Following on from my two colleagues, it seems that mis-selling is endemic in certain areas of our public services—public with a small p rather than in the sense of Government-run.
A bank is as much a utility as the provider of electricity or gas. Mis-selling results in fines and punishments, which seem to be absorbed, and the public end up paying the fines through higher prices. We do not normally see a reduction in dividends as a consequence of this, but we might see a reduction in investment, which is one of the difficulties that we have if we clobber the utilities that want to invest. We require them to invest in order to sustain our supplies of power, gas and the like and, if we fine them very heavily, however understandable that is, we perhaps endanger some of that much needed investment. On the other hand, we are talking about the legitimate concern customers have in getting some kind of redress that they have not had in the past. That should also act as a deterrent to the companies so that they do not go about setting tariffs in the misleading and cavalier fashion that they have in the past.
We are talking about organisations that are persistent offenders when it comes to overcharging and misleading the public and, at the moment, we do not seem to be capable of deterring them. If we had simpler means for the public to get redress and for ensuring that these offenders are punished, we might begin to develop a deterrent culture, under which they would be a lot more reluctant to jump headlong into fiddling tariffs in the way that they have done recently—usually at the expense of not just the vulnerable but the whole spectrum of society. As we do not always know the full character or nature of the abuse, it is about time that we tried to introduce some more blanket form of deterrence. To my mind, a blanket form of deterrence in the form of easier access for the public to seek redress would be a major caution to these potential
persistent offenders, which are in the dock at the moment as far as a large section of the community is concerned.
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