Consumer Credit Bill

It is kind of the noble Lord to say that he never would dream of taking the Church to task. In that case, he is unique. My wrist is, after all, still hurting, so I know that he did take me to task at Second Reading. I simply want to say that the amendment that we are discussing is the amendment that we are discussing. The noble Lord is right; I could put down an amendment along those lines that is, in my view, more balanced, and I have not chosen to do that. That is my responsibility and I understand that. I believe that the line of the amendments is unbalanced in a way that I hold to be dangerous. I do not dispute anything that has been said about some of the ways in which the credit market has benefited people. It is good for some people to be able to have washing machines that they would not otherwise have; I do not dispute that. But we are 100 miles from that in some of the ways in which the credit market now behaves. The line of the amendment encourages what it calls innovation, expansion and competitiveness. I do not believe that that is helpful. The noble Lord asked me whether that would be better served by Parliament than by the OFT. At the moment I am not very confident that it would be very well served in either direction because of the prevailing attitudes that the credit market has fostered. But, as I said, the amendment that we are debating is the amendment that we are debating. It is about that I have made my comment.