involve the transfer of people from the OFT? Will it involve new and perhaps more capable people working in this market? Will there be a change in attitude and culture on the part of those working in this area?

As has been pointed out, there are some detailed areas, but the really serious evil here is the loan sharks, the rogue lenders and the payday loans market. That market is pretty worrying at every level, from the one-person operator through to major organisations. It involves probably some of the most vulnerable consumers in the land, who are people making decisions in very difficult and stressful circumstances. If ever a market needed intelligent, proactive government regulation, it is this one, and I hope that what the Government have designed will do it.

I would be grateful if the Minister could say a few words about how the regulators will be more proactive. The documentation makes the point that the FCA can be forward-looking and create regulations quickly. I would be grateful if the Minister could expand on that and give me some reassurance—in response to a point made by a colleague—that the new unit will be able to strangle products at birth; in other words, will be sufficiently proactive to sweep the market for the emergence of new products and move quickly to kill them before they do the social harm that we know they can do.

One of the aspirations of these changes is to bring rogue firms under control, which I think we all welcome. The problem is that it might increase opportunities for illegal operations. I feel as though I am in a pantomime now and saying, “Look behind you”, because notes are at the Minister’s right hand. To what extent will the unit work with the police where it sees the early emergence of illegal operations and stamp them out before they can create the evil which we know happens in communities under stress?

[Lord Newby]

I am grateful to both noble Lords who have spoken. Even by the standards of statutory instruments, these are extremely opaque, but the powers they contain are important and, as the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, said, tidy up and, one hopes, finalise the secondary legislation that is needed to effect their transfer.

The noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, asked a number of questions about the extent to which SMEs could be adversely affected by the regulations. While there may be some impact on lending to SMEs by some non-bank lenders, we would expect it to be extremely small. The stock of lending to business that is consumer credit is estimated to be, at most, 5% of total lending to SMEs. If we are talking about a small proportion of that 5% disappearing, it is a very small impact. We believe that the Government’s wider initiatives, such as the Funding for Lending scheme, will over time far outweigh the negative impact of the transfer. It is worth bearing in mind that SMEs, like any other consumers, can enter into credit agreements that may drive them into unsustainable levels of debt. The enhanced consumer protection that we hope and expect will flow from this transfer will benefit SME debtors.