I thank the hon. Gentleman, whose comments were slightly more supportive than I expected them to be. He made a good point about his beloved football club. I am sure that he agrees with what I said earlier about the amount that is spent on advertising, and the worrying way in which it is normalised by being associated with football clubs and similar organisations. That particularly affects children and young people, as well as perhaps those with on lower incomes.
The Minister referred to the challenges that would be faced if amendment (b) were passed and the date of implementation were brought forward. I am well aware that Martin Wheatley of the FCA set out those challenges even before writing the letter from which the Minister quoted earlier. He said that the Minister was
“aware of the challenges that we face in bringing a price cap into force by January 2015.”
The Minister said in response:
“The Government is…committed to ensuring that you can access the information you need to design the cap. The Government will bring forward secondary legislation to allow you to collect information to support your new duty as soon as possible.”
I heard him say that those regulations have now been laid. However, this strikes us as a matter of political will. If he wants the price cap to be introduced, and if he is willing to make the necessary resources available, it seems reasonable for us to press the case for the introduction of the cap by October 2014 rather than January 2015, especially as that would help us to prevent even more families from falling into the clutches of the high-cost credit market this Christmas.
Will the Minister tell us what will be done to speed up the process of the secondary legislation to which he referred? He described January 2015 as a “backstop”, but it was not clear to me whether he genuinely believed that the cap could be introduced earlier, and I think it reasonable for us to press for that to happen.
The Minister will be aware that organisations such as Which?, while welcoming the introduction of a cap on the cost of credit, suggest that it should apply to all credit products. Members have already raised the issue of authorised and unauthorised overdrafts, which, according to research findings, are often just as expensive as payday loans. It has been reported that borrowing £100 for 31 days costs £30 with a Halifax authorised overdraft and £20 with some Santander accounts, and that borrowing the same amount for the same period from a payday loan company costs between £20 and £37. Some of the banks may not feel particularly comfortable about that comparison. An unauthorised overdraft is even more expensive. I am told that in the case of the Halifax reward account and the Santander everyday account, a £100 unauthorised overdraft can cost £100 in charges. I wonder whether the Minister has taken that into account during his discussions with the FCA.