It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
(visit the link for the full news article)
Emergency state loans given to the poorest people in the UK could cease to be interest free, under changes being considered by ministers.
The social fund currently extends £500m a year in interest-free loans to some 1.2 million benefit claimants.
But the government says in future some loans could be run by credit unions, who it says typically charge annual rates ranging from 12.68% to 26.8%.
The Tories accused ministers of acting like "loan sharks".
(visit the link for the full news article)
Work and pensions ministers spent their Sundays beating an embarrassing retreat from plans to charge interest of up to 27 per cent on crisis payments to some of Britain's poorest families.
The Government faced fury from across the political spectrum after it emerged that it was planning to treat emergency loans from the Social Fund on a commercial basis.
The fund provides more than £500m a year to the worst-off – many of them elderly or disabled – for essential items such as cookers, basic furniture and children's shoes. The money is lent interest-free and deducted from benefits.
But the Department for Work and Pensions has been considering plans for credit unions to take over the loans and charge interest of up to 2 per cent a month – equivalent to 26.8 APR.
Originally posted by Rapacity
reply to post by Jinni
There was a Conservative MP on TalkSport (U.K) early this morning. She seemed to be saying that the gov has backed down on charging interest rates to the poorest people who take a loan from the social fund but the less poor still might be charged these high rates of interest.
Let's see what secretly enacted policies, Bills and Acts of parliament are pushed through in Jan. 2009. I think we will hear more about this particular one. Experience tells me that this government never backs down, it only ever changes titles, words and methods.