My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in the debate on this first group of amendments. In doing so, I declare my interests as set out in the register. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, on the manner in which he introduced the amendment. I also thank him for giving a wave to my Amendment 127 on this subject, which found itself a prisoner in a different group of amendments but was very much to the purpose of this group. Simply put, it would prohibit any more individuals becoming mortgage prisoners in this way.
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I support Amendment 99; I have put my name to it; I think it offers a solution to this problem. This entire debate could be summed up simply as: when Cerberus showed its teeth, where was our financial watchdog? We know that there was no role that the FCA could play on this issue; it is not within its powers or rules as currently set out. One wonders why, having rescued the Rock, which was the correct thing to do across all FS at the time of the crash, we would then imprison so many of those customers and betray them in a somewhat opaque fashion compared to the reality of how they have found themselves in their current position.
This seems eminently resolvable if the Government truly stand by, which I believe they do, a levelling-up agenda—an agenda of opportunity, possibility and enablement. A simple amendment to resolve the issue of mortgage prisoners would fit well within that. If my Amendment 127, Amendment 99 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, or the other amendments in this group do not do the trick, will the Government consider bringing forward an amendment of their own on Report to enable everybody who finds themselves in this situation to have the freedoms and the flexibilities enjoyed by so many others who simply have the financial product of a mortgage? If not, why not?