Consumer Credit Bill

moved Amendment No. 12:"Page 4, line 35, at end insert ““, and" (c)   shall, where the term of the credit agreement is more than two months but not more than 12 months, give the debtor a statement under this section within 14 days of the mid-point of the term.”” The noble Earl said: The amendment is about bringing loan periods of less than 52 weeks and more than eight weeks into the scope of the Bill, so requiring a statement to be calculated at the mid-term point. I wonder how much extra work that will entail. I suspect that both parties to the loan would benefit from the facts declared in the mid-term statement. The amendment seeks to include loans from one year down to two months. I believe that most people can remember where they are, repayment-wise, during an eight-week period but not more. With more than eight weeks, it is easy to be unclear about the exact position unless every payment has been made absolutely routinely. How many borrowers can really match up to that? This is a United Kingdom Bill—hence why, as someone from Scotland, I am taking part. The amendment has been suggested to me by the Scottish association of citizens advice bureaux, an organisation that I know to be at the sharp end of debt counselling. In moving the amendment, I want to ask about the Minister’s attitude towards illegible payment books. Will he commit that the Office of Fair Trading will consider those books to be in breach of a company’s consumer credit licence? Further, some payment books become incomprehensible due to additional loans being made and added into the existing repayment records—a sort of rolling credit arrangement. Will the OFT view such incomprehensible recording of repayments and new loans also to be in breach of licence? I beg to move.