My Lords, not for the first time, I am supporting my noble friend Lady Oppenheim-Barnes on the thrust of this amendment. I declare an interest. As somebody approaching 70, I pay my bills by cheque and I do no money transactions, if I can possibly help it, online. That is how I like to do it. My mother died in the summer aged 95. In the end, I had to keep track of what was happening with her bills. It would have been very difficult if she and I had both being trying to do things online. It is not that I cannot use a computer, but I do not choose to do finance on one. It would have been extremely difficult. When I was sorting out her estate, I noticed that you are always paying in advance so they always have your money when you have not had the utility, whichever it is: gas, electricity or something. That is one of the reasons why I do not want to do it. I will pay for it when I have had it, thank you.
The issues that we are discussing here in one way amount to age discrimination because people like me, people who are older than me and people who are caring for people older than me find this extremely difficult. It is quite a serious thing. It may be that it will not matter to my grandchildren. We will all have died out and the utilities will not have to worry about these things, but for the moment it is quite a serious issue for people who are older, and particularly for their carers.
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My daughter, who is a great deal younger than me, has found that some suppliers take advantage if you pay by direct debit and that, if you are not careful, you pay way over the odds, your account is in credit by a substantial sum and they have your money. That is another reason I am not very keen on that system.
The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, talked about problems associated with mobile phones. I changed my contract and the company told me that I would not get a piece of paper with the details but that it would relay them to my phone by text message. Something
went a bit wrong because it is still sending me the paper bill. I am not going to tell the company about that as I am quite pleased about it. I am old fashioned and keep a paper record of all my finances as I find that easier to locate.
I have got better at using electronic devices and perhaps I will get better still. However, my main concern is with those elderly people who find it difficult to use electronic devices and are paying more as a consequence. Some of those elderly people are on very low incomes, as my mother was. I am sure that the Government will not accept this amendment but I hope that we can get the message across that we need to look seriously at how this affects the older generation, particularly as I think Dementia Awareness Week is this week. If you or the person you care for has dementia, these matters are difficult to cope with but you can see something that is on a piece of paper and track it. I hope that the Minister will take those points into account in her response.