Speaking at the CML conference today, Matthew Wyles, chairman of the CML, said: “Increasingly, I also have the feeling that regulators see lenders and intermediaries as the sweetshop owners – or worse, the drug-dealers at the school gates – of the mortgage market, enticing innocent consumers in and then getting them hooked, for their own evil profit-driven purposes.”

The CML said the main purpose of regulation should be to ensure a sustainable risk management framework for financial businesses, and a sensible operating framework between businesses and their customers.

It should not attempt to wrap consumers in cotton wool and make borrowing risk-free, Wyles said. He also said most consumers- stripping out the fraudsters and the feckless- want what their lenders want.

He said: “They want relatively straightforward access to the finance that will enable them to buy property. They want to be able to afford their borrowings, and borrow on terms that fit their circumstances. They want a good deal that does not tie them in too inflexibly. They want mechanisms to put things right if things go wrong.”

The UK market offered consumers consistently in the decade before the financial crisis but it has most definitely taken a backward step in terms of giving consumers both what they want and what they need, Wyles said.

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“At the risk of stretching this parental analogy a bit too far, most lenders would prefer not to be cast in a paternalistic role. We do not wish to find ourselves in loco parentis, but allowed to treat our customers as adults, helping them if they need it, but respecting their right to make their own decisions,” he said.