Finance (No. 3) Bill

Steve Rotheram Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sheila Gilmore]

I thank my hon. Friend for that helpful intervention. If we are to put the money where our mouth is, it is extremely important that we do not just sit in the House constantly agreeing about how bad something is; we need to take action. On that basis, I urge Members, and perhaps even the Government, to accept the new clause.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I thank the House for its indulgence. I was at a meeting of the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government so I missed the beginning of the debate. I shall try to be as brief as possible, because I am sure that Government Members will have heard the compelling case made by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) and my colleagues and will have been won over by the powerful arguments they articulated.

Those outside the Westminster bubble sometimes question what we as Members of Parliament do in this place. I am sure that there are moments when even we wonder what it is all about and why we parliamentarians put ourselves through the rigorous demands of elected office. I realise just how privileged I am to be here and to represent not only the people of my community, for whom I have the highest regard, but a great city such as Liverpool, and then I have the opportunity, such as the one put forward tonight, to change the lives of ordinary people and realise that my time here is anything but wasted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Oliver Heald]

There is of course wide acceptance across the House that some regulation is needed in this area, but why should it be about taxation? A Finance Bill obviously provides an opportunity to raise the issue, but does the hon. Gentleman not agree that there is a risk—[Interruption.] He should at least let me ask the question before learning the answer from the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy). Does he not agree that there is a risk, through the law of unintended consequences, of high-cost companies simply passing on the costs of higher taxation to the poor people in Liverpool he is worried about?

[Steve Rotheram]

I always listen to my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, as she is much more of an expert on these matters than I am. I hope that the hon. Gentleman’s intervention is not indicative of the thinking of all Government Members.

I have a particular reason for wanting to see a cap on the cost of credit. I come from a family of eight kids, and unfortunately my beloved mum was often a victim of door-to-door credit. She took it not to pay for luxury goods, but so that she could afford to buy us things like school blazers and winter coats. She would get a Provident or Sterlers cheque and pay it back on the “never-never”, as it was known colloquially. This meant paying back hundreds of per cent. of the original loan in interest charges, but like millions of others she did not really understand the rudimentary economics and looked only at how much she could afford to pay back each and every week, rather than the interest rate or the cumulative payment total. Unfortunately, she was not unique in this respect and, even four decades on, far too many people are still caught in this poverty trap.

The high cost of credit has not improved much for families at the wrong end of the socio-economic ladder. Home credit lenders often charge astronomical annual percentage rates of up to 3,000% or 4,000%. I had to check those figures, because the current bank base rate is only 0.5%, but I found that interest charges of thousands of per cent. are not uncommon. In fact, the UK’s poorest pay the highest price for credit in Europe. This is an obscene state of affairs and the Government must act. Before we hear the same old mantra from Government Members, I admit that we in the Opposition did not do enough to tackle the issue head-on when we were in power. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) rightly pointed out, this is an escalating problem that needs to be tackled immediately.

I urge Members on both sides of the House to support what my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow is trying to do to stop this most socially iniquitous of practices. Even Boris supposedly supports measures to protect the financially vulnerable, and if he can do it, there should be nothing stopping Government Members doing the same.

Members on both sides of the House have highlighted the problem and provided examples of the unfairness, but it is worth reiterating that credit lenders can charge, in real terms, £82 in interest and collection charges for every £100 lent. A gentleman came to my constituency advice surgery only last Friday and told me that his wife was suicidal because of the level of debt that they had got themselves into. I highlighted last week in a Westminster Hall debate the fact that the banks are failing to meet the Project Merlin targets for lending and the adverse effect that this is having on the construction sector. The banks are also failing ordinary families as they are refused credit from high street lenders, which often results in them taking the only option left: high-cost lending through payday and doorstep loans and hire purchase.

The rising cost of credit traps those least able to cope with the pressures of economic stagnation as they struggle to make ends meet, and believe me, the VAT increase has not helped those families. Some payday lenders are rubbing their hands at the expansion in their “target audience”, as one put it, 70% of whom have a household income below £25,000. I know that we will never completely stop this most lucrative of immoral trades, but we can certainly put a cap on lending to regulate the total amount that can be charged for supplying credit.

