Should We Re-Possess People's Homes?

A friend of mine Emma Harrison (she's the social entrepreneur who runs A4e which manages a lot of the government training schemes) was explaining to me recently about understanding the 'lifetime value' of every member of society.

All the time you are in work or enterprise or producing in some way you are adding value to an economy, and every time you are in education, training, hospital, prison, on benefits, drawing pension and so on you are a cost.

Therefore your lifetime value is all the value you bring over the years minus all the cost of supporting you along the way.

It follows that ensuring people are healthy, happy, secure, well-trained and employable is the best way of creating long term value and prosperity.

So WHY OH WHY are we allowing all these state owned banks to re-possess people's homes? (Not to mention HMRCE being the main initiator of so many bankruptcies...)

When someone loses their home they are an immediate and long term cost to society.

The likelihood is that they will go on benefits, need council housing, their security confidence and happiness are immediately destroyed and the stress is the most likely cause of long term illness. It takes a long time to recover from that kind of meltdown.

It is simply not joined up thinking to allow these re-possessions to happen.

The Government should be taking immediate action to prevent banks making people homeless so easily. And if the court does order a re-possession there should be an obligation for alternative accommodation to be sourced (this could be council housing, but a better option would be to provide a guaranteed tracker rate re-finance over a cheaper property to replace the old, more expensive mortgage).

Yes this may cost. But compared to the long term cost of making tens of thousands homeless and/or bankrupt along with the associated social meltdown it is surely worth it?

Mrs Angry of Bakewell

Yes, I am ANGRY.

Why?

Because today a good entrepreneurial friend of mine has told me that he is putting his company into a CVA (Company's Voluntary Arrangement).

Is this because his business is loss making?

No.

It's actually a great British manufacturing company, which turns over getting on for £500k and is profit making every year.

The reason is that the business has fallen behind with their VAT. But instead of HMRCE being willing to negotiate terms, they are forcing the company into the action because of continued threats to send in the balliffs.

OK, OK I realise everyone has to pay their VAT, and if people don't it's not fair on all the rest.

BUT at a time when literally BILLIONS of pounds are currently being pumped in to try to make Britain a more enterprising culture, and encouraging people to go into business, WHY OH WHY are we condemning successful existing businesses to death in this way?

(Only about 5% of companies which set up in the UK go on to become profitable companies like my friend's)

Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson, PLEASE - you guys need to sort out a more supportive solution for companies that get into trouble rather than just condemn them to death.

Call off the dogs and give these entrepreneurs some help in their time of need - so they can survive and be part of this country's future - not thrown on the scrapheap as another insolvency statistic.