UK Debt Statistics – February 2011

Total UK personal debt at the end of December 2010 stood at £1,452bn. The twelve-month growth rate decreased 0.1 percentage points to 0.7%. Individuals currently owe more than the entire country has produced during the last four quarters.

Total lending in December 2010 fell by £0.1bn; secured lending decreased by £0.3bn in the month; consumer credit lending increased by £0.2bn (total lending in Jan 2008 grew by £8.4bn).

Total secured lending on dwellings at the end of December 2010 stood at £1,238bn. The twelve-month growth rate decreased 0.1 percentage points to 0.7%.

Total consumer credit lending to individuals at the end of December 2010 was £214bn. The annual growth rate of consumer credit was unchanged at 0.6%.

UK banks and building societies wrote off £9.9bn of loans to individuals in the last 12 months to end Q3 2010. In Q3 2010 they wrote off £1.83bn (£740m of that was credit card debt). This amounts to a write-off of £20.10m a day.

Today in the UK

•             372 people every day of the year will be declared insolvent or bankrupt. This is equivalent to 1 person every 53 seconds during a working day.

•             1,716 Consumer County Court Judgements (CCJs) were issued every day during Q3 2010 and the average judgement amount was £3,312.

•             The average person will save £2.73 every day.

•             Citizen Advice Bureaux dealt with 9,389 new debt problems every working day in England and Wales

•             The average cost of raising a child from birth to the age of 21 is £26 a day.

•             1,000 people are seeking some form of formal debt rescheduling every working day.

•             98 properties were repossessed every day during Q3 2010

•             548 new people became unemployed for more than 12 months every day during the 12 months to end November 2010

•             1,721 people reported they had become redundant every day during 3 months to end November 2010

•             £203,600,000 is the amount that the Government Public Sector Net Debt (PSDN), including financial interventions, will grow today (equivalent to £2,356 per second).