28 June 2006
The Liberal Democrats have issued further warnings about the growing problem of debt in the UK.
Julia Goldsworthy MP, Liberal Democrat treasury spokesperson, said that there was a reluctance by official agencies to tackle the problem of extreme debt and revealed that the average amount of income now spent on debt repayment was up to 18 per cent.
"The OFT [Office of Fair Trading] has acquired responsibility in a very ad hoc, piecemeal way. Independent Financial Advisers have now largely disappeared because of the way the market operates. There isn't any network that people can go to for financial advice," she said.
"The Citizen's Advice Bureau is very much in favour of this kind of advice – we need government to take the lead."
New figures from the British Bankers' Association reveal that unsecured debt, which includes loans and overdrafts as well as credit cards, rose by £699 million in May.
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