Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debate between Stella Creasy and David Rutley

Monday 4th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stella Creasy]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not being complacent about the cost of living, its impact on people in his constituency and the fears of many about what an interest rate rise would mean for their monthly mortgage payments. One thing that worries me is that a lot of people are borrowing just to make ends meet; they are borrowing not for investments, holidays or fancy televisions, but to pay their rent and mortgages and to put food on their families’ tables. His complacency about interest rates not rising any time soon is misplaced.

[David Rutley]

I have heard the hon. Lady speak with passion in this debate and others, and I respect the point being made. However, some of the points being made by Government Members are important, particularly those concerning fiscal constraint and household spending constraint. The gap in her argument is that it is vital that households bear down on their spending. It is not just about the cost of financing a television or whatever else; it is about not going for it in the first place. There is a wider scope for this argument. This debate is not just about the cost of the debt, but about people avoiding it in the first place by lowering their expectations of what they need.

[Stella Creasy]

I would be interested to hear the hon. Gentleman’s advice to the nearly 500,000 Londoners who are having to use their credit cards to pay their mortgage or their rent. Right now, people are borrowing to pay for everyday essentials, and I fear that he sounds a bit like Marie Antoinette saying that people should just eat cake. That is very misplaced, given the dire financial situation that many people are finding themselves in, certainly in my constituency and, I will wager, in his as well.

Indeed, Shelter’s research shows that it is not only people in London who are using their credit cards to pay their mortgages. There are 2 million people in this country who are doing it. It is horrifying to think of the situation that those people are getting themselves into, given the interest rates that they are paying on their mortgages, let alone the rates that they are paying on their credit cards.

We also know that changes in the cost of living affect some more than others. The Resolution Foundation points out in its low earners audit that those on low to middle incomes spend a higher proportion of their incomes on the goods and services that are hard to cut back, such as their housing, their fuel, their transport to work or the food that they put on their children’s plates. That is what the hon. Gentleman is talking about. Those low to middle income earners spend 40% of their spending on those everyday essentials, compared with the 26% spent by higher earners. One in five pensioners have had to cut back on essentials such as food because of the rising cost of living.

This is not just a demand-side issue; it is also about the way in which the high-cost credit market is stacked against the consumer. That is why I believe that the market merits regulation. In order to make its profits, the high-cost credit market makes use of a number of the attributes of the people who have to borrow from it and of the way in which the market is structured. As has been mentioned, a quarter of the customers of high-cost credit companies cannot access any other form of credit. Indeed, Consumer Focus’s research shows that many users of payday loans are unable to access mainstream credit such as overdrafts because they have already maxed them out. That means that they have no choice; they have no power to shop around for a cheaper loan. Also, they cannot build up a credit history that would show a mainstream lender, who might lend at a lower rate, that they could be trusted to pay a loan back.

Because high-cost credit companies have fixed costs, they make their money by repeatedly lending to people. That means that their business strategy is geared towards encouraging repeat borrowing and the rolling over of loans. Friends Provident has found that 29% of payday loans are refinanced, with the refinancing rolling over on an average of two occasions. Some 15% of home credit loans are refinanced and rolled over into a new loan before the end of their term. It is worth explaining what that means for the cost of borrowing from these high-cost credit companies.

One person who got in touch with me took out a loan of £650 with Wonga, in two instalments, to be paid back within a month. When the repayment date arrived, he found that he could afford to pay only the interest that had accrued on the £650, which was £163. The original £650 loan was then rolled over for another month. At the end of that month, he paid off the loan, which cost him another £858. That was the original £650, plus interest of £208 accrued in the second month. The clock starts ticking in the first month of these interest payments, which is how 4,500% interest rates are reached. The longer a loan is rolled over, the closer it can get to the 4,500% APR that Wonga charges. The process of rolling over meant that he had paid £1,021 for borrowing £650 over two months. It is difficult to see what level of cap on the number of roll-overs would make a difference in this market, because the industry consistently refuses to release information about its business model. We can therefore only guess at the impact that the number of roll-overs has on people’s debts.

Furthermore, we know that the rates charged by high-cost credit companies often do not reflect an economic rate, due to a lack of competition in the market, a lack of regulation to drive down costs, and the absence of any ceiling being set. I recognise that using APR is problematic in understanding the cost of borrowing, especially in the payday loans industry, but as a yardstick it can help us to illustrate the issue. We know that payday loans can cost 4,500% from Wonga. They can cost 2,100% from Uncle Buck, 1,200% from Payday UK, and 1,700% from KwikCash.