Payday loans cap: George Osborne caves in following intervention led by Archbishop of Canterbury
Its not that long since the press were unhelpfully throwing rocks at Justin Welby over harnessing Church powers to challenge the payday loans agenda. His persistence has paid off and as this article reveals he is clearly making progress! It would be really interesting to look at the rural/urban split in terms of those who have regular recourse to such loans. In the meantime this story goes as follows:
George Osborne caved in to demands to impose a cap on payday lending costs to avert a parliamentary rebellion backed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, The Independent has learnt.
Senior Conservatives were understood to have been fearful of losing a vote on a hostile amendment in the House of Lords on Tuesday which would have set a charge cap of 10 per cent on all short-term loans and placed other restrictions on their sale.
The amendment to the Banking Reform Bill was being backed by Archbishop Justin Welby, who was considering speaking out in its favour in the Lords debate. His support was expected to garner the backing of a significant number of cross-bench peers and inflict an embarrassing defeat of the Government.
“As you know, a large proportion of cross-benchers tend to be swayed by the idea of having God on their side,” said one Lords source in favour of the amendment.
“George Osborne’s change of heart had more to do with politics than conviction.”