Consumer Rights Bill

Debate between Lord Bishop of Birmingham and Baroness Jolly

Wednesday 26th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jolly]

I am, indeed, a Minister. However, there are things to which this lowly Minister will not commit. I want to press on. I have a few paragraphs to go.

This rule-making process is consistent with the way that BCAP makes its rules around adverts for gambling and alcohol. The noble Baroness, Lady Drake, made the point that this must be the same as for adverts for gambling and alcohol; and this is the same way that BCAP copes with such adverts.

I repeat that the Government are determined that children are protected from inappropriate advertising by payday lenders. The Government have introduced a wide range of reforms to clean up the payday sector and these are already having a significant impact in protecting consumers. The Government welcome the extended BCAP review to ensure that evidence informs both the content and, indeed, the scheduling rules around payday adverts and continues to deliver a forceful regulatory approach. I hope that noble Lords also welcome these developments and recognise the Government’s efforts to find agreement on this matter. I hope that the right reverend Prelate will see fit to withdraw the amendment.

[The Lord Bishop of Birmingham]

My Lords, I am grateful for the full, well informed and passionate debate that we have had on this subject. There has been considerable progress. With the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, I was here during the passage of the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Act last year and this area was given a lot of attention. We expected change and change has begun to happen. There is certainly a mood in the House today that further change should take place, change that must happen quickly. Children grow up very quickly and one or two influences at a certain age can make a dramatic difference, not only to them but to the behaviour of their parents, as has been so well illustrated today.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for reminding us that we need not only rigour but action in order to pursue proper behaviour by this area of commerce, just as we expect proper responsibility from all our citizens in managing their money, even in extremely difficult circumstances. I am very grateful to the noble Lord for asking the Minister to enable us in this House to hold this business accountable in public, so that further action can not only be monitored but be insisted upon.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, for challenging me on my use of the English language and on using back-street “slanguage”, when the language of the Treasury and the legal department—but also the advertising industry, which understands perfectly well when we say “content and timing of … communications”—is what is meant. The noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, brought some of that insight. We have regulators, of whom we expect great things: the Advertising Standards Authority, the Financial Conduct Authority and, of course, the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice.

Advertising of this kind, as was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, is unsuitable for children and is corrosive to the family. The approach to this very difficult issue, success though there has been, is multifaceted. A degree of negotiation and persuasion, as well as authoritative legislation, is needed in these powerful institutions that are driven, really, by our consumer society.

I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part today and I thank the Minister for taking this issue not only seriously but further by agreeing that the Treasury will write to the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice, by broadening the scope of the accountability it must take and by insisting that the content and the timing of adverts must not only be improved but satisfy the points made in this House. The watershed is vital, as is the issue of content. There is a long way to go but I look forward to working with my noble colleagues in this House, with the Minister and with the Children’s Society and the other charities that have been mentioned in ensuring that what has been passionately argued today takes place. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.