My Lords, I am happy to follow the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard. His point is understandable but it is more easily understood in the context of the ad hoc committee’s report on financial exclusion. We have had some response to that, already adverted to by the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, and it is a great leap forward to have a Minister to whom we can now address some of these issues. But as the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, was saying, what is missing is an overall strategy into which the differences he was trying to analyse can fit more comfortably. Absent a strategy, the Committee is perfectly entitled to try to make what it can of this important Bill—which is an important part, although not the whole, of the strategy—in order to expand the envelope as much as we can. These amendments do that. The speeches we have heard so far from colleagues support that, and I support these amendments.
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I have two specific things to say, though. I remind the Minister that according to Clause 18, Part 1 of the Bill is United Kingdom-wide. Amendment 22, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, explains the importance of consultation and names a whole series of institutions, including the devolved legislatures, that need to be taken into account. I might get boring about this as the Committee stage unfolds, but I want to be reassured that the Minister understands that this applies to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well. Differences are emerging in those places, which is not an accident, as devolution was set up to do that. I know Scotland better than Wales and Northern Ireland, but the Programme for Government that was only yesterday advertised by the Scottish Government is very ambitious. You can have a political argument about where they are going to find the finance, but the one signal difference I note is the tone being adopted in Holyrood—a social justice, progressive approach to providing social protection and social security. For instance, it has tweaked the universal credit architecture in a way that helps deal with some of the late payment and rent arrears issues building up in the rest of the United Kingdom. It has mitigated the effect of the bedroom tax and some of the other effects of the Welfare Reform Act 2012—and indeed the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016—in a way that is not happening in the rest of the United Kingdom.
For that reason alone, somebody should be required to be responsible for actively reporting to the United Kingdom Parliaments collectively on financial inclusion and exclusion, and matters of that kidney, and this is the only body that fits the bill at the moment, and is available to us in Parliament. If that is not done, there are joint ministerial committees that meet—not often enough—to exchange best practice, to put it at its best, and to resolve differences, to put it at its worst. There is a very important theme running through Part 1 of the Bill that I have some concerns about, which are addressed by these amendments. I hope the Minister can give a positive response to the overarching ambitions in these amendments, at least.
Returning to where I came in with the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, I accept that things will become clearer when we get a debate and a government response to the ad hoc Financial Exclusion Committee. That cannot come fast enough for some of us, who are wondering where it has been and when we can access it, but in the meantime the Minister should take note of some of the ideas in these amendments. They may be ambitious but they are certainly worthy of the department’s careful consideration as the Bill progresses.