Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)

My Lords, my Amendment 34 again concerns symmetry of enforcement and redress periods. The Bill introduces a 10-year hard stop on complaints to the Financial Ombudsman Service, but the problem is that the 10-year figure is already riddled with exemptions: for long-dated instruments, for latent harms, for products with extended maturities and for situations where the consumer could not reasonably have known they had a claim. The Government have already conceded that the 10-year period cannot sensibly apply in a wide range of cases. I have a concern that, once Parliament writes “10 years” into statute, that becomes the headline. Consumers may assume they have 10 years, even when they are in one of the many categories where the long stop does not apply. That creates a real risk that people will time themselves out because they believe the headline rather than the detail. Then there is the deeper structural issue that I have referenced before: firms’ enforcement rights do not end at 10 years. They can enforce debts, pursue arrears, securitise portfolios and benefit from long-tail revenue streams well beyond that period. Yet the consumer’s ability to challenge an unfair relationship or to bring a complaint may fall away far earlier. That is the same kind of asymmetry that I raised before. My solution is that at least the starting point should be that the duration of rights, remedies and enforcement powers for firms must be aligned with the duration of rights and remedies for consumers arising from the same act or relationship. I have addressed only that aspect of asymmetry in my amendment; I have not attacked the 10-year hard stop and the impact that that might have on consumer perception. My amendment would not interfere with the exemptions that the Government have already accepted. It would simply ensure that, where a firm retains enforcement rights beyond 10 years, in various circumstances, the consumer retains the corresponding right to challenge the fairness of that relationship for the same period—in other words, symmetry. I need not say any more, as we have been around this loop, but it is the same argument in a different place.