Question reference: S4W-18944
- Asked by: Kezia Dugdale, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
- Date lodged: 16 December 2013
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Current status: Answered by Shona Robison on 13 January 2014
Question
To ask the Scottish Government whether it would support a ban on payday loan advertising at the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
Answer
The Glasgow Commonwealth Games (Trading and Advertising) (Scotland) Regulations 2013 restrict advertising activity in the vicinity of Games venues during the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. To be able to advertise legally within the event zones during the prohibited times, advertising activity must be either exempt under the regulations or authorised by the Organising Committee, Glasgow 2014 Ltd. To be authorised by the Organising Committee, the advertising activity should either be by an official Games sponsor or fall within a list of permitted categories. Payday loan companies do not fall within the list of permitted categories and no payday loan companies are official sponsors of the Games. As things stand, payday loan companies would not be granted authorisation to carry out any advertising activity within any of the event zones.
The Organising Committee will also be monitoring advertising more widely to ensure that no company or organisation is making unauthorised reference to, or suggesting any illegal association with, the Games.
Regulation of consumer credit advertisements is currently the responsibility of the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), and is therefore a reserved matter. The Scottish Government has made several representations to both the UK Government and the OFT, urging tighter regulation of the industry particularly around advertising.