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Confident Consumers

As a former chairman of the Labour party, I am all for consensus with the Opposition. On this and other issues, when I think it appropriate for people to work together—when they need and want to work together—I shall be found to be most accommodating. I am strongly in favour of access to both Labour Back Benchers and Opposition parties. That is how we operated in the Department of Trade and Industry before. We did not always agree, but people could not say that they did not have access to me. I think that that was the right answer to give the hon. Gentleman. If not, I shall be given a black eye by my officials later. In addition to our objective of giving greater protection, another objective is to minimise the number of people who become over-indebted as well as to improving support for those who do. Credit is greater for those who can afford to repay it, but inevitably some get into financial difficulty and become over-indebted, often as an result of unexpected life events that throws up such as divorce, redundancy and serious illness. The impact of over-indebtedness on individuals and their families can be terrible. We aim to minimise the number of people who become over-indebted, as well as improving support for those who do get into difficulty. To that end we are funding, jointly with industry and other Departments, the National Debtline telephone advice service. We are also providing £45 million in a two-year programme to fund face-to-face debt advice, helping tens of thousands of families to tackle debt. The funds will pay for 500 new debt advisers to help people to get their debts under control. It will fulfil the Government’s commitment to achieve a step change in the availability of debt advice. It will focus particularly on the financially excluded, who are most in need of such advice. About £16 million will go to citizens advice projects, about £7 million to other voluntary sector advice agencies, and the remaining £22 million to partnership projects involving both Citizens Advice and other advice agencies. Citizens Advice chief executive David Harks has said:"““We are absolutely thrilled by this news, which represents a real vote of confidence in the debt advice already done by the CAB network, and means that a new generation of debt advisers will be able to help tens of thousands more people overcome serious debt problems.””" Steve Johnson, chief executive of AdviceUK, gave a similar endorsement of the proposals that I have just outlined. I mentioned earlier the Government’s commitment to tackling loan sharks. It is often some of the most vulnerable and excluded who fall prey to these illegal money-lenders, so we are funding pilot projects in Birmingham and Glasgow to investigate the impact of strong enforcement against illegal money-lenders. We have invested £2.6 million over two years in the project, and both pilots are performing well. Three high-profile prosecutions have been secured in the midlands, and more are in the pipeline both there and in Scotland.