The MP who has led the fight for a better deal for financial services consumers admits he does not own a credit card.

John McFall, chairman of the Treasury select committee, was fed up being hassled by his card company to take out payment protection insurance.

So he followed the advice of Matt Barrett, former chief executive of Barclay's Bank, who told Mr McFall's committee in 2003 he would not borrow on a credit card as the interest was too high.

Mr McFall, former Whip and Northern Ireland minister, was in typically trenchant mood yesterday as he castigated the country's financial institutions for their complacency over the past year.

Mr McFall has helped the man and woman in the street grasp what happens to their money when they entrust it to the financial services industry. It should not be something, as he puts it, "that you need a Nobel Prize in physics to understand".

A former schoolmaster, he still ventures back into the classroom to prepare children for the financial jungle that awaits them. But it is his wife Joan who holds the purse strings in the McFall household - "that gives me more time to keep an eye on everyone else's financial affairs".

Being asked to buy payment protection insurance, which has profit returns of 80%, was a red rag to a bull for the current parliamentarian of the year. The letters went in the bin, and his card was cut up.

But he takes a reassuring view of the nation's personal financial situation: "The level of personal debt is put at about £1 trillion, but that is backed by £6-7 trillion-worth of assets - savings and houses they can draw on if it comes to the crunch."

But he isn't all barbed put-down - Mr McFall is probably proudest of what he has achieved through consensus and unanimous reports from his committee.

Credit card companies offer clearer information, more people have access to banking services, more free-to-use ATMs are being put in deprived areas, and shoppers lured into taking out high interest store cards now get a cooling-off period.