Economic abuse law changes

Money Box

BBC

Business

4.2 • 804 Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2021

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Earlier this week the Government announced that economic abuse will be a criminal offence under the Domestic Abuse Bill. The law previously only recognised abuse that took place within a relationship, not after separation. We hear one survivor's shocking tale - she was left with nearly half a million pounds of debt - and hear her reaction to the law change. Paul Lewis talks to barrister Dr Charlotte Proudman.

On Wednesday the DWP revealed that 200,000 women could be in line for payouts averaging £13,500 to compensate them for the underpayment of their state pensions going back decades. The DWP estimate the bill to be about £2.7bn. Paul talks to Sir Steve Webb, former Pensions Minister and current partner at Lane Clarke & Peacock who explains why some pensioners lost out and who is likely to benefit now.

The calculator Steve Webb mentions during the interview is available here - https://www.lcp.uk.com/is-your-state-pension-being-underpaid/

In the Budget the Chancellor confirmed that newly self-employed people who completed a tax return for 2019 to 2020 are now eligible for financial help. The group, which includes more than 600,000 people who became self-employed last year, were unable to access the first three instalments but they can now apply for the fourth Self-Employment Income Support Scheme grant. Paul talks through the changes with Andy Chamberlain, Director of Policy at IPSE.

NatWest has become the latest high street bank/building society to launch a lottery-style savings account. With interest rates so low, is this the future? Rachel Springall, finance expert at moneyfacts.co.uk, explains

Presenter: Paul Lewis Reporter: Dan Whitworth Researchers: Sowda Ali and Jonelle Awomoyi Producer: Ben Carter Editor: Rosamund Jones

Transcript

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0:35.0	check out BBC Sounds.
0:41.3	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:44.5	Hello and welcome to this Moneybox podcast.
0:48.2	200,000 pensioners, mainly married women and widows,
0:53.7	will share an estimated £3 billion after the government admits they've been paid too little. We explain the rules that will enable more self-employed people to claim help with the damage COVID has done to their business, and the new savings account that enters customers for a prize draw.
1:05.0	But first, the government has agreed to change the law so that people who abuse their ex-partners after they
1:12.0	have separated will be committing a crime. One in four of the women who suffer economic abuse
1:17.7	report it continuing after separating from their partner. I spoke to Leila, that's not her real
1:23.9	name, whose marriage ended some time ago. Her answers to me have been voiced by
1:28.3	an actor. My experience started as soon as I married my husband. I didn't realize that he was
1:35.9	in a significant amount of debt until a few months into the marriage. And from then on, the
1:42.0	problems continued and exacerbated over time.
1:45.8	What did he actually do?
1:47.5	Did he take money from you or run up debts in your name?
1:50.4	How did this abuse happen?
1:52.8	In all sorts of ways, he ran up debts and forced me to take loans out, to pay them.
	...

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