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Financial Services Bill

My Lords, my noble friend is aware that his amendments will not be accepted this evening and I am grateful to him for recognising that. I should also say that, as drafted, his amendments appear to contain a spending commitment and, on that basis, I could not support them. However, I pay tribute to my noble friend, who has consistently raised his concerns about the availability of credit cards, high interest rates and the possibility of bad debt lurking behind the credit card statistics. He did not disappoint us today with his overview of those matters. I shall encourage him to return to these issues with renewed vigour after the election, when I hope that he will find a party in power that will take them seriously.