Consumer Credit Bill

had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 13:"Page 4, line 37, at end insert—" ““(   )   For the purposes of this section and any regulations made under subsection (2), the requirement to give a statement is satisfied if the creditor, with the debtor’s agreement, makes available electronically in a manner which is freely accessible to the debtor the content prescribed by the regulations.”” The noble Lord said: On Amendment No. 13, I am delighted. I suppose we should have realised that buried somewhere in the legislation would be a provision that statements can be given electronically. Earlier, I pictured the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, leaning across the table to remove my Egg card from my Member’s pass, because Egg credit cards give no written statements and only give the information electronically. Clearly they have been operating within the law and continue to do so. So I am obviously happy to withdraw that amendment. The only point I make in response to the Minister is that, with respect—and as we all know we only say that when we fundamentally disagree with what he has said—I do not think that he actually answered my point about the inadequacies of new Section 77A(6)(b). We were not arguing that there should be a reduction in the sanction on the creditor who fails to provide the statement. The substance of our argument was that as new Section 77A(6)(b) is drafted, it will be very difficult to ascertain to what extent the sanction applies to the debtor in relation to the payment of interest. We say that the paragraph is opaquely drafted, which is why we suggested that the calculation and how it should work should be dealt with by regulation. However, if he is not prepared to go the way of regulation, I should be grateful if the Minister would at least have another look at the clause to see whether the drafting could be less opaque.