Dear Listener

I’ve been thinking about debt this week. Not mine. I’m enough of a baby boomer to have outlived my burdens of mortgage, overdraft, and large balances on my flexible fiend (‘friend’ surely? ed.). No. It is other people’s debt which has been on my mind professionally.

First, I chaired a seminar at the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) presenting new research on debt. The three studies each followed a few dozen families and got their full details of income, spending, and borrowing. It was interesting stuff. I won’t summarise it because you can read about it and watch the research presentations on spending, credit and debt in low income families and assets and debts I couple here www.ippr.org.uk/events/archive.asp?id=4010&fID=283. But I will make one observation about the study which talked to members of couples about how they dealt with their finances in general and debt in particular. Many of the 80 people interviewed thought that those who lived together for ‘a long time’ or had children together acquired the rights of marriage without the, ahem, rites of marriage. Not true of course. Clearly none of them listened to Money Box where we have covered that point many times...

..unlike Natascha Engel the Labour MP for NE Derbyshire. She confided to me that she is a regular and avid listener to the programme who sometimes pulls over into a lay-by to give her full attention to the Sunday repeat on the weekly journey from her constituency to London.

We met when I chaired another meeting, this one in the Houses of Parliament in a room off Westminster Hall where Charles I stood trial (I love all that stuff!). More than 60 people were packed into a very small space with no operative air conditioning and bomb-proof windows that could not be opened ‘or they will no longer be bomb-proof’ as I was firmly told. Natascha was on a panel of old hands (mainly elected 2005!) giving tips to new MPs on how to deal with constituents who were in serious debt. She was the sole opposition MP on the panel – the others were Lib Dem Lorely Burt (Solihull) and Conservative Andrew Selous (SW Bedfordshire).

In the past, such events typically had one MP from the governing party and two from the main opposition parties. But now two of the three biggest parties are in the Coalition that leaves space in the traditional three-up format for just one MP to represent the Opposition. And, given the make-up of the Commons, that means Labour. It raises an interesting question about balance in the new coalition era.

More on debt – or in fact responsible lending (I’m giving a talk) – next week. Meanwhile BBC2 has a new three part series called ‘Money Watch’ at 8pm on Tuesdays starting on July 6. Presented by BBC Newsreader Sophie Raworth and Newsnight’s Justin Rowlatt, this week’s programme looks at income. Future episodes deal with spending and saving. I am briefly on all three.

***ON MONEY BOX THIS WEEK

**Following complaints to Money Box and a Super Complaint by Consumer Focus the Office of Fair Trading has come up with tough new rules to speed up the proves of moving your ISA from one provider to another. Will they work?

**A year after Keydata went bust leaving 30,000 UK investors with their £450 million capital in doubt and their income suspended perhaps forever the liquidator gives us an update on his hopes for recovering their money (NB £100 million in one fund has definitely disappeared).

**Why did Nationwide persistently pursue a Money Box listener for debt which was run up by the man who had previously lived in his house even after he had told them many times about the mistake? We hear from him and the trade body which represents debt recovery agencies. Nationwide says it was ‘human error’.

**And how did My Money Week – the personal finance education project for schools which had the PR blackout imposed (or did it? – see last week’s newsletter) – go? Reporter Bob Howard brings us his report from schools in the North East of England. And we hear views on how children should be taught about money in school.

**Last week I promised to tell you on Money Box which bank planned to charge a fiver a month for an overdraft that had already been agreed. But we ran out of time and dropped the item. So I will tell you now – it is Lloyds. The change happens in December so there is plenty of time to cover it before then.

I hope nothing will be dropped from the list above from this week’s Money Box – find out by listening live at noon on Saturday, or with Natascha Engel MP to the repeat at nine pm on Sunday, or at any time on the website www.bbc.co.uk/moneybox. 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 Have Your Say on debt collection from the wrong person – and you can still tell us your candidates for

T H E   A X E as the Government prepares its autumn Spending Review.

Best wishes,

Paul

PS don’t forget the programme trail on Breakfast on BBC 1 between 0845 and 0900 on Saturday.

e-mail Paul Lewis