Truth in Lending? Consumer Credit and Social Policy after Crowther

Chapter 7 addresses consumer protection issues from the 1970s onwards. It discusses the increasingly complex connections between mortgage and consumer credit, particularly in terms of second mortgages. It discusses the consumer credit protection put in place by the Consumer Credit Act. It explains how important decisions taken at that point increased further the UK’s diverse and liberalized consumer credit markets and enabled the survival (and growth) of forms of sub-prime credit that died elsewhere in Europe. The chapter also addresses issues around credit discrimination on the grounds of race and gender. It probes the reaction of consumer groups to the backlash to consumerism and the liberalization of personal finance markets under the Thatcher regime. The chapter also breaks new ground in exploring the impact of Europe, with an exploration of the hostile response that emerged when the European Parliament’s Consumer Directive threatened to curtail the UK’s consumer credit markets.