Regulation Of Debt Management Companies

EDM number 1540 in 2010-12, proposed by Tracey Crouch on 07/03/2011.
Categorised under the topic of Financial services.

That this House welcomes the update from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) that 35 of those 129 debt management companies to which it issued warnings as a consequence of the Compliance Review process it launched in 2009 have now surrendered their licences and that a further 15 are facing licensing action; expresses concern that the OFT, given the limited resources available to it to police a sector of indeterminate size, is only now in a position to review the evidence of compliance submitted by the remaining 79 firms, of which some may well still be taking advantage of more unsuspecting vulnerable and indebted consumers; notes the intention of the OFT to update its Debt Management Guidance to take account of all the new and emerging unfair business practices identified in its Compliance Review of the sector; but considers that the only way to ensure individuals are suitably protected from the high fees and poor advice they receive from rogue operators is for the Government to introduce a robust statutory regime, under powers already available to it and contained in Part 5 the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, that would limit what they could charge for their services and require them to submit to the relevant authority their own self-funded independent audits of the debt advice they give in exchange for their licence to operate.

This motion has been signed by a total of 29 MPs.