Ms Derville Rowland:

Absolutely. It is an evidence-based piece of work. The right thing to tell the Deputy is that the way we approach our work is to acquire the evidence, understand the impacts, understand what is going on with the customer and then we move to conclusions and findings, and what, if any, policy prescriptions may be needed or required to fit the circumstances. I was plain at the beginning that the mere fact that dual pricing occurs is not something we are against per se, nor is the FCA against it, as can be seen from its findings. The FCA has set out a menu of options for consideration but its work will continue into next year. We would not prejudge the issue. We will look at that. It is why we are doing such an enormous piece of work.

I will give the committee an idea of the scope of what we are dealing with. It is 2 million motor policies per year and 1 million home insurance policies, but those may include buy-to-let. This is a very big piece of work with lots of people who get better prices by requoting and switching. That impact needs to be carefully considered in order that an unintended intervention which does not treat the cause of any issue that arises is not made. We have an open mind and we think it is an important topic. To be plain, we think it is an important topic right across the board and not just in financial services because of the impact on competition, on new entrants to markets and on consumers generally in terms of GDPR, their behaviour on the Internet and whether they know how their information is being used.