End Legal Loan Sharking

My Labour and Co-operative colleague Stella Creasy MP has been running an excellent campaign to End Legal Loan Sharking. This is a campaign that I strongly support. Independent research by R3, the insolvency body, shows that one in six of us are now what they call 'zombie' debtors, able only to service the interest on our debts, but not reduce the debt. 45% of people in the country are now in financial difficulties - amongst young people this figure rises to 62%. People in financial difficulty are being bled dry by the legal loan shark industry with interests rates of 1700% or more. R3 research suggests that in the next six months three and half million Britons expect to take out a payday loan. In an unregulated credit market, the research shows just how financially dangerous this is, revealing 32% of those who took out a payday load couldn't pay it off, so had to get another one. This is not just bad for these families, but bad for Britain. As more and more household income is sucked into paying interest on these loads so the public are left with less money to spend, hurting an already anaemic economy.

You can read more about Stella Creasy's campaign here.

Stella's campaign in the House of Commons has little chance of success unless pressure is put on MPs and the UK Government to support her plans for a bill which would regulate the credit industry more and limit interest rates. You can sign a petition to the UK Government asking that they take action to deal with Legal Loan Sharks.







People who have debt problems in Dundee should contact the Citizens Advice Bureau. I would recommend saving and borrowing from the local credit union Discovery Credit Union.




I hope that the UK Government listens to Stella Creasy and the many many people supporting her campaign to tackle Legal Loan Sharks and take the burden of debt off of people struggling to make ends meet.