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Finance (No. 3) Bill

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. We do not often find the issue of high-cost credit lending in the headlines, but it is critical for many people up and down the country. Many of our constituents would expect to see it addressed in the Finance Bill, because there is growing concern that a large number of some of the poorest people in society are becoming prone to high-charging payday lending, doorstep lending, new variants of hire purchase and illegal loan-sharking, especially as the mainstream banks restrict credit availability. I gather that since 2007 we have seen a fourfold rise in payday lending. The high-cost credit sector is now estimated to be in the order of £8.5 billion in value. The situation is familiar to many hon. Members across the House and particularly so to my hon. Friends, who represent some of the poorest and most challenged constituencies in the country. In my constituency, Nottingham East, the citizens advice bureaux and other advice organisations, such as Advice Nottingham and the St Ann's advice centre, have recently published an anthology of modern poverty as they encounter so many stark stories of personal indebtedness daily. There are too many instances of companies—legal ones—preying on the vulnerability and desperation of stressed consumers who need to bridge their spending with short-term but, unfortunately, ultra-high-interest credit. A quarter of consumers who use high-cost credit cannot access any other form of borrowing. Apparently, 7 million people in the UK are denied credit and bank accounts that many of us would take for granted.