Creditworthiness Assessment Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Thornton and Baroness Kramer

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 11th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I supported the noble Lord, Lord Bird, on Second Reading. This Bill is a small but important public policy step to help bring creditworthiness equality to people who are good payers of rent and credit. The questions asked by my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, are important.

First, this is not the silver bullet to solve the problems of creditworthiness; it is one thing that might assist. If the Bill passes and lenders are required to incorporate rental data, individuals can opt out of any system of rental payment data sharing. That is the first thing that needs to be put on the record. For most, the inclusion of such data is part of a positive journey to more equal access to affordable credit, although I agree that it is vital to be guided by those who are not as fortunate, including those let down in various ways.

Missed or late payments from a third party, including from the DWP, can already be noted on an individual’s credit file through what is known as a “notice of correction”. This principle is applied to any “notified payment” on an individual’s credit file, including a spousal dispute, incorrect calculation or late payment. Although I agree that it is right to be alive to the laws of unintended consequences, here, the consumer would be in control. That is very important. They can opt out and add notices to their credit file. As we will no doubt be looking into after the APPG inquiry, rental payments and electricity payments are normally the last things that an individual fails to pay. For people in this situation, any previous non-payment of non-essential items will already have affected their credit score, but if we can help these people, we should. I hope that the work being led by John Glen MP and HM Treasury with the noble Lord, Lord Bates—we had a very useful discussion about this—is taking this important consideration into account via the Rent Recognition Challenge. The noble Lord, Lord Bird, will raise this point later with the noble Lord, Lord Bates, and discussions are ongoing.

Reforming the consumer credit world is a big undertaking. Although we may not be able to immediately change someone’s circumstances through this measure, we may be able to better support them and prevent them getting further into the quagmire of problem debt. As the FCA put it to the noble Lord, Lord Bird, before Second Reading, it is important to know who is in trouble to,

“get our arms around them and help them”.

I thought that quote was very appropriate.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I am a real fan of the unamended version of the Bill. Some 40 years ago, when I was in my early 20s and trying to get credit for the first time, I remember the struggles—I think that most women will share them because of the era—of trying to establish any kind of credit history and demonstrate that I was reliable and could manage my finances and the stresses and strains of all of that. I had to go through the most convoluted routes to establish that history. In the Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Bird, has captured the opportunity for many people to use their reliability in making key payments—rent and council tax—to establish credit history. In some ways, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, gave the game away when he mentioned, very early, that part of the industry’s resistance is based simply on the cost of gathering this data. I really do not think that that should be an obstacle to so many people who demonstrate in their lives that they are capable of managing money being able to make the decision that they need to access credit and have a reasonable avenue to do so.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Thornton and Baroness Kramer

Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 12th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

This benefits all patient populations, and is particularly important for paediatric and rare cancers—diseases which, precisely because they are uncommon, are among the hardest to research and treat. You therefore need a larger pool than the 66 million people who live in this country: Europe has a combined population of 510 million to draw on. That is nothing to do with trust; it is to do with how clinical trials need to be carried out. You need a larger pool of patients to test these drugs.

I was pleased to add my name to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Patel. I raised this issue in my speech at Second Reading and will mention only one additional matter, which is to do with rare paediatric illness; tumour types which affect relatively few people; and rare cancers which translate to over 20% of all cancer diagnoses across the world. If the UK is to make progress on therapies for paediatric and rare cancer, it is vital that we can work closely with EU nations on clinical trials. Cross-border collaboration is crucial to paediatric and rare cancer clinical trials. Some 75% of clinical trials in the EU involve cross-national collaboration, rising to 86% for rare disease trials. As noble Lords have remarked, that is because of the patient population across Europe. We will be doing a huge disservice to our children, and to the cancers which threaten a few of them, if we fall out of this system. It is as simple as that.

The BEACON clinical trial system is an example of how cross-national collaboration is fighting back against rare paediatric cancers. Neuroblastoma is a form of cancer that affects around 100 children, mostly under the age of five, every year in the UK. More than half the children with aggressive forms of the cancer will see it return and, for these children, there are few treatment options left. In 2013, Cancer Research UK scientists and paediatric cancer specialists launched the BEACON-neuroblastoma trial to find the best chemotherapy treatment for children and young adults with recurring neuroblastoma. To do this, it is bringing together clinicians and scientists from 10 European countries and two international consortia, with funding from Cancer Research UK and European partners. It is a fantastic example of successful European collaboration. The rarity of this neuroblastoma and the low number of patients means that trials could not have happened in a single European country. It is vital that this type of cancer trial—

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

Given the noble Baroness’s expertise on this issue, I wish to ask her a question. As I understand it, medicine is becoming more and more personalised and customised. Therefore, by definition, the pool for a far wider suite of diseases is becoming smaller and smaller because of that much narrower customisation and personalisation. Therefore, the situation with rare diseases today is about to become the norm across a very wide range of diseases. Does the noble Baroness read it that way?

[Baroness Thornton]

I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness. In fact, several noble Lords who are much more expert on this have already mentioned that aspect. The noble Baroness is absolutely right. I do not think I need to say anything more. I think this amendment is the remedy. I hope that the Government will respond positively to it. The case is unanswerable.