Parents ‘helping children pay off debts’

Parents around the country are handing over considerable sums of money to help their grown-up children solve debt management problems, it has been asserted.

Anne Young, a savings expert at Scottish Widows, has suggested that while parents helping their children financially is nothing new, this assistance is now increasingly for the purpose of paying off debts.

Ms Young’s comments follow research by Scottish Widows that found the average British parent gives their children as much as £12,500, which helps younger generations but can cause financial problems for people approaching retirement.

“A lot of children now are going into their working life with a lot of debt hanging over them,” she said.

“I don’t think we really do enough in educating our young people to manage their credit.”

A report released by Help the Aged and Barclays recently showed that consumers in the UK now have a four times greater debt management burden when they reach pension age than was the case a decade ago.