Financial literacy key to attacking £1.3trillion debt

Cymraeg
English

Eleanor Burnham <info@eburnham.org.uk>

Financial literacy key to attacking £1.3trillion debt - Burnham

January 23, 2008 12:00 AM

Eleanor Burnham, Welsh Liberal Democrat Assembly Member for North Wales,

today urged the Welsh Assembly Government to offer schemes aimed at improving financial literacy among children and adults so that Wales' personal debt situation does not get worse. Personal debt in the UK has now exceeded £1.3 trillion exceeding GDP of Britain.

Ms Burnham said:

"It is an alarming situation for the economy when the total amount of personal debt exceeds the GDP of Britain.

"The basics of economic and financial transactions needs to be taught through school based courses making young people better informed about financial issues such as credit cards, mortgage rates, credit unions and the causes of debt.

The majority of students who leave school do not understand the financial instruments easily available when they enter the adult world.

"Unfortunately, the main cause of the personal debt crisis is irresponsible lending by banks and building societies - and this ranges from credit cards of a couple of hundred pounds up to mortgages of hundreds of thousands of pounds."

Ms Burnham added:

"As a mother of 2 indebted graduates, I am very worried that millions of young people are delaying starting a family and buying a house because of the huge amount of debt they have after their University degrees. Graduates have on average a debt of £11,000 on leaving university, a debt forced upon them by university fees and top up fees introduced by this Labour government."

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