This is one of the occasions on which I do not understand how a proposal could not receive unequivocal support from both sides of the House. I have listened to some of arguments against taking action, such as the suggestion that it might make things worse or restrict credit to those who need it, but that is an absolute cop-out with no basis in evidence. Therefore, I ask Government Members to support the new clause to ensure that consumers are protected and simply pay a fair price for credit.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)]

I think that the debate has demonstrated the potential for cross-party support for the analysis underpinning the discussion we have had this afternoon, but I gently point out to Opposition Members who seek to turn this into a partisan political issue that their Government had the opportunity over 13 years to tackle this. In fact, we had a debate on it while the Financial Services Act 2010 was going through Parliament, not long before the general election, during which my opposite number at the time ruled out acting on interest rate caps because of the impact of depriving the most vulnerable of credit services. It is not a new issue, or one that is fresh to this Parliament. Ministers in the previous Government were opposed to the idea of caps because, as the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) indicated, it could restrict the supply of credit, forcing those who need it into the hands of illegal moneylenders, an outcome that Members on both sides would not want to see.

Let us be clear that credit can be a good and positive force that enables people to meet needs when there is a sudden shock, such as an unexpected expense or a cut in income, but it must be used sensibly and sustainably. When people decide to borrow, they must be mindful of what that means for them and realistic about their ability to repay the loan. That is true whether the loan is over 10 years, five years or a matter of days, as is the case with some instant or payday loans. However, all lenders have a responsibility in this regard. Lending more than borrowers can afford to repay does not benefit anyone. Under the recently introduced consumer credit directive, all lenders, including high-cost credit lenders, must ensure that when they decide to advance a loan they do so after making a thorough assessment of the lender’s ability to repay.

We know that consumer debt grew significantly under the previous Government, more than doubling from £620 billion in 2000 to more than £1.4 trillion by May 2010. Some of this debt is now being repaid as consumers begin to come to terms with their borrowing, with the amount of unsecured debt reducing in the past two years. Although much of this debt will be repaid without any problems, some borrowers get into difficulty. Lenders have a responsibility to help customers and treat them fairly when they get into difficulties with loans, not push them further into debt. Continuing to add excessive arrears and default charges is a lose-lose situation; the debt increases out of all proportion to the amount borrowed, the lender is less likely to be repaid and the borrower may have difficulty borrowing again. Lenders should work with borrowers, not against them.

We should all be concerned about people borrowing at high rates of interest. However, the high-cost credit market, whatever its faults, provides a service for those who cannot get credit from any other source. We should be careful about describing high-cost credit providers as legal loan sharks. We all recognise from our own communities that real loan sharks are far worse, resorting to violence and intimidation to recover their debts. High-cost lenders are licensed and operate within a regulatory framework, which provides some recourse when things go wrong.

We should be clear that action has been taken over the past year to improve consumer protection in this area. First, under the consumer credit directive, which came into force earlier this year, consumers now have a right to withdraw from any credit agreement within 14 days. If they do so, they have to pay back only the money lent and the interest accrued over that time. Secondly, consumers have a right to repay a loan early at any time, in part or in full. Thirdly, lenders now have to provide information in a standard format so that borrowers can easily compare the costs of different loans. Improving the transparency of information will help consumers. Fourthly, lenders must conduct a full credit assessment before advancing any loan. Lenders will also have to explain the key features of the credit agreement.

In addition, the Office of Fair Trading has recently published its guidance on irresponsible lending, which clearly sets out that deceitful, oppressive or otherwise unfair lending practices are not acceptable. The OFT, which is responsible for the regulation of credit—something that whoever tabled the new clause seemed to forget—has the power to remove the licence of those who breach the irresponsible lending guidance.

Much good work is going on, including the excellent work of credit unions, which many of my hon. Friends have mentioned. It is a shame that the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) is not in her place. My hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) is right that there is £73 million to help to expand and modernise credit unions. The money that the previous Government put into credit unions is diminishing, because the money that credit unions were able to earn on the debt was lower than the default rate on the loans given. I therefore welcome the money that the Department for Work and Pensions has found to strengthen credit unions.

As a number of hon. Members have said, we are reviewing the wider consumer credit landscape. At the end of last year, the Treasury and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills published a joint call for evidence on the consumer credit and personal insolvency review, which covers all aspects of the consumer credit life cycle, including what happens when things go wrong. This is an opportunity to ensure that the regulatory framework is fair to consumers and the industry. Part of that review focuses on the high-cost credit market. Following an OFT review that took place under the previous Government, we have asked for evidence on five of its recommendations.