Millions of Brits “enslaved by unpayable debts”

Millions of British credit consumers are effectively “enslaved by unpayable debts”, it has been claimed.

According to Phillip Bond, a senior lecturer at the University of Cumbria, much of the UK’s adult population is struggling to maintain any sort of control over their debt management issues.

The policies of the government and the Bank of England over the past decade have served to encourage millions of people to borrow large sums and many are now facing insolvency or bankruptcy as a result.

Mr Bond notes that hundreds of thousands of households are falling behind on their mortgage arrears and as many as 45,000 could face repossession this year.

He wrote in the Sunday Independent: “So where will it all end? Well, for many, in very real financial disaster.”

The latest figures from Credit Action show that the UK’s overall personal debt management burden increases by close to £1 million every five minutes.

By Dan Mather