Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment his Department has made of trends in the level of consumer credit since 2010.

According to the Bank of England’s Money and Credit data, the outstanding level of consumer credit, in nominal terms, was £183.9bn in March 2010, compared to £209.4bn in March 2018.

The government established the independent Financial Policy Committee (FPC), giving the FPC a primary objective to identify, monitor and take action to remove or reduce systemic risks with a view to protecting and enhancing financial stability. Following the Bank of England’s 2017 stress test, the FPC said that regulatory capital buffers for individual firms should now be set so that each bank can absorb losses on consumer lending, alongside all the other effects of the stress test on its balance sheet. This will ensure lenders are resilient to any defaults related to consumer credit.