UK: BIS Committee publishes debt management report

The House of Commons Business, Innovation and Skills Committee today published its debt management report: see here or here (pdf). The report calls for improvements in the regulation of the debt and credit industry. It also expresses concern with the Government's failure to reach a decision on whether consumer credit regulation should be transferred from the Office of Fair Trading to the new Financial Conduct Authority. The Financial Services Bill, introduced in Parliament earlier this year, contains provisions enabling the transfer of regulation to the FCA but the Government stated, in the White Paper accompanying the Bill (here, pdf), that the transfer would take place "if and when it [the Government] has identified a model of FCA regulation that is proportionate for the different segments of the consumer credit market" (para. 4.22).