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Amendment of the law

The hon. Lady raises a good point, and that will help some pensioners, although not all. She also points to an issue that I hope the Government will take very seriously. Will they, through various agencies such as the citizens advice bureaux and Age Concern, redouble their efforts to ensure that anybody who is entitled to a state benefit, whether means-tested or not, is encouraged to apply for it and is assisted in obtaining it as soon as possible? I have held surgeries with my own CAB offices to encourage pensioners to apply for various benefits that they were entitled to but did not know they were entitled to, or—to pick up on the point the hon. Lady raised—were entitled to but resisted the opportunity because they feel means-tested benefits are demeaning. They find the form-filling rather difficult and some of the questions are very personal and can put many of them off. I have referred to the over-80s. They are members of the generation above mine. It is the generation that lived through the second world war. I am a baby boomer; I was born the year after the second world war ended. I am, because of my age, very familiar with the age group that is one above my own. They are a very proud and independent people and they will not come forward voluntarily to apply for benefits. Nevertheless, I think that we as Members of Parliament, and certainly the Government, should do all we can to make the process as dignified and simple as possible. In this recession, there is an enhanced opportunity for the Government to do all they can to make sure the statutory bodies, voluntary services and charitable agencies encourage more people who are entitled to apply for such benefits to do so. Nevertheless, there was something that the Government could have done yesterday, and I very much regret that they did not take that opportunity. I began by talking about personal debt. As I represent a rural constituency where communications might not be as good as in a city or large town, I am concerned that a lot of people living in small isolated communities do not always receive information and do not get to know about things as easily as those in urban areas. There is an issue to do with those people who loan money—the loan sharks if I may call them that. I am sure all Members have had to deal with constituency casework where people have clearly been taken advantage of—often some of the very poorest people who are truly on the margins in terms of their financial viability. I urge the Government, particularly at this time, when people are going to find the coming years extremely difficult, to ask the Office of Fair Trading to look again at better regulation of the consumer credit market. In some parts of the country, credit unions do an excellent job, but they, too, are not as easily available and known about in rural communities as they are in city centres. When they were first introduced, they were located in areas where it could be clearly identified that the population there might well benefit from them. Of course, in rural areas, people are scattered about and do not form a hub. None the less, there are outreach services and statutory agencies that can act on their behalf. I ask two things of the Government on behalf of people who are on very low incomes, including not only pensioners, but those of working age. Will the Government ensure that the consumer credit market is properly regulated? Will they examine how we can roll out credit unions in a more unified way, particularly in the rural parts of the United Kingdom, because I am sure that they will be needed? They will solve a lot of problems for people who might otherwise be seriously taken advantage of. The other loan sharks that I wish to mention are the banks. They have had a bad press and, like everybody else, I wish to see the credibility of the British banking system restored in a way that allows us to have trust in it, both as personal bankers and, on a much broader level, in terms of its importance as a national institution. I fear that we still have some way to go and the process of restoring confidence will go far beyond this recession. The Financial Services Authority has clearly failed. We have had debates in the House about how the rules have been changed, how the role of the Bank of England has been changed and how powers have been divested to the FSA. It is essential that the regulation of the financial institutions in this country is clear and transparent, and that it works. When we have debates about regulation and I speak from the Conservative Benches, very often people say, "You always want a light touch. You always want less regulation, not more." I believe that we have got it totally wrong in this place when it comes to regulation. I often find that regulation hits in the most top-heavy way areas where a light touch is needed, and we over-regulate in areas that need a light touch. However, in areas where proper regulation is needed and needs to be enforced, for some reason we get it wrong. We should all ensure that any proposals that come forward, as I hope they will, to make changes to regulation and the way in which the FSA works are not unduly top-heavy for the sake of it. Very often this is simply a matter of common sense; it is a question of saying, "Where does the regulation need to fall? Is it transparent? Will it be easy to monitor to ensure that it is working properly?". In asking the Office of Fair Trading to regulate the consumer credit market, I am not asking for a lot of top-down regulation just because things have all gone pear-shaped; I am asking for regulation that works and regulation that will genuinely restore the banking institutions of this country.