Banks should be made to repay scandelous charges says Cllr Graham Longley ppc Rochford and Southend East (Southend Liberal Democrats)

Southend Liberal Democrats <info@southendlibdems.co.uk>

Banks should be made to repay scandelous charges says Cllr Graham Longley ppc Rochford and Southend East

August 13, 2009 5:00 PM

Bank Cllr Graham Longley PPC for Rochford & Southend East welcomed the news, that Nick Clegg and Vince Cable had pledged to put a motion before Parliament to put pressure on the government and banks to act to return the money charged to customers by banks unfairly. (following an email campaign by MoneySavingExpert.com,)

Many small businesses here in Southend had gone to the wall because they could not afford the rip off charges. Something had to be done he said and the LD's were going to lead from the front.

He also confirmed the Liberal Democrats would be debating consumer protection at the forthcoming Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference in Bournemouth in September when this matter and how we deal with it will come up.

In supporting Nick Clegg's stance and response to those suffering from such charges he agreed that the nature of those charges made were scandalous.

Graham Longley said that the Liberal Democrats had taken a strong stance on this for a long time. We made commitments in our manifesto "A New Deal for the City", for complete reform of Britain's banking and financial institutions in May 2008 last year where it was stated:

"The treatment of charges by the banks borders on the scandalous - a protected industry seeking to maximise profits by exploiting the weakness of individual consumers who lack information and sophisticated knowledge of products or legal advice. The principle should be established that bank charges must be transparent and cost based."

Nick Clegg and Vince Cable, our shadow Chancellor, will be supporting a campaign that banks should have to pay back all unfair charges automatically if the courts do rule against them.

"Nick & Vince will get my full support to put a motion before Parliament setting out our support for these ideas which will hopefully put pressure on the government and the banks to act to return the money they have so unfairly taken from customers" said Graham.

Graham further said that he was pleased there would a debate on consumer protection at the LD conference in the autumn, where we hope to adopt some strong new policies for our manifesto.