Bankruptcy figures ‘soar across Britain’

With official figures from the Insolvency Service due to be released later this week, accountancy firm KPMG expects that the total number of bankruptcies in the UK to have increased by ten per cent during the second quarter of the year compared to the first.

In total, more than 20,000 British consumers are believed to have entered bankruptcy during April, May and June of this year, reports the Telegraph.

“At a time when wages are rising relatively modestly, families have faced five interest rate rises in a year, and huge increases in utility bills and council tax,” Mark Sands, the head of personal insolvency at KPMG, told the paper.

“The level of financial distress is alarming, and we are seeing more and more people crying out for help,” he added.

Earlier this year, KPMG forecast that the number of people entering insolvency in the UK would reach 130,000 over the course of 2007.