Articles and Speeches

Forced Deeper into Debt
14-Jul-06, Windsor Express Article.

I was stunned to discover that the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead has run up a deficit by £46 million on behalf of council tax payers.

What’s more, they expect the debt to rise to £54 million by the end of the year. That’s about £900 of debt for every household in the borough.

Judging from my postbag many people are encountering serious difficulties with repayment of loans and credit card debt due to some extortionately high interest rates charged by certain lenders.

So personal debt has certainly risen in the last few years, but at least it is the individual who makes the decision to borrow on their own behalf.

Added to this is the burden placed upon us by the Chancellor, who is going to borrow a further £175bn over the next five years – almost another £3,000 per person in the UK.

Coupled with the tax credits chaos that has caused misery to millions of the least well off, it must surely now be time for a change of approach.

Central Government and the local council cannot continue to borrow themselves into trouble indefinitely. At some point the money will need to be paid back and it is you and I as taxpayers that will feel the burden.