This discussion has drifted off into the 1330% APR thread, which identified the UK Debt on our Doorstep campaign. They have an excellect MPs briefing paper, whose main points are:

• that caps below 36% provide some evidence of credit rationing by lenders but that we do not know the true extent of this
• The Government’s position that it is legitimate to provide credit (at virtually any cost) to low-income households will result in severe hardship for many families
• there is no published bibliography to the report on the DTI website and we find it hard to believe that the conclusions made in the Policis report could be squared with the evidence of larger studies conducted by leading academics in the field.
• Everything appears to be reduced to a view that ‘dynamic’ markets are those that provide high levels of high cost products and that these are of themselves desirable.  No attempt appears to have been made by the DTI to consider the social consequences of facilitating such a market in the first instance.

This is an opportunity for Labour to show some policy difference with the Tories. If initially set at a 60% limit as Canada has, plus a fixed fee allowance for tiny loans, this is unlikely to do any harm and prevents complete rip-offs.  Like the NMW this could be slowly tightened over the years, watching for any adverse effects. Seems a small social and political opportunity, though there is the risk Cameron would undercut a 60% starting limit.