Investment Changes and Women's Financial Rights

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Hello, welcome to this Money Box Podcast. New proposals would let energy suppliers cut off the electricity and gas if people who move home don't sign up with a new supplier within a week or so. And it's hard to believe now, but fifty years ago women couldn't borrow money without a man. But first...

Better not best is how the financial regulator sums up the outcome for customers of its plans to let banks and other financial firms give them what it calls targeted support. The changes published this week by the Financial Conduct Authority will start in April and are intended to encourage more people to invest their savings rather than keeping them in cash. But it admitted that although target support should put someone in a better position, it won't necessarily be the best.

Many listeners are concerned about what the changes will mean. Debbie's in her early sixties and saving up to help her sons buy their first home. I'm trying to do whatever I can as a parent to help my sons get on the property ladder. So I'm not putting my bits that I can save at the risk of the stock market and particularly at a time when I think we all see the world's in a state of amazing flux uh and it is more volatile than ever before.

And it may just happen to fall at the time when my sons have finally got enough to buy their first home and then suddenly whoosh they suddenly don't have any more. I don't see that the new reforms are going to take away the risk element. They might offer a variety of risk, but the risk is still there. The new targeted support will allow banks and other financial firms to suggest to groups of customers in similar circumstances how they should manage their spare money.

Sarah Pritchard is the deputy chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority. I asked her how this targeted support would work for Debbie.

Rydyn ni'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i

Um Debbie quite rightly in that clip pointed out to her needs and um her appetites. She wants to make sure that she has money available to for her sons. So targeted support might not be for So we're looking to have a much more mass market, help and support for all people, and that is what targeted support will deliver. So suppose I was one of those people that you mentioned that the seven million who've got ten thousand pounds or more in in cash.

in a savings account with a high street bank earning one percent. So if your bank is authorised by us to provide that, the bank might um based upon your age profile, based upon asking you some questions around your risk appetite, might be questions around how quickly you might need access to that.

money, the bank might uh recommend an investment product for you and make a specific suggestion of a product that might be suitable for someone like you. The difference is at the moment, all the banks can do is give you really general information about investing, but they can't recommend uh products to you and this will change that. But will it, for example, check that you've got a a a rainy day fund? Will it check that you haven't got any debt?

And indeed, if your money's with the bank earning one percent, will it say find a better savings account, you can get four and a half percent if you go with someone else? Well, crucially, and the reason that we have reformed the regulatory framework here is because we know that

Uh the rules at the moment don't work for everyone, don't make don't work for the mass market. But at the heart is we want people to be able to make their own decisions. It's got to be really clear to people what um the recommendations are and what they're not. ac yn ymwneud yn ymwneudol, ond rydym yn ymwneudol, ond rydym yn ymwneudol, ond rydym yn ymwneudol, ond rydym yn ymwneudol, ond rydym yn ymwneudol.

and critically so that they can navigate their financial lives over the long term. As you say, seven million people have over ten thousand pounds in investable assets in cash. Mae'n ymwneud â nhw'n ei ddweud yn ddweud ei ddweud ei ddweud ei ddweud ei ddweud ei ddweud, ei ddweud ei ddweud, ei ddweud ei ddweud, ei ddweud ei ddweud ei ddweud.

help ensure that we fill that advice gap, that support gap. But but specifically, will they find out if you've got a rainy day fund? Will they find out if you've got debt? Will they suggest moving your money to another bank where you can get four and a half percent? Or will they just concentrate on investment? So the regime isn't fully live yet. What we've done just this week is set out the framework for it.

Um uh we've got really good tips on our Invest Smart website at the FCA. We talk about the importance of um paying off debts, the importance of having an emergency savings fund before thinking about investing and the importance of doing so over the long term. So we say minimum five years, those are the sorts of things that I would expect. um financial services providers to um take into account as they decide who they might be making recommendations to. And when they recommend an investment, they

They recommend that you invest. Will they promote one of their own funds, a tracker or a managed fund? What will they tell you about it? So at the moment, what a bank might say to you or a financial services provider might say to you is any targeted support services. They can then decide to offer a specific product or a range of products. We need to see how the regime adapts, but critically, firms are going to have to be authorised by us to provide this.

