Clause 22 - Further provision relating
Consumer Credit Bill
4:45 pm
Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Employment Relations, Competition and Consumers), Department of Trade and Industry; Bradford South, Labour)
Clause 22 (4) provides that debtors must allege unfairness on the part of the creditor before the creditor has to prove that no unfairness has taken place. Under the existing extortionate credit bargain test, the burden of disproving extortion is on the lender. The consumer must only make an allegation that the transaction is extortionate, and the consumer will succeed in his case unless the creditor can satisfy the court on the balance of probabilities that it is not.
There is, therefore, no change from the current law in the way that the existing onus on proof provisions works. That is essential to ensure that consumers do not find it prohibitively difficult to bring a case under the unfairness test. We are concerned that the unfairness test should remain accessible to consumers. There should be effective redress, too, against unfairness. The hon. Gentleman's amendment would place a higher burden on debtors to demonstrate unfairness before being able to bring a case.