Vote Yes to ending legal loan sharking

People tell me that I am just anti-Labour. This is not strictly accurate. If Labour want to propose a bill – or an amendment to a bill – that is good then I will verbally back it with a blog. This has happened as Labour co-operative MP for Waltamstow Stella Creasy has proposed a bill that would see an end to legal loan sharking aka pay day loans. Whilst I’m a free market guy I think it is very clear that these loans prey on the vunerable.

I was brought up on a council estate and I know of people who took out such loans and all it does it move the problem to further back in the calendar and makes the problem even worse. Yes there are those who could use these payday wisely and how they are meant to be used but without any stats and purely using my conjecture this is either a minority or a slight majority. Most people ignore the warnings that this is a short-term cashflow fixer and use it even though there is little hope for them to pay it back before the insane APR kicks in.

There will be a vote next Tuesday on adding a new clause entitled “High Cost Credit Lending” to the Finance Bill that will make charging insane APR illegal and make the whole process much more regulated and will stop companies making such insane profits from each loan. This is something that I fully endorse and implore all MPs to vote for. I know people should be allowed to make their own mistakes in life but I truly believe that the desperate to not think about the long-term consequences and we need to stop these people being preyed upon by these companies.

So I implore you all to contact your local MP to ask them about their plans for this vote and urge them to vote for this amendment to the bill. Here is an example of an e-mail that you might want to send.

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