There will hardly be much cause for celebration at Lloyds, Close Brothers and other motor industry lenders caught up in the car finance scandal.

Nevertheless, the lobbying against overzealous payouts has slimmed down the numbers of claimants by millions to 12.1m and the total cost of the scheme from £11bn to £9.1billion.

Consumers can look forward to payouts being notified as soon as this summer, with an average transfer of £829. Bigger cheques for fewer people.

The Financial Conduct Authority wants a streamlined system, which freezes out the claims management ghouls. 

Lessons have been learned from the drawn-out saga of Payment Protection Insurance (PPI), which ended up draining £50billion from the banking system.

Costs to lenders of operating the scheme are being cut sharply by some 40 per cent, by removing requirements such as registered post. 

Less certain is whether a less secure approach will create a field day for scammers. Hiding the real cost of loans from consumers was clearly wrong. 

Over the decades, the reputation of banks, finance houses and insurers has taken a battering over endowment policies, PPI and now car loans. 

Hidden commissions and profiteering at the expense of consumers is to be deplored. In car finance the rip-offs have become legion. 

Too often, however, citizens demand compensation. In an ideal world better financial education and caveat emptor would be the real protection.

Power vacuum

Someone, somewhere in Whitehall, one trusts, has a plan for steering Britain through the worst energy crisis since Russia invaded Ukraine. The IMF warns that Britain is ‘especially exposed’ because of its reliance on gas-fired power. 

The Government’s handling is more reminiscent of James Callaghan’s infamous ‘Crisis? What Crisis?’ in 1979, than the smarter response to the Great Financial Crisis in 2008.

There is a great deal of performative stuff going on as the Government seeks to show it is on top of its brief. 

There was another round table in Downing Street with Keir Starmer talking with oil and financial bosses, including Lloyd’s of London. 

Starmer needed to be in a more conciliatory mood than Rachel Reeves, who alienated oil and retail chiefs with warnings on price gouging. 

The Chancellor has forgotten that energy companies kept the lights on in the pandemic and retailers made sure that Britons did not starve in their homes. 

The best way for the Government to help on energy costs would be a temporary reprieve on fuel duty and VAT.

Reeves’ latest effort was to remind fellow G7 finance ministers and central bankers not to revert to protectionism. Monday’s virtual session is the fourth since hostilities in the Gulf began on February 28.

Despite a release of reserves brokered by the International Energy Agency, Brent crude prices have been up and down like a yo-yo, yesterday settling around $113 a barrel, or more than 50 per cent up since the start of the war. 

Across the globe nations are taking steps to relieve pressure on consumers and commerce. All that has been heard from Downing Street is that a plan is being worked up to offer poorer households financial help through the local authority-administered Crisis and Resilience Fund. 

What is needed is a coherent approach, which provides reassurance that contingencies for gas, jet fuel, diesel, fertiliser and other supplies are in the pipeline. The nation needs confidence in the resilience of the financial system.

London, after all, vies with New York to be the world’s top financial centre.

Green retreat

How frustrating it is that Simon O’Regan and the Board of Impax Environmental Trust decided it has no choice but to give in to the greenmail of American raider Boaz Weinstein. It has decided there is no real choice but to launch its own tender offer.

If nothing else the assault on the investment trust sector has woken platforms up from a deep slumber and made it easier for shareholders, including this writer, to vote. 

Bestinvest tells me the only realistic choice is to tender my shares, at an unknown price, or be left at the mercy of Weinstein’s Saba. 

Robust intervention by the FCA and a board with a backbone could have avoided this assault on minority shareholder rights.