Dear Listener

As you read this on Friday I shall be in Manchester talking to the Personal Finance Education Group. Its mission is to make sure the next generation of young adults is a lot more financially capable than their parents (or come to that their grandparents and quite a lot of their uncles and aunts). Pfeg provides and promotes teaching material for schools including online games such as Fortunity.

And soon the Government hopes to create a consumer finance education body (CFEB) to promote financial understanding and capability among the general public. Most of the £45 million cost will be met by a levy on the financial services industry.

It is all very hard to be against. But will the industry play its part? Will it start selling simple, value-for-money products which meet the financial needs of people on average incomes? Will it be clear, fair and not misleading, not just in its promotional material but in everything it writes and does? Will the creeping complexification of the personal finance world be reversed?

Because unless it does even a better educated population will not be adequately protected against misselling scandals such as the Payment Protection Insurance fiasco we reported on last week.

IN THIS WEEK’S FOUR-DAYS-TO-THE-BUDGET MONEY BOX

Geared traded endowment policies may not get your heart racing. Unless you borrowed money – twice – to invest in them on the promise of a safe, low-risk, return in retirement and now you might lose your house. We talk to one of the manufacturers and a lawyer trying to get compensation for just some of the, he says, thousand customers who bought the product.

Have you heard of the £80 rebate due to be paid this summer on 250,000 electricity bills? Probably not – almost no-one has. We reveal all. PS you have to have been born 26 March 1940 or earlier and be on a very low income.

Every human inherits their domicile from their father. It’s UK tax law rather than genetics. So how did Conservative peer Lord Ashcroft born in Chichester with parents born in Lancashire (father Bolton, mother Burnley) – get rid of his inherited British domicile status? And now he is resident here – and says he has been for ten years – how does he avoid getting it back?

Go East, young man. Is China still a good bet for your long (or short) term investment money? Advisers disagree – live on air.

And we have just heard that Cartel Client Review, the claims management company we have reported on a couple of times in the last few weeks, has had its authorisation as a claims management business suspended by the Ministry of Justice.

As I said it’s the Budget on Wednesday. And we will have our usual phone-in Budget Call on Thursday between 12 noon and 1 pm. It is a pre-election Budget so we will also be on top of what the other parties are saying they would do if elected.

And Money Box is back as usual to pick up the Budget pieces just after noon on Saturday, or nine pm on Sunday, or on the website www.bbc.co.uk/moneybox at any time. There you can also watch videos, follow up items, read web pieces, download transcripts, follow links, and send us stories or ideas you want us to look into. And of course Have Your Say on – one of the items.

Best wishes,

Paul

PS Don’t forget the programme preview on Breakfast BBC 1 soon after 0845 on Saturday.

e-mail Paul Lewis