If Labour is elected a share of payday lending profits could be used to financially support organisations such as credit unions, The Advertiser has reported.

Ed Balls, Shadow Chancellor, discussed payday lending when visiting Stevenage Credit Union in Hertfordshire.

He said: “Of course the credit union has been here almost 20 years, but there has never been a time when credit unions were more important.

“I want – and I promised Sharon and the team at the credit union – that we will look at what more we can do to support local credit unions like Stevenage.

“One thing we’ve said we’d like to do is have a levy on the payday lenders to have more help for credit unions and we just need to make sure that we can tailor that so it really works.”