Clause 25 - Credit information services
Consumer Credit Bill
10:00 am
Charles Hendry (Shadow Minister, Trade & Industry; Wealden, Conservative)
I am grateful to the Minister for such a detailed explanation of the clause and of the thinking behind it. I assure him of our support in this area. All of us have had distressing constituency cases in which people have come to us and said that they are unable to borrow because they have been told that they have a bad debt rating, when in fact that rating relates to someone who lived in the house a while before or to a student who happened to live there. To have the issue made clearer is something that we should welcome.
I welcome the fact that the Government announced yesterday that they are setting up a £45 million fund on debt advice. Will some of that fund be used specifically in this area? It seems that many people are simply not aware of credit repair firms, their right to obtain information for a fee and how they go about trying to correct incorrect information that is on file. Does the Minister envisage some of that funding being used to make sure that people are not put in this invidious situation?