Councils are to be banned from selling home addresses off the electoral register to companies who bombard us with junk mail. The move will make it harder for firms to track people down when they move house - and could limit the amount of mail sent out. A long-awaited report commissioned by Gordon Brown has said that the ‘edited’ electoral roll which is sold by local authorities in electronic form should be scrapped. This roll contains the names of anyone who fails to opt out when filling in their electoral registration card each year - currently around 60% of householders or 15 million. The report also said that the opt-out directions were often written in ‘confusing’ language, and householders did not realise what they were agreeing to. Everybody has to be on the full electoral register, but this cannot be bought or sold, and is available in paper form only.
Posts Tagged ‘Gordon Brown’
Halifax defies plea by PM and raises its loan rates
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008
Britain’s biggest mortgage lender today defied Gordon Brown’s plea to cut mortgage rates. The Halifax is raising rates on some mortgage offers by 0.5% despite his calling bank chiefs to No10 to urge them to sign up to the Government’s strategy to tackle the global economic turmoil. The Prime Minister was also bluntly warned that a string of building societies could be forced out of the mortgage market by the looming crisis. Mr Brown is said to be prepared to offer banks help to raise funds but wants them to pass on interest rate cuts, do everything they can not to repossess the homes of people struggling to meet their mortgage payments, and to offer loans to first-time buyers. The Bank of England is injecting a further £15bn of liquidity into the markets, taking its total recent support to more than £50bn.
Government rakes in £31bn in stamp duty
Thursday, February 21st, 2008Homebuyers have forked out £31.5bn in stamp duty over the past ten years. Last year alone, the figure reached £6.5bn - a staggering 675% increase since Labour came to power. In 1997-1998, just £830m in stamp duty was paid. Increases introduced by Gordon Brown when he was Chancellor, which were widely criticised at the time, are forcing record numbers of homebuyers to pay stamp duty. Before Labour came to power, the tax was charged at just one per cent on all properties sold for £60,000 or more. Today, it is charged at 1% on houses costing between £125,000 and £250,000, 3% on those worth from £250,000 to £500,000 and 4% for those sold for more than £500,000. In London, the average asking price for a home is £402,000, which would mean stamp duty of more than £12,000. The majority of first-time buyers are now forced to pay the tax, which - coupled with the recent property boom - makes finding enough money to buy a home even harder.
