Orders of the Day — Access to Personal Files Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 11:15 am on 20 February 1987.

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Photo of Mr John Browne Mr John Browne , Winchester 11:15, 20 February 1987

I think that I understand what my hon. Friend is saying. I almost intervened in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Norris) when he talked about getting credit. He made an illuminating and amusing speech, but, underneath the good jokes and the analogies, I sensed a similar suspicion. The granting of credit by a financial institution is not only a question of analysis, but a personal assessment of the character of the individual, say the entrepreneur or the man starting up in business. When that great banker, J. P. Morgan, was tried in the Medina case in the 1930s, he was asked whether he had ever refused a loan to someone whom he had never met. He said, "That is not the question you should be asking me. The question is, have I ever made a loan to anyone whom I have never personally met? The answer is no. It is not the ability to repay the loan, but the willingness to repay the loan, that matters."

An important point that could have been overlooked in my hon. Friend's amusing speech is that the impressions given by a person applying for credit from a financial institution or a lending officer could be very important to his credit assessment. That illustrates vividly one of the dangerous areas which the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire may have considered, but which it is difficult to put into legislation without overkill and the creation of a destructive measure. The Bill is a very constructive measure.