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Finance (No. 3) Bill

Members of all parties, including the hon. Gentleman, to whom I may give way in a moment, have made the point that there is great concern among our constituents in our surgeries about the real suffering and punitive charges that they sometimes face. The organisations in question admittedly engage in legal lending, but their activity feels immoral to many of us. My hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) said that help from the financial inclusion fund ought to be there for our constituents. The Minister tried to explain that that fund will remain for another nine months, but as my hon. Friend said, it will end, and for those who struggle even to open the envelopes containing the bills as they stack up, there is no substitute for such face-to-face advice. The Government need to do better to ensure that face-to-face advice services remain and do not fall away when the cuts to them are compounded by local authority cuts. The Minister said, ““Oh well, the previous Administration ruled out interest rate caps,”” and castigated them for that. The point is that we are talking not about one route or policy solution today. We need a thorough review that deals specifically with high-cost credit markets. The current joint OFT and Treasury review does not do that. His reasons for resisting the new clause are the typical civil service ones—pointing out that the proposal refers to the Financial Services Authority rather than to the OFT is pretty pedantic. He also said that the proposal does not list specific policy elements. He rules out tax as a lever, but I do not say that a tax measure is absolutely necessary in this case; I am saying that it could be. We want him to lead a review to find out. The Minister's complacency is not good enough. Vulnerable people in this society are suffering because of the high punitive charges that they unfairly face. Some of the very poorest in our society are suffering. We need action now, and we have tried our best to offer the Minister a device that would allow him to get on with reviewing the levers that could make a difference. He refuses to do that and throws the proposal back in our face. For that reason, surely, we ought to press the new clause to a Division. Question put, That the clause be read a Second time. The House divided: Ayes 228, Noes 273.