Just as the country is struggling with debt, so to in many of our communities there are major problems for families in making ends meet. There has been an extensive campaign by a number of agencies including local Government and the Police to ban doorstep lending. A great deal has been achieved and whilst there is much more to do, hopefully most people would understand that such practices are very toxic.

In the space between the illegal doorstep lenders and high street lenders such as banks that are fully regulated, other agencies prey on those with very little. These include the high street cheque cashing companies and the payday loan companies such as Wonga and QuickQuid. These organisations charge excessive rates of interest or make transaction charges at levels that none of our high street banks would consider charging. As we clean up our neighbourhoods from the impact of the doorstep lenders and continue to put pressure on our banks to lend to businesses and domestic clients, we also need to redouble our efforts to provide bank accounts to people who have previously been unable to obtain them.

Putting pressure on payday lenders must form part of the strategy to ensure that people have credit available to them when they need, at rates that do not further damage their ability to keep their families fed and clothed. It has been widely reported that Blackburn Rovers football club has rejected QuickQuid as a shirt sponsor and there has been a great deal of disquiet in Newcastle at the decision to accept Wonga as sponsor. Aesop’s fable about the Ass (or Donkey) is the source for the adage “you can tell a person by the company they keep” and this applies to people just as much as it applies to football clubs.

The adverts on our TV include one which is voiced by Nicholas Parsons for Wonga, one might have hoped he had higher standards. Equally it is very disturbing that a former Defence Minister, Gerald Howarth the MP for Aldershot has according to a report in the Independent newspaper agreed to work for QuickQuid as a paid adviser. This is despite recent discussions on the abuse of our Parliamentary processes by MPs who are working for other companies when they should be representing the interests of their electors. Let us hope that the voters in Aldershot will take the same sort of action as the football supporters in Blackburn did and ensure that their MP focuses on the needs of their community, not the commercial gains of QuickQuid.