Bailiffs and Premium Bonds

Money Box

BBC

Business

4.2 • 804 Ratings

🗓️ 11 July 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We'll discuss proposals to reform the bailiff industry, hearing from a man whose small parking fine ballooned into a debt of more than £400 once bailiffs got involved. Paul Lewis interviews the minister responsible for the planned changes: will they be fair on both creditors and debtors and will they bring rogue bailiffs into line?

Also, the Chancellor's changes to the Winter Fuel Payment have been broadly welcomed by Britain's pensioners, but how easy will it be for them to manage the payment when it comes to filling in their tax returns? With the help of a personal tax expert, we try to answer your questions.

And what are Premium Bonds and what are your chances of winning a prize? We've got the definitive guide with Sir David Spiegelhalter, Emeritus Professor of Statistics at the University of Cambridge.

Presenter: Paul Lewis Reporters: Dan Whitworth and Eimear Devlin Researcher: Jo Krasner Editors: Jess Quayle and Rob Cave

(First broadcast 12pm Saturday 14th June 2025)

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Mariana Spring, the BBC's social media investigations correspondent.
0:06.0	In my podcast, I've been investigating what happened to the daughter of a conspiracy theorist who died having rejected chemotherapy.
0:13.0	It would mean the world to me if I could make it that she wasn't just another in the long line of people that die in this way.
0:19.0	How does this reflect the rise of health conspiracy theories
0:22.0	on social media and beyond? The new series of Mariana in Conspiracy Land, listen on BBC Sounds.
0:31.1	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello, welcome to this Moneybox podcast. All pensioners will get the winter
0:39.6	fuel payment next winter, but two million will have to give it back. How will that work?
0:45.6	And Ernie can now pick three million premium bond winners in 12 minutes. Will he pick you?
0:52.4	But first, charities, debt advice providers and industry groups have
0:56.5	told Moneybox they welcome government proposals to regulate bailiffs in England and Wales. The proposals
1:02.7	were revealed earlier this week by the Ministry of Justice at the start of a six-week consultation.
1:08.7	The changes are designed to help people like DES. He got a 65-pound car
1:13.4	parking fine, but an accident at work forced him to quit and led to him suffering months of
1:18.9	depression. He couldn't even open his post. So the first he knew about the fine was when a bailiff
1:24.8	turned up at his home demanding money tomorrow.
1:28.5	There was a knock on the door and my grandson answered it and then brought a letter up
1:35.1	saying that I owed £450,000 or £455,6 and if it's not paid by tomorrow, they'd be gaining access to the out and taking what
1:47.8	you know that equals what i owe them and at that i was just whof it was just all i rang them up i said
1:55.6	look is the anything i can do oh no too late for that too late for that. Too late for that. I'm not having it.
2:01.4	You know what I mean?
2:02.0	Just make sure the money's there tomorrow.
2:04.6	Else we'll be coming in and taking it.
	...

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