My Lords, the Minister will have been under the usual pressure to say that this provision is probably not suitable for this Bill and that there are all kinds of reasons why it will not quite work. Perhaps his officials will have used the words that I well remember as a Minister: “Better not”.
I suggest to my noble friend that this is the kind of opportunity that rarely comes when a Member has raised an issue for which there is no convenient box in other Bills. I must say that the whole House owes a great deal to the noble Lord opposite for having found this moment for the amendment. I therefore very much hope that my noble friend will be sensitive to this issue. It is in line with much of what we are trying to do elsewhere and is the best way to counter the sharks. Actually, legislation does not help much
with sharks because they always find a way around it, but if one can provide an alternative to the sharks, one is more likely to win the battle.
It is notable that throughout our society the encouragement of the credit union movement by all sorts of organisations—I have recently come across several examples—is something that can do only good because it uses three simple concepts. First, people need to borrow money from time to time. Even the best-organised families find that to be necessary so there ought to be a way in which they can do it. Secondly, there is no doubt that within the Armed Forces there are many for whom pay and conditions are not absolutely perfect and where there are stretching moments—perhaps more so than in other jobs. Thirdly, as the noble Lord opposite said, we owe our Armed Forces a particular debt and, because of the things we ask them to do and the places we ask them to go to, it is often more difficult for them to access the sort of short-term help that many people receive from family and friends. That just happens to be part of the conditions of being in the Armed Forces.
I very much hope that my noble friend, who has shown himself to be particularly sensitive on many issues, will be able on this occasion to give us some hope that he can persuade others to accept that this is a sensible place to put the amendment and to give some degree of creativity to a Bill which, although important, is not the most exciting to have come before this House. I have sat through most of our proceedings and I have to say that this nugget, if my noble friend is able to give it his blessing, might well be the thing that people remember the Bill for.