Consumer Rights Bill

Debate between Baroness Neville-Rolfe and Lord Bishop of Truro

Wednesday 5th November 2014 Grand Committee

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

Perhaps I could try harder; we will have to return to it if I cannot persuade the noble Baroness. The difficulty is that if, for example, someone rings up a domestic violence helpline and that number is public, it will then appear on the bill, so other members of the household will then know that people in their household have been ringing that number. This sounds like a detailed issue, although I think that our hearts are in the same place. My understanding is that this was debated at great length in Brussels at the time of this directive, and that these were the problems that came up. I thought that it was right to share that background with the Committee. I will go away to see whether the point that the noble Baroness has made about individual versus corporate stands; I think it is a legal point that I would need to take advice on. That is the difficulty; it was a combination of behavioural and legal points that reflected the concerns the EU had when it was talking about this, when obviously it was trying to do the right thing.

I turn to Amendment 105C. The Government share the concern of the right reverend Prelate and the Children’s Society about payday lenders using unsolicited calls to market inappropriate products to vulnerable consumers. Indeed, we had a long debate earlier in this Committee on the whole issue of payday loans. Such practices must not be allowed to occur, as the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said. I reiterate that the tough measures that I outlined as part of the nuisance calls action plan will capture the practices of payday firms, among other industries. Such firms will no longer be able to target consumers as they have previously been able to.

The right reverend Prelate asked why, as mortgage calls were banned, payday lenders’ calls could not be banned. I am afraid I must take that question away; I was not aware of the ban on mortgage calls, and I will investigate and write to the right reverend Prelate to see if that provides some new avenue into the debate.

To conclude, the Government take the issue of nuisance calls very seriously, and I have set out a number of ways in which we are tackling the problem and the way in which we have speeded up. The Government will continue to work with consumer groups, regulators and of course industry, which need to make changes to find effective solutions. The work outlined in our action plan is under way—new things are happening all the time—and this will help to contribute towards achieving more long-term solutions to deal with nuisance calls. I have outlined a couple of points of follow-up, which we will pursue before we get to the next stage of the Bill, but in the mean time, I ask the right reverend Prelate to withdraw his amendment.

[The Lord Bishop of Truro]

I am grateful to the Minister for her response, and I thank all noble Lords who took part in the debate. Clearly, unsolicited calls struck a nerve with most noble Lords here. It was therefore ironic that we should have our own version of an unsolicited call when the Division Bell rang to empty this Room.

By way of response, I thank the Minister very much for the offer of a letter on the point about mortgages, which, as was reinforced in the debate, is a significant issue. I will stress and underline a point on my amendment. I understand entirely the strength of feeling in the Room about the way in which we are affected by unsolicited calls, but I want noble Lords to imagine what it must be like if you are leading a chaotic life in a vulnerable situation, where bizarrely, the phone ringing might be seen as a good thing rather than a bad thing—as many of us would see it. In view of some of the amendments we will come to later, there is almost an addictive quality. Some of these payday loan firms will buy into and hook into these people, who do not have the resilience to resist in the way that I suspect we can. We can joke about it. It might be a nuisance for us—we might be able to shout down the phone at a machine—but for some of the people that we represent in the Children’s Society those strategies are just not available. This is therefore very important. I am grateful to the Minister for her assurance of a letter, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.