Rydyn ni wedi'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i But will it allow them just to push their own products, which may not be the best value at all, may they? It will allow firms to recommend their own. And there's this I go back to the importance of consumers understanding what this is um and what this isn't.

Rydyn ni wedi gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny And so not but not in the best position, because their fund might have high charges, mightn't it? It might have performed very badly if it's a managed fund.

But they won't have to find the best on the market. They'll just have to say, We've got this investment fund. Um, we think your money'd be better invested. And they'll be selling their own products through this.

Well, this is absolutely right in the sense that y it's better not best. Best would be the fully expensive uh financial advice service, which we know Rydyn ni'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd

Yn ymwneud hyn, mae'r cyntaf yn ymwneud â'r cyntaf, mae'r cyntaf yn ymwneud â'r cyntaf, mae'r cyntaf yn ymwneud â'r cyntaf, mae'r cyntaf yn ymwneud â'r cyntaf, mae'r cyntaf yn ymwneud â'r cyntaf, mae'r cyntaf yn ymwneud â'r cyntaf. But it will be best for them, not necessarily best. Sarah Pritchard of the Financial Conduct Authority speaking to me earlier.

Energy suppliers would be able to cut off the electricity and gas if people who move home don't sign up to a supplier within about a week. There's new proposals for that by OffGem. The regulator says more than a billion pounds of debt to energy companies is built up when people move home but don't sign up to a new supplier at once. Dan Whitworth's been looking into this. Dan, what have you found out?

Well, the energy regulator OffGem says these plans are vital in trying to help tackle the 4.5 billion pounds of energy debt. Now it says about a third of that is built up when people move house but take weeks or even months before they sign up with a new supplier.

Now under these new proposals, when people move out of a home and new residents move in, the smart meter would be remotely switched into prepayment mode until the new occupier sets up a contract. It'll be topped up with around£30 or so. Enough money for about a week's worth of energy. And if people don't sign up in that time, well the money runs out and they'd be cut off.

Now offgen hopes this will, in its words, prompt people into signing up. I've been speaking to people in Macclesfield in Cheshire to find out what they think about the idea. Rwy'n meddwl y mae'n meddwl, ond rwy'n meddwl, ond rwy'n meddwl, mae'n rwy'n meddwl, mae'n rwy'n meddwl, mae'n rwy'n meddwl, mae'n rwy'n meddwl, mae'n rwy'n meddwl, mae'n rwy'n meddwl.

Um so if there is an issue it could be quite stressful and again if your energy's cut off in the winter, that's gonna be less than ideal. Yeah, that's a good idea. I mean to be fair I moved in March but obviously I did it instantly sort of thing, so It was just something that I just knew I had to do straight away. I didn't wanna I thought if I changed it then it's done quick, easy, no more that. I moved into a house that had to literally strip to

bare minimum because it was that bad. That was my least of my uh my worries. I mean it sounds like a good idea. Sounds a bit like a safety net for People being a bit disorganized. I mean in principle it sounds like a good idea. Protect people from uh energy companies, just putting people on the most expensive rates and charging them extortionate fees for something that's easily done um as a mistake or as a yeah, just something you're not thinking about.

But surely Dan, when you move home, contacting the energy supplier is is just part of the routine, isn't it? Well, you'd think so, Paul, but Off Gem says it takes on average more than seventy days after people move into a new home before they sign up to a new supplier. Now, because they're of course using energy during that time but they're not paying for it, well that can stack up as debt really quickly, especially of course given how high energy prices are now. And this costs us all money.

Because the average household energy bill currently includes about£52 a year to pay for the costs of that four and a half billion pounds worth of debt. Now their charities have already given these proposals a cautious welcome. Alex Belsham Harris is from Citizens Advice.

But they could also create some problems. So it will mean that everyone moving into a new property will need really clear information about how to get a new energy deal, how long it will take to set up an account, and how they can access energy in the meantime. Well I played that clip from Citizens Advice to Charlotte Friel, the director of consumer protection at Off Gem, and here's what she had to say.

