The two issues I am confusing are what people say and what people do.
I want to be helpful to the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on the e-mails that he is receiving from BrightHouse. I suggest that he follows up the matter with the Financial Conduct Authority. The last time we debated high-cost loans, I spoke about my experience with Wonga. I had received an e-mail offering me another loan when I was not aware that I had ever had a loan. I was told that the e-mail had not come from Wonga, that it was some kind of fraud and not to worry about it. I have recently taken this up with the FCA, which now has some authority to deal with the issue. I think that the authority will be asking the Government for more powers to get to grips with this. It suggested to me that a fraudulent application for a loan had been made in my name; my contact details were supplied, but Wonga failed to notify me of that and has retained my data on its files, and that is why it has been marketing products to me. He may wish to take up his case with the FCA and perhaps check out his credit rating—as I immediately did, to see whether the application had affected me. I admire his restraint in not rushing from the Chamber at this very moment to do that.
The exploitation that we have seen is plain and simple. Payday loan companies are not called legal loan sharks for no reason. They are predatory. They sniff out hunger, home in on and exploit the difficult situations in which so many of our constituents find themselves. The figures from one of my citizens advice bureaux in Haddington showed that debt-related cases accounted for 51% of its total inquiries from April to June 2013, a rise in East Lothian of more than 40% from the same quarter the previous year. That is why Opposition Members have been urging the Government to do something as quickly as possible. It is why we are saying that the cap needs to be introduced. It is welcome that the Government have changed their mind, but we would like to see that brought forward to 2014. People in my constituency and all our constituencies who are struggling with debt need help now.
While not everyone who borrows using a payday loan gets into difficulties, enough do as a result of the terms of the loan that the industry is now making billions of pounds. When one in three such loans are being used to pay off another payday loan, we need to call time on these lenders breaking their own codes of conduct and step in to reform the industry. It is time to have a levy on the industry so that companies have to give something back to the communities who are swelling their coffers but suffering at the same time. The hon. Member for East Hampshire said that the money suddenly injected into credit unions would not have the impact that we hoped. My constituency is served by a credit union, but it does not have a presence on the high street; it lacks visibility. It works through employers such as East Lothian council encouraging their employees to save with them, but it does not reach the people who wander off the high street into The Cash Store or BrightHouse.
A cash injection to the credit union in my constituency to give it a high street presence would tackle the exploitation that I see among the poorest and most vulnerable people.
I understand that Members have worked on a cross-party basis—I will now try to take back some of the earlier sour remarks—but let us not be limited in our ambition today. I hope that they will get behind the new clause and make a difference to the people who are suffering in our constituencies.