UK Mortgage Prisoners Campaign Group says it has been left with “no hope” to find a solution for mortgage prisoners trapped in high home loans after a meeting with Treasury Minister Emma Reynolds last month.
While Labour supported the group’s campaign in opposition, it says there are no plans and no agreement to form a Solutions Group.
After a year in government, the group says it has only seen “repetition of ineffective and inapplicable supports for the mainstream market which do not help mortgage prisoners,” after meeting the Treasury Minister on 21 July.
Prior to the election last year, now Prime Minister Keir Starmer criticised the previous Conservative government on their actions towards the issue, but the group fears “Labour intends to do likewise”.
It states: “The Labour Treasury is as deaf in government to the severe and foreseen consumer harm to the mortgage prisoner community as the previous Conservative Ministers were citing the issue as ‘too complex’ while ignoring our proposals and the LSE Reports funded by Martin Lewis MSE.”
Former shadow housing minister Kevin Hollinrake recently expressed regret at the missed opportunity to bring relief to thousands of mortgage prisoners in 2021 when Labour supported its cause in opposition.
The group explains: “We wonder what is in the Treasury closet that stops any minister in office from acting in the face of the loss of homes and destruction of lives. Perhaps this will only be clear when Lord Sharkey’s Mortgage Prisoners Public Inquiry Bill is supported in the House of Commons as it was in the Lords.”
UK Mortgage Prisoners Campaign Group lead campaigner Rachel Neale comments: “We have sat with multiple Ministers in Treasury, both Conservative and now Labour, many times explaining the situation on the ground for our Members and the severe detriment suffered by thousands of trapped pre 2008 borrowers from a time when they took on safe mortgages but were sold down the river by their Government without protections.”
“There must be a move from Labour who have acknowledged the harm but frankly, do not seem motivated to act. In the meantime, we are dealing with extremely vulnerable, highly distressed people facing losing their homes and many for whom it is too late.”
“Thousands of Interest Only mortgages sold without repayment vehicles prior to regulatory change are coming to the end of term and these people are losing their homes with insufficient equity to find anywhere else to live.”
“Repossessions in the Mortgage Prisoner community are disproportionate, and we have been calling for effective action for years now with no Government prepared to act.”
Last year, the UK Mortgage Prisoners Action Group called for the government to take “urgent action” to protect mortgage prisoners and to “curb the tsunami of repossessions and forced sales it is seeing”.
Martin Lewis also renewed his call in July last year for the government to step in and help 200,000 mortgage prisoners who are trapped on high rates.
In an open letter to chancellor Rachel Reeves, MoneySavingExpert.com’s founder Lewis urged her to take action where the previous government failed to do so.
The housing department has been contacted for comment.
