I thank the Minister for that and indeed for the letter from her colleague the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, on 13 November. This is a little like the last debate. We keep being told that all the regulations are there and that everything is fine but then we hear from Citizens Advice, Debt Line and other organisations that people are getting into trouble with these payments. The figure that was given to me in a meeting this week with BrightHouse that a
quarter of the people are actually having to stop payments after 13 weeks suggests that there is something wrong. We are back into, “Don't worry about it: all the rules are there”, but the evidence on the street is that people are taking out these products when they clearly cannot afford them.
I have two other issues. One is insurance. It used to be very common to have to buy travel insurance when you went through a travel agent, but the Financial Services Authority, as it was at the time, stopped that. If the answer to my noble friend Lord Harris’s question is that compulsory insurance purchased through that company so that you cannot shop around is permitted at the moment, we hope that in future the FCA will say that it is not permitted.
I leave the other issue with the Minister because I do not expect a reply at the moment. One of the great advantages of being regulated by the FCA of course will be absolute access to the Financial Ombudsman Service. It would be helpful to know whether that will be made known to all customers of these companies. I hope that the FCA will hear this and we do not continue with the idea that just because something is being regulated there are no problems, because sadly there are. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.