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Financial Services Bill

My Lords, in agreeing with my noble friends Lord Barnett and Lord Peston in their amendment, I agree also with what the noble Lord, Lord Flight, has just said. He did not used the famous Latin phrase “caveat emptor”, perhaps because we are not supposed to use Latin any more—that is the case in the courts; it may be not so here. If it is convenient to the Committee, I shall speak to Amendment 106, which is grouped with my noble friends’ amendment.

The Bill states that the Financial Conduct Authority, in assessing the degree of consumer protection that is desirable,

“must have regard to … the needs that consumers may have for the timely provision of information and advice that is accurate and fit for purpose”.

The noble Baroness, Lady Oppenheim-Barnes, has kindly joined me in Amendment 106, because, while we agree about information and advice having to be accurate, we are not happy about the phrase “fit for purpose” and would prefer it to be replaced by “intelligible”.

“Fit for purpose” is a vague and uncertain phrase. As the consumer organisation Which? has said in briefing to me and no doubt to others, it is a woolly phrase and invites the question: whose purpose? It has become fashionable to use the phrase “fit for purpose” for all sorts of reasons, and despite its perfectly respectable origins in Section 14 of the Sale of Goods Act and indeed previous common law, it is now used to such a wide extent in all sorts of circumstances that it would be better replaced in the Bill with “intelligible”.