I mean, I think what they're saying there is incredibly important and is a really key part of how we form these proposals. And I would say first of all, these are proposals. That's why we're doing a call for input now is to get more information about what this customer journey might look like. How do we build in the right guardrails?

But I think they're absolutely right to highlight some of these challenges. Now, a couple of things that we will build into this process. One is um pre-loaded credit on the meter. So that is about£30 of credit on the meter to keep the property on supply. Who's going to pay for that?

That's a very good question. And that is something that we are working through at the moment, whether that is something that is written off or whether that is something that ultimately is recovered. I think it's important to remember that ultimately the benefits that we see from making these changes far outweigh the costs. But that is very much an active question that we are exploring through these proposals. How big a deal

Could this be, does OffGem think, in terms of tackling that debt pile? The energy debt problem that we have in GB is massive. It is absolutely unprecedented. We are at four point four eight billion pounds of debt, and this is completely unsustainable. We have got to bring that figure down. These proposals are a really fundamental part. They are absolutely vital to bringing down debt as we move forward, because what they will do is stop that ongoing buildup of debt.

And they will also fundamentally change the culture around how you set up your energy account and get people engaging with their energy suppliers. You must have some serious hopes on this, because if if as you say this issue accounts for up to a third of the energy debt, This could be a game changer, couldn't it?

It absolutely could be a game changer. I think partly because it is force it is prompting people to engage with their energy supplier. That is a vital step to making sure that people are on a tariff arrangement that works for them, that's affordable for them. that they're getting the support that's available from their suppliers.

And that they are they are paying their bills when they are expected to do so. What happens though if it's like the middle of January and all of a sudden this this credit runs out, you've just moved into a new house, you've got a million and one things going on. You're trying to do the right thing.

But you've got energy and then all of a sudden you wake up and your heating's not come on. I mean that's gonna be a problem, isn't it? I mean that's a scary situation for anybody, but the first thing that's going to make you do is contact an energy supplier to make sure that you can resume supply.

And how quickly forgive me to interrupt, how quickly do you expect suppliers to be able to turn that off? Because it's not always the smoothest journey. It is a supplier can um resume supply immediately.

They can do that remotely and as soon as you call them and say that you've got an issue, say that you're off supply, they can sort that out for you on the phone in the moment. Now it might be that they give you a bit of emergency credit to keep you going, or it might be that they get you into credit mode. And onto a different tariff arrangement. But that's the point. If you contact them, the options are there. They can support you, they can get you onto something that is going to work for you.

Charlotte Freel ending Dan's report, and if you have views on those plans, which could start as soon as the spring, but they will only apply to homes with a working smart meter. Of Gem has started a consultation which it calls a call for input. It's open till the twentieth of january. And just search online for Call for Input Energy Get.

Du, jag skulle ju köpa några nya palpstrält i lagret, det kanske blev lite mer grejer. De hade ju allt, skribord, jag köpte en sån här, och kontorstolar, och så hade de en skitsnyg till. Vi har inredning för hela arbetsplatsen. Välkommen! Amazon presenterar Simon och kans dejingnärver. Under miljontals år har djur utvecklat sofistikerade paningsritualer. Fåglar dansar, varja rylar och pinger fria med stenen.

Och Simon, han ska laga middag. Och han flippar ur. Men Simon shoppade på Amazon och köpte ljusstaka vinglaser eftersom han är optimist. En extra tandborste. Det bor alltid dju i dig din rackare. Få dig den att hända, hoppa på amazon.se.

Now, fifty years ago, Queen topped the charts with Bohemian Rhapsody. Monopoly was still a top selling Christmas game. Harold Wilson was Prime Minister, and women couldn't get a mortgage or a loan without a man. But at the end of the month everything changed. Mrs. Pankhurst and her suffragettes of 70 years ago could only dream of many of the provisions of this new act. It makes sex discrimination illegal in the fields of employment, education.

services and housing and its effects will be immediate. Well the Sex Discrimination Act came into force on the 29th of December 1975. It also gave women equal access to financial services like loans and mortgages. Before that women needed a signature from their husband, or, if they didn't have one, their father to get a mortgage or a loan.

Our reporter Emma Devlin went to Bury to meet Kath and Sue, both in their seventies, and Kath told Emma about getting a mortgage in nineteen sixty nine. Uh my wages weren't taken into account when we got that first mortgage. They were all in my husband's name. And it was a basic workout that whatever your husband earned weekly, and I seem to think he was on nineteen pounds, I have that figure in my head.

that was your monthly payment. One week of his salary. Yeah. Yeah. Was the equivalent of your monthly payment. We were applying for that in February sixty nine. Yeah'cause we got married in June. Except mine was six ten years later. So I mean things were s supposedly. Yeah. It was just hum just the men that could get a mortgage. Yeah. Do you have any memories of changes to y your personal finances or what you kind of

So on the future of your personal finances when the act came in? I honestly d didn't think it would make much difference because I couldn't get a mortgage until nineteen eight nineteen seventy nine, eighty. mewn gwirionedd oeddwn i'n ysgrifennu ac yn ysgrifennu. Ond oeddwn i'n ysgrifennu'n ysgrifennu, oeddwn i'n ysgrifennu'n ysgrifennu. Yn ysgrifennu'n ysgrifennu, ysgrifennu'n ysgrifennu.

Rydyn ni'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio. When it came to getting your mortgage, what was that like? Rydyn ni'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny. Rydyn ni'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny? Rydyn ni'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny? Rydyn ni'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny?

Rwy'n meddwl, rwy'n meddwl. Rwy'n meddwl, rwy'n meddwl. Rwy'n meddwl, rwy'n meddwl. Rwy'n meddwl, rwy'n meddwl. Rwy'n meddwl, rwy'n meddwl. Rwy'n meddwl, rwy'n meddwl. Rwy'n meddwl, rwy'n meddwl. Rwy'n meddwl, rwy'n meddwl. Rwy'n meddwl, rwy'n meddwl. mewn gwirionedd mewn gwirionedd mewn gwirionedd mewn gwirionedd mewn gwirionedd mewn gwirionedd mewn gwirionedd

Not me. No. I had to find a thousand pounds. We had to save up a thousand pounds for that first mortgage of ours in sixty nine. We had to have shown we were regular savers and we had to be saving constantly for twelve months. and we had a thousand pounds and that with the deposit. And you were talking about your credit card. What did that mean for you when you got that? My budget kind of was a bit more flexible, put it that way. But like but not as a

Spend, spend, spend. Yeah. It was for big things. Pre these credit cards. It was higher purchase. Yeah. And that was the other stumbling block that I had.

when I wanted to buy the washing machine. Yeah. Yeah. And that must have been well it must have been in the seventies. Yeah it was, yeah. Because I know I worked up in Rottenstall and I'd seen this lovely X display model with a hot point in the window and I thought Do you know how that would just go in my kitchen instead of having to keep trolling over to the laundrette, you know, you know called in and said, You know what, can do no use outside I purchase Oh no.

I said, Well my husband works the south side of Manchester, this was in Rottenstall. Oh, well he's got to come in that was the other thing, he's got to sign it in the shop. So I said, Well Luke, I said, Can I take can you fill it in? I'll take it home. I'll get him to sign it and bring it back tomorrow and that is thankfully what they did. But it was me paying the payment.

But it was in his name, yeah. You were going to say when you think you got a credit card, can you remember? Yeah, it was the mid eighties. It was because I wanted uh because I wanted carpets for the for the house, basically. I applied to the co-op bank and they gave me a credit card they said because I've been a sensible and showed myself to be a sensible person with money. I know you all!

That was uh Kat and Sue and you can see a nice picture of them on the Money Box Twitter feed. Well with me in the London studio is Vanessa Barnes. She's a chartered financial planner and chair of the Women's Wealth Alliance. Vanessa Barnes, listening to Catherine Sue there, it'll be hard for many people to even believe it was like that then. I know it's partly enraging, isn't it, that those women had to go through those hoops. Yes, I mean Kath told us that.

Her washing machine had to be in her husband's name even though she was paying for it. And w that would have been the case for everything, would it? Yeah, even if she was earning more than him. Which was probably unlikely, but if she had been, it still would have been the scena scenario. Yeah, and it's bad enough but but women who were single like Sue was stuck and she says it was another four years after the act came in before she could get a mortgage and

Stewart's tweeted to say my mum went to the bank in the early eighties to get a loan for a car. The manager insisted on making sure I can hardly read this, making sure her husband approved. And sometimes you could apply, but you'd have to bring your father with you. if you didn't have a husband.

So even though that news clip that we heard promised immediate changes, it did take a while in practice to get these things actually happening. That's right. A lot of banks continue to want a a male presence in the room when a woman wanted to borrow credit of any kind, including a mortgage. Rydyn ni'n ei wneud, mae'n ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud.

Many in many of them'cause they have no choice. Um what what's happening now? I mean, looking back Uh let's look now. What have women still got to achieve? What are the barriers still there for them? They've got to achieve a lot. I mean the gender pay gap, the latest figures for the ONS seven point seven percent.

Mae'n ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r Well between the pensions that men and women will have when they reach pension age.

To work part time more than men and they also have more gaps if they have children in their working lives in many cases. Yeah. The model is designed for a forty year consistent level of career. Designed by men, presumably. Absolutely. Absolutely.

It it hasn't been designed for taking career breaks, looking after elderly relatives, perhaps having to go part time or step out. I mean if you have to step out of the workplace for a couple of years to look after your elderly relatives, which saves society a huge amount of money. You are not allowed to put more than GBP two thousand eight hundred and eight pounds into your pension. Why is that?

Yeah, so that's the sort of limit. You've got to earn more than that if you want to put more than that in, don't you? And and just to go back again, I mean looking back it sounds easy, the law was changed, but it wasn't that simple. There was a lot of campaigning to get there, wasn't it? There was. I mean I I wouldn't underestimate the contribution made by the

for Dagen and Machinist, because they started to make the public aware that a man and a woman could do exactly the same job. That was an equal pay issue, wasn't it? That was an equal pay. So that started the journey. And then when we joined, as it was then, the EEC in 1973, Rydyn ni'n cael ei fod yn ymwneud â'r pethau, yn ymwneud â'r pethau ymwneud â'r pethau ymwneud â'r pethau ymwneud â'r pethau ymwneud â'r pethau ymwneud â'r pethau.

felly mae'r Uned wedi'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i' Looking at today again, what what one change would you like to see? What what's the most important single thing to give women more financial equality? We need to review the thresholds of auto-enrolment. They disproportionately, negatively affect women workers.

Rydyn ni'n gwneud hynny. Felly mae'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hyn. Vanessa Barnes, Chair of the Women's Wealth Alliance, thanks and we are getting quite a lot of emails about this and also um about the other stories about energy and about investing.

In the next Money Box Live podcast with Felicity Hannah, she'll be looking at blended families and stirring step siblings, maintenance and of course inheritance into the mix.

In this podcast the reporters were Dan Whitworth and Ema Devlin, researcher Joe Krasner, studio manager Patrick Shaw. Our editor is Jess Quayle. I'm Paul Lewis, and this was a BBC News Money and Work production for B B C sounds, and now arrest that man I'm Philippe Sands and from BBC Radio 4 and the History Podcast, this is The Arrest.

A race against time to apprehend a seemingly untouchable man. He had filed a flight plan at six thirty in the morning. A former dictator accused of crimes against humanity. And I found Laura there and she says they killed Dad. history having been those who abandoned the Spanish victims. And there is General Pinochet sitting in his bed in his striped pajamas. I thought, oh my God, it really is him. The arrest. Listen first. On B B C sounds.

Pappa, hur kommer jag in i mammas mage? Oj, nu börjar reklamen här, Gärta. Den måste pappa lyssna på. Tanka hos Ingo. Lågt pris till alla. Ingo kom längre för pengarna. Lågt pris till. Jag vet ju att jag kommer ut i snan, men hur kom jag in? Oj, nu börjar nästa reklamer. Amazon presenterar Simon och Kans dejingnerver. Under miljontals år har djur utvecklat sofistikerade paningsritualer. Fåglar dansar, varja rylar och pinger fria med stenen.

Simon shoppade på Amazon och köpte ljusