Consumer Credit Regulation

I commend the hon. Gentleman's work on that, and I hope he will bring his experiences to his all-party group so he can share that good practice with others. There were important contributions from the hon. Members for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) and for Crawley (Henry Smith), from my hon. Friends the Members for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell), for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones), for Halton (Derek Twigg), for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) and for Darlington (Mrs Chapman), and from my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy). My hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) made an important speech focusing our attention, rightly, on concerns about illegal loan sharking, which I want to come back to in a second. The hon. Members for Gloucester (Richard Graham), for Solihull (Lorely Burt) and for North Swindon also contributed. My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow and the hon. Member for East Hampshire drew attention to the work of the previous Government in reforming the Consumer Credit Act 1974 and introducing the Consumer Credit Act 2006. It is time to look again at the definition of ““unfairness”” that sits as the heart of the 2006 Act to see whether it addresses the concerns of those championing reform of the 1974 Act. We need further action to tackle loan sharks, who continue to operate despite the activity of teams across the UK dealing with illegal moneylending. We also need to look at how to expand access to credit unions.