Financial Guidance and Claims Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Drake and Lord Young of Cookham

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 11th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the co-pilot is back. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, for tabling this amendment, which would make it a criminal offence to falsely claim to be giving pensions guidance, money guidance or debt advice on behalf of the single financial guidance body. She set out very clearly the devastating impact that misleading or criminal advice can have on people’s lives. Both she and the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, identified the ingenuity and adaptability employed by scammers and fraudsters to con people.

I was very interested in this amendment and made inquiries to see who would be caught by it. Clearly, people who claimed to give advice on behalf of the SFGB, or whatever it is called, would be caught but, as it stands, I understand that it would not cover someone pretending to give advice on behalf of a delivery partner. The noble Baroness may like to think about that.

Protecting people from financial fraud and scams is important, and I say to my noble friend Lady Altmann that the Government take it very seriously. Anyone who has served in another place will have seen at first hand the devastating impact that this can have on people’s lives. We will come on to cold calling when we reach Clauses 16 and 17.

Ensuring that people have confidence in the financial guidance and debt advice provided by, or on behalf of, the SFGB will be central to its success and to the success of other government policies to improve people’s financial well-being. This is a matter that we have explored in depth with the existing service providers—the MAS, TPAS and Pension Wise. As the noble Baroness said when she moved her amendment, of those three, only guidance provided under the Pension Wise banner is covered by a specific measure making it an offence to falsely claim to give such guidance. The MAS and TPAS rely on existing criminal offences.

In response to the speeches made, we have considered very carefully whether to go down the Pension Wise route and create a new, bespoke offence to cover all the single guidance body’s guidance and advice services. We have weighed up whether there is evidence to suggest that a bespoke offence would have any greater effect than existing criminal offences, taking into account that the Pension Wise offence has never been used in a prosecution.

There are already criminal offences that would cover imitation of the new body; again, the noble Baroness referred to these. For example, if an individual was misled by someone dishonestly claiming to give guidance or advice on behalf of the body with the intention of causing financial loss, this would amount to an offence. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland a person could be prosecuted under Sections 1 and 2 of the Fraud Act, and in Scotland such conduct would likely amount to the common-law offence of fraud.

In addition, under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, Regulation 9 makes it an offence to advertise or market a service in a manner that deceives or is likely to deceive the average member of the public. If that advertising or marketing causes or is likely to cause an average person to take a decision they would not have taken otherwise, again, this is an offence. This would make it a criminal act, for example, for scammers to use the logo of the new body.

Offences under the Fraud Act are subject to a maximum term of imprisonment of 10 years and offences under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations carry a maximum term of imprisonment of two years. As a deterrent, both maximum terms are significantly greater than the maximum 12 months envisaged by the amendment.

For these reasons, and having listened to the arguments, our assessment is that there are already existing offences which will provide for the single financial guidance body to take action against people claiming fraudulently to be delivering its services or using the body’s brand and reputation to mislead members of the public. Where people seek to scam and defraud by falsely claiming to be acting on behalf of the body, they will be liable to prosecution under existing offences, leading to the possibility of a custodial sentence. We believe that the protections in existing offences are sufficient and I therefore urge the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Drake]

I thank the Minister for his response. I am not sure all my questions were answered, particularly on how to protect from the mimicking of existing bodies that go into the organisation, while they still have credibility, until the new body’s name becomes absorbed by the public. However, in responding to his points, I borrow the phrase of the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer: the Bill needs to be belt-and-braces in terms of it being a criminal offence to mimic this body.

The new body’s guidance will influence people’s decision-making—that is why it is being set up. It recognises a market failure and many consumers who would use the guidance service could be at risk if they go in the wrong direction and to an organisation which is mimicking it. I note the Minister’s point that my amendment would not cover all the circumstances of the criminal offence, but the fact that my amendment could be improved is not a reason for not having explicitly in the Bill a provision that expressly says it is a criminal offence to mimic this body.

There are two strands to my argument: first, it should be expressly in the Bill that it is a criminal offence to mimic, impersonate or imitate the service of the single financial guidance body; and, secondly, there must be some reference to the legislation under which that would be an offence. A Bill would normally refer to the legislation or spell out specifically new legal provisions about the criminal offence. At the moment, however, the Bill is silent on the issue. That is a gap in the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Financial Guidance and Claims Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Drake and Lord Young of Cookham

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 6th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I would love to give a direct and helpful response to the noble Lord’s very reasonable question. It would be irresponsible of me so to do. There are a lot of government departments involved in this. I cannot give an exact timetable at the Dispatch Box today, but I will make some inquiries and see whether we can shed some light on a publication date perhaps later in our proceedings.

I think I was at the end my peroration, imploring the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Drake]

I thank the Minister for his reply. I totally disagree with most of what he said. I thoroughly agreed with the bit where he agreed with my analysis— it was just the bit about the amendment not being practical. This will be neither onerous nor expensive, which is really his only argument against it. This is not saying to map every problem that contributes to financial capability or financial exclusion, but to give a report that sets out in the methodology how best to make an impact assessment across government departments when they are pursuing their policy.

This is not novel; it is a methodology and a discipline that operates in a range of areas. A huge amount of work has already been done. A national strategy has already been created by the work of the Money Advice Service—there is already its capability survey. It has mapped the problem. I was rereading it over the weekend. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. A lot of that work exists and it is an organisation that is going into the new organisation. The Bill already gives to the new financial guidance body responsibility for co-ordinating and developing a national strategy. The Government have already given it the heavyweight bit, which is to co-ordinate and develop the national strategy, but ensuring that that strategy is effective and delivered—ensuring that the whole machinery of government is responsive to the challenge—is a methodological challenge in terms of what I am proposing on how you assess the impact so you can take it into account.

I do not accept that it is expensive or onerous. It is a challenge of how one guides departments to make those impact assessments. There is plenty of advice and guidance from the NAO, other government departments and other bodies that have given guidance to the Government on how to make impact assessments. If there is such a resistance to making impact assessments, how is the Prime Minister to meet her commitment? If she wants to make the Government function better she has to stand back, look at the problem and make an assessment. All I am saying here is that simply giving a budget to an NDPB and saying, “Get on with developing and co-ordinating a strategy; we as a Government have now discharged our function”, is not sufficient. The whole machinery of government has to be told that when it comes up with its actions or policies that it has to assess the impact it will have on capability and debt. The Government will go on to make their policies, but they have to put a discipline in. Just handing over the more labour-intensive bit to the NDPB, not the least labour-intensive bits that I am suggesting, will not get good outcomes for the country.

I reject the premise of the Minister’s argument that it will be very expensive and labour intensive to do. A lot of the groundwork has already been done by the MAS. None the less, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.