Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)

My Lords, I thank the Minister and all who have spoken in this debate. I am sorry that, to some extent, having it in two separate bits has made it more awkward. We are at a kind of impasse here. The Minister replies as though we are saying that nothing in the Consumer Credit Act can be changed and it will all have to stay there. In fact, all I am saying is that there are some basic core rights in statute, similar to the sorts of core rights that exist in many other Commonwealth countries, that should remain, because you do not have rights with the regulator. As my noble friend Lord Sharkey explained, the consumer duty does not give you any rights. It is about the opinion of the FCA, and it can change how it will apply it. The main thing that we are objecting to is that the Bill is shoot first, ask questions later: “Give us all the power now and we’ll consult and tell you what we’re actually going to do later”. That is not the way to make legislation right—it is not how you would hire a telly, for heaven’s sake. We are being asked to tick the box on behalf of the public for something that is fundamentally unseen. The Bill does not retain core rights. It says that some things will change and gives an open-ended power to change everything else automatically when the Government want to. The fact that the Government are not taking rights away now does not mean that they cannot take them away later. That is the impasse that we are at. We need some core rights that stay. The rest can all be simplified, streamlined and handled by the FCA and made more modern. The two should be able to work together, but it is not a simple fix. This has been pushed through without that second consultation, and that is why it is now falling apart as unsatisfactory. I will return to this when we come to Report, but, for now, I will not press my opposition to Clause 1 standing part of the Bill.