The credit card industry needs to get its house into order – and time is short.

The Treasury select committee has been investigating the sector now for almost a year.

As our work has gone on, we have uncovered more horrors, and the pressure on the sector has mounted.

Our discoveries prompted investigations by the Office of Fair Trading.  The result was Barclaycard found guilty of misleading promotions. 

Now the Competition Commission is taking a look at the store card business.  And the Department of Trade and Industry is reviewing the UK’s 30-year old consumer credit legislation. 

So far, despite sustained pressure, the industry has yielded little.  But we should all see summary boxes on our statements soon, shedding a little more light on the true cost of our credit.

There is a place for plastic in our lives.  It gives us financial flexibility.  It helps us manage our affairs to suit our own needs.  Sensible use of sensible financial products is good for us and good for the economy. 

But this is profitable business for the banks and the signs of greed are evident, as they chase more business.

There is nothing wrong with healthy competition.

But there is everything wrong with misleading promotions, the trampling of consumer rights, the exploitation of the vulnerable, and the deliberate concealment of the true cost of the product.

So we need to see an end to extortionate levels of interest, and to the persistent pumping out of credit offers to those encountering financial difficulties.

There is no reason why this industry should not get itself into order, although the signs are that it will not really take the task seriously until tougher regulation is beginning to take shape.

The UK is one of the most attractive markets in the world for the business.  We seem to have a passion for credit products. 

I am happy for us to be a leading market.  But it should be leadership by example.  With the example being vigorous competition, good products, and fair treatment of consumers.

There isn’t a credit crisis.  The overall growth of credit has moved in line with the growth of household wealth.  The vast majority of consumers are acting rationally and prudently. 

But there is a credit card con going on.  It traps the unwary.  It overcharges most of us.  And it is damaging the reputation of some leading names in the financial services sector. 

It’s in everyone’s interest that it ends.  Then I will be the first to give credit where credit is due.

James Plaskitt is Conservative MP for Warwick and Leamington, and a member of Treasury select committee.