Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:50 pm on 13 June 2017.
I thank the First Minister for that reply. I don’t know whether he is aware of a poll that is being conducted by the debt charity called StepChange. This has discovered that 59 per cent of people report having received one cold call a week, and 8 per cent have had more than one call per day. And one of the principle concerns about this is these calls offering high-cost credit. About a third, apparently, received one of these calls every week, and one in eight has actually taken out high-cost credit with an average of £1,052 of extra borrowing taken out. This poses significant dangers for vulnerable people on low incomes, and I wonder if the First Minister can tell me what further progress the Government intends to make in the next 12 months towards ending this curse?