We should never forget that those sub-companies have targets, and they will do anything to meet them. For example, a young constituent came to see me. He had purchased a mobile phone contract, and wished to give up the phone after the term of his contract had ended. He found that, yes, it was easy to give up the phone, but he noticed on his bank statement that every month a deduction of £5 continued to be made by the company. He wondered what on earth it was about. He had given up the phone, only to find in the small print that he had been sold phone insurance. Because of its targets, the company continued to take insurance money, even though he did not have the phone.
That leads me to the problem of debt and how we help people to get out of debt. I am delighted that in my area we have begun a campaign to highlight the problem called Debtbusters, which has been rolled out across Scotland both to help people who have got into debt as a result of those purchases and to tackle payday lending. One way out is to offer advice on credit unions. The focus on credit unions tends to be the credit side, but we need to change that and focus on savings. It is unbelievable that, after eight weeks, someone can take out three times what they have saved and that leads to increased debt.
In conclusion, Labour believes that this Bill does not do enough to clarify the way in which customers are empowered in both local and national structures to ensure that they know who to turn to for help when things go wrong.
3.24 pm