Mr Laurence Robertson (Shadow Minister, Economic Affairs; Tewkesbury, Conservative)

This is the first clause that might be considered to be in the meaty bit of the Bill. It deals with an exemption that relates to high net worth debtors and hirers, which means that certain people who are declared to be of high net worth do not come within the scope of the Bill. In a sense, it is difficult to understand why the clause is in the Bill, but there is a precedent in the insurance industry. People who go to,   for example, Legal and General or Prudential to make a purchase or to be sold a pension plan are allowed to state that that is all they want. They do not have to accept the wider advice that those companies are deemed to have to provide.

This provision is slightly different, in that people in the insurance industry who take out a pension or a savings plan are not taking out an obligation as such: they are purchasing something of lasting benefit. If people decide, after six months or six years, that they do not want a pension, they can simply cease payments; that is not the case with a credit agreement. People who take out credit may get themselves into a difficult situation that is not as easy to get out of. I am not sure that that analogy is a direct one.

I am slightly concerned about people being declared of ''high net value'' and therefore not coming under the terms of the Bill. Amendment No. 9 seeks to clarify the clause. The Bill says that someone other than the debtor has to declare himself or herself as being of high net worth. The amendment attempts to make it clear who can make that declaration. I say that the person making that declaration

''shall not be connected through pecuniary interest to the lender''.

It is clear what I am trying to get at: a lender should not be able to provide a person to declare that the borrower is of high net worth when they have a direct pecuniary interest in doing so, because that would let the lender escape the terms of the Bill. That is a rather convoluted way of describing it, but it is probably clear what I mean.

Amendment No. 10 requires that such a declaration

''must be signed by the debtor in the presence of an independent witness, who shall not be connected through pecuniary interest to the lender and shall not be the person who has made''

the original statement. It is a little bit complicated, but I hope that the Committee understands what I am driving at. I do not seek to strike out the ability of somebody to be declared as being of high net worth and therefore escape the clutches of the Bill. I am simply trying to make it a little more certain that the lender does not manipulate the situation.

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