I am not sure that those ads are attractive solely to children. The point is that they perhaps attract us all. I am not sure. I have not seen a Wonga advert for a very long time but I understood that the old grannies disappeared some considerable time ago. I will come back to the noble Baroness on that issue.
I want to proceed because I have a few things I would like to say. The rules specifically prohibit payday loan adverts from encouraging under-18s to either take out a loan or pester others to do so for them. The noble Baroness, Lady Drake, brought up the point about pester power. Existing ASA rules prohibit the payday loan adverts from encouraging under-18s to take out loans. BCAP is undertaking a review to ensure that these rules are effective, and I will come back to that in a moment.
The social responsibility requirement prohibits lenders from deliberately targeting vulnerable people more generally. That was referred to earlier as well. The ASA has powers to ban adverts which do not meet its
rules and has a strong track record of so doing. Since May 2014 it has banned 12 payday loan adverts as being inappropriate. In addition to the ASA’s role, the FCA has introduced tough new rules for payday loan adverts, including mandatory risk warnings and a requirement to signpost to free debt advice. To ensure that protections remain effective, the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice is currently reviewing how its content rules relating to the protection of children are applied to payday loan advertising on TV.
The Government recognise the strong feeling on the issue in the House, as well as the important research that has been published since the inception of the BCAP review, including that produced by the Children’s Society. Here I pay credit to the society for its tireless work and for bringing this issue very much into our inboxes and to our attention. As a result, I can today announce that Treasury Ministers have asked BCAP to broaden the remit of its review, to ensure that it also considers the appropriateness of its scheduling rules, as well as those around content. Treasury Ministers are writing to BCAP formally to set out this request and this letter will be placed in the Library of the House. BCAP has agreed to this and will expand its review with a view to publication of its findings, in full, in the new year.
During the review, BCAP will of course be very keen to engage with noble Lords on their concerns. When meeting noble Lords at lunchtime today we talked about what might happen within the House. A debate on BCAP’s findings would be more that welcome in the House. I am happy to take the request for a debate back to the business managers. I hope noble Lords will understand that I cannot commit to a timetable for a debate before discussing it with colleagues and with the usual channels.
4.30 pm