My Lords, I support the Bill and the amendments the Minister has presented today. However, I am left pondering that if we have a situation here where we are concerned about a customer abusing a supplier, should we also not be alert to the issue in banking where we have suppliers potentially abusing customers? Should there not be a similar mechanism in place in which customers of banks, and I think here particularly of small businesses, have the right to appeal to an independent adjudicator about the treatment they are receiving from the banks? It is right that we should be concerned about a situation of customer abuse but the potential for supplier abuse in the banking industry, which is even more concentrated than the supermarket industry, is clearly higher.
I know this goes beyond the Minister’s brief and I do not for one minute expect him to give a detailed reply, but I suggest to your Lordships’ House that if
we are seized by the importance of this Bill and believe that it is the right and proper thing to do, most of the arguments on which we have drawn apply with even greater force to the banking industry.