Consumer Credit Regulation

Debate between Stella Creasy and David Lammy

Tuesday 9th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Stella Creasy]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. There are many examples overseas from which we can learn, and I hope to put some of them on the record.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

Is not my hon. Friend trying to make the point that in communities such as ours—Tottenham is next door to Walthamstow, and it is very similar—people need to know who they can trust? We have heard today’s decision on the people’s bank. In years gone by, my mother felt that she could trust the national savings scheme with the Post Office. It is not just about providing poor people with more information; they need the state to step in and take a view on what is excessive and exploitative in that area of the market.

[Stella Creasy]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We know that it is possible to intervene effectively in such markets, and I shall come to that next.

In the Consumer Credit (Regulation and Advice) Bill, which is my private Member’s Bill, I suggest not a blunt cap on interest rates, but a cap on the total cost of lending, which is vital. Given the experience in other countries, it seems likely that focusing solely on capping interest rates would lead some companies simply to recoup their profits through administrative and late repayment charges.

Also, as I said, the situation in the short-term loan market can be very different from the long-term compound interest that many people face. That creates perpetual rolling debts in which families get stuck. It is worth highlighting exactly what that difference is and what it means for interest rates. Some short-term loans have an annual interest rate of 2,000% or 3,000%. If I were to lend someone £100 and ask for £10 at the end of a week, it would equate over a year to an interest rate of approximately 3,500%.

We need more sophisticated tools than a blunt cap on interest rates to get around the maths and also to ensure that emergency loans are not rendered illegal or impossible when they are manageable, and that is why I propose two forms of intervention. The first is powers to intervene on the total cost of borrowing over the lifetime of a loan to set parameters within which any company can be expected to act. Such a process would examine the total lending charge and give the Government the power to stop a single loan from exceeding a certain percentage of the original value through all the costs associated with it. That could be done through the Office of Fair Trading or whatever remnant of Consumer Focus the Government leave as protection following their decision to disband it.

Secondly, within those parameters, the Government should consider caps on the interest rates that firms charge for different forms of loans—whether they are pay-day loans, longer term or for hire purchase. That would avoid inadvertently killing off the short-term emergency loan market and address the impact of compound interest.

As hon. Members have pointed out, these are not back-of-the-envelope proposals without any foundation. Just last week in Montana, alongside the mid-term elections, the public voted to cap the interest rate that lenders can charge. That makes Montana the 16th US state in which pay-day lending is effectively banned because of a 36% limit on the annual interest rate that lenders can charge. Indeed, 15 states in America have essentially eliminated pay-day lending altogether by introducing a ban or cap on the maximum amount of credit at a low level, which has driven such lenders out of business. Some 35 US states and eight Canadian provinces have introduced higher caps on the price of pay-day loans, which allows such loans to operate but protects consumers from extortionate lending. For example, in a number of Canadian provinces, caps have been set at between $21 and $23 per $100 lent.

Such legislative interventions have been put in place not only in America and Canada, as 14 European states have some form of ceiling on interest rates. Countries often have more than one ceiling because they are set according to the different type or size of loan. For example, there is a different loan category in Belgium for those under €1,250 and those over. Alternatively, ceiling levels are set according to the terms or nature of the loan, such as depending on whether they are mortgages, credit cards or auto loans. The number of parameters can make some ceiling designs complex and difficult to understand. Indeed, the most straightforward are the absolute ceilings found under the past tradition of usury laws, but their impact is not as effective as some of the more targeted ceilings. There are differences between what has happened in Greece and Malta, and in some of the other countries that have brought in more complicated caps, such as Belgium, Portugal, Poland and the Netherlands. Many of those are based on a reference rate, under which a multiple of average market rates can be used to set the ceiling. In France, the ceilings are set at 133% of the market average—in other words, one third above the average.

A report on the effects of rate caps in Europe is due to be published by the European Commission in February 2011. I understand that it will support the case for caps, provided that the form and level of the caps are carefully constructed. Those issues—what form the cap could take and where it could be set—need proper and full discussion. It does not take the debate forward to say that because some caps have not worked, we therefore should never have them. We should be asking where caps have worked well, how we can learn from that, and how we can apply them so that we effectively help people on low incomes in the UK. Frankly, what is the credit review for if it is not to examine how and if such approaches could work here?

The Government could learn from other countries about ways of preventing compound interest’s connection to debt dependency. Indeed, that is why it is all the more surprising that the credit review does not consider such matters. America and Canada have experimented with restricting the amount that can be lent—for example, Illinois and Nevada have put in place clear requirements that a loan should not exceed 25% of a borrower’s income. In Arizona, California, Colorado and Florida, the number of loans that can be provided has been limited to just one at a time. In addition, Indiana prohibits more than one loan from a single lender and limits the total number of loans to two. Alabama restricts the total number of times a loan can be rolled over to just one. Alaska allows just two, while Illinois, Kentucky and Louisiana prohibit the practice entirely.