I am very grateful to all Members who have participated in today’s debate, often prompted by conversations that they have had with individuals in their constituencies and therefore often paying great heed to just one person’s case. In recent years, there have been one or two positive developments on accessing compensation—for example, the interim compensation awards that we heard about have helped to speed up redress—but there are still some serious problems that are common to so many of the cases that we have used to highlight the problem this afternoon.
We can no longer have the same organisations that are responsible for the original harm also responsible for adjudicating what is fair compensation. Even in cases where there is not a conflict of interest, victims might perceive that there is, and as we have heard, they have nowhere else to go, so there needs to be the right of appeal. We cannot have the ludicrous situation in which an individual or small business who was subject to mis-selling, for example, has no recourse but to go back to the very bank that lent them the money in the first place. We need an independent, expert arm’s length body that could oversee redress schemes and would provide a cost-effective way to tackle mass scandals. It would
ensure speedy resolutions that place the burden on those who commit the wrongdoing, not the victims who are caught up in these appalling situations. The recommendations of the APPG on fair business banking are an excellent way of introducing that framework.
I conclude by thanking all Members who took part in today’s debate.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House recognises the challenges faced by individuals and businesses in accessing effective dispute resolution and obtaining redress in cases of injustice; believes that the Government needs to address these specific challenges, namely a fragmented and inconsistent redress landscape; considers statutory guidance to be an essential measure to ensure compensation and redress schemes follow common principles and lead to fair and independent outcomes; and calls on the Government to create statutory guidance with common principles for setting up and operating a redress scheme.