What do you want Martin to ask Mark Hoban, Treasury Minister?

Former_MSE_Wendy

[title=http://images2.moneysavingexpert.com/images/dp/wtd_underline.gif] What’s this all about?[/title]
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Martin is soon to meet with Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Mark Hoban MP, and as well as his own questions - he'd like to know what questions you want him to ask - whether personal or issues based.

As the Financial Secretary to the Treasury Mark Hoban is responsible for the following consumer finance areas:

• Banking and finance regulation - how should banks be protecting consumers (eg, bank charges, PPI, financial inclusion - but not credit/store cards or utility charges)
• What powers should consumer groups have
• Personal savings and pensions

From Martin, "Please do have a think about what you'd ask if you met the man in charge of financial services and all the issues surrounding it. I've got my own issues but I want to ensure we go through yours too - and ask him the tough questions where needed".

Please post your questions below and we'll choose a selection.

See more on the roles of MPs in the Treasury.

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sugarsian

What is Mark Hoban going to do about sub-prime lenders who prey on vulnerable and desperate people. More of whom are getting into debt in the financial crisis. They ramp up charges, add compound interest, rush to litigate, add litigation charges add more compound interest making these loans truly the Never Never. The interest rates are extortionate. People are stuck in these pernicious loan agreements with no chance of ever getting out of them. Often consumers have a strong possibility of losing their house over a £10k loan - it's disgusting.

switch76

Why is there so much bureaucracy when providing ID to open a bank account? Some banks won't accept poll cards, birth certificates, driving licences, passbooks or National Insurance cards. They also won't accept any bank statements, utility bills or government correspondence over 3 months old. Most of my bills are now paperless and paid online by direct debit so it's difficult to get enough forms of ID.


Why are banks allowed to charge an administration fee of up to £200 a year for holding shares in an stocks and shares ISA even if they offer no advice? The government owned Halifax charge up to £100 a year to hold shares in an ISA wrapper. The same shares held outside an ISA has no administration fee.

LordSidcup

I am reassured that the government has decided to maintain funding for illegal money-lending teams.

However, while the OFT deliberated and concluded that price controls would not be a suitable solution to the concerns identified about extremely high interest rates, the practices associated with high-cost lending continued to cause misery for thousands of people across the country as they find themselves unable to borrow from banks and struggling to make ends meet.

The UK economy as a whole would benefit if this industry was more tightly regulated so that companies are prevented from causing families across Britain to get into more debt for the sake of a higher profit margin.

If taxation measures in the Finance Bill are being used to curb “problem drinking”, why can’t taxation also be used to tackle “problem lending”?

Why didn't the government do something to change this by voting for the New Clause on High-cost Credit tabled to the recent Finance Bill?

Can the Government to review taxation measures in order to determine if they can be used to prevent high-cost lenders from causing consumer detriment, and to increase competition in this captive market?

squirrels51

Currently Directors of small close companies can manipulate their income by way of a small salary and taking dividends thereby avoiding NIC but if their salary is just above the lower earnings limit they still qualify for state pension. Given the current pension and future NIC crisis surely this loophole should be closed. It is extremely unfair that they can avoid NIC this way.

There was a recent article in the paper about a high level officer in the Army resenting taking promotion because of a tax charge imposed as his pension pool exceeded 1.5 million. If contributions to high grade public service employees ceased once the maximum was reached this would save the tax payer money and the employee would not have to pay the tax charge. It is obscene that the taxpayer the majority of which will never have a pension pool of 1.5 million currently contribute to staff who are already extremely well paid.

.

joyfull

Re On behalf of Arch Cru Investors

Please ask Mark Hoban if he would ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will consider the merits of initiating an investigation into the Financial Services Authority's role in relation to Arch Cru funds.

The handling of this loss and subsequent offer of 'redress' is unacceptable and requires intervention from the government.

ashleyriot

A lot of this currently going on at Zopa about writing off losses against tax implications each year:

"Peer-to-peer lending has become an established, and growing, means of both lenders and borrowers co-operating equitably through social networking - fully in the spirit of the government's 'big society' initiative. For lenders, this provides an alternative to more traditional investments, while providing borrowers with low cost access to finance. We agree that any profit from such activities should be taxed in the same way as other savings returns, but contest that the present treatment of interest earned through peer-to-peer lending is not consistent with the treatment of other investment activities. The HMRC does not allow the off-setting of losses through bad debt against interest earned. In effect, therefore, losses are compounded, which unfairly disadvantages the peer-to-peer lending medium (versus traditional investment vehicles) and limits the development of this effective social medium.

"We are therefore asking for a review of the taxation of peer-to-peer lending to allow the off-setting of losses through bad debt against interest earned."

I've written to my MP, Helen Grant, and others have done the same.

Her reply:

Thank you very much for your kind words [I met her last year just after she was elected] and for writing to me about Peer-to-Peer Lending. I fully appreciate the seriousness of this situation and have taken note of your concerns.

Given the importance of this matter I have written directly to Mark Hoban MP, Financial Secretary to the Treasury asking him to address the issues raised in your letter.

As soon as I receive a response I will be in touch again

Yours sincerely

HELEN GRANT MP

Can you see about anything you can obtain from him on this please?

bigsur

I would like the Government to re-introduce tax relief on subscriptions to private medical insurance schemes. It would be an incentive to join these schemes and take away some pressure on the NHS.

Savvynog

On Sunday I placed a Nationwide BS cashier cheque into my Nationwide branch account ATM and it appeared in my Nationwide Flex account account the next day. However, it is now Wednesday and the £5k has still not been cleared.

What could possibly be the delay? This is free money for the building society so what is being done to stop this?:mad:

TheAvenger

Despite the FOS adjudicating against RBS some time ago, RBS are delaying/denying any form of PPI refund in our claims - as the taxpayers effectively own the Bank, why doesn't the Govt earn itself a few brownie points and tell this plainly errant bank to pay up and follow the recent lead of Lloyds about coming clean on PPI refunds - our three claims have been outstanding now for two years plus - and RBS even denied us access to documents under the Data Protection Act, with one department even stating in writing the only way we could get copies of their papers was by issuing a SARN (Subject Access Rights Notice), and then we were blocked (we had issued it weeks earlier and they were caught on the hop) - they wished to conceal what had gone on - we receive regular letters every few months from the FOS apologising for the inordinate delay, but it seems RBS can drag its feet indefinitely - RBS had a policy of burying multiple PPI policies year on year in customer annual reviews - rolling over or consolidating loans with front-loaded PPI one year and issuing new loans and then again front-loading PPI into a consolidation loan the next year thereby burying the previous year's front-ended PPI, so whilst you may only apply for the latest PPI policy to be refunded, the underlying or rolled over PPI plus cumulative interest buried year on year should not be forgotten - time for Hoban to MAKE RBS stump up ! Please ask him !

Thanks !

keithy_51

I would like you to ask the mp
my wife and i was foolish when we were young and opted for her to pay a small stamp not
realising this would decrease any state pension she would be entitled to at a later date
she phone D W Pensions and was told her pension would be 99p a week what can she do
at this late date she is 59 this year thanks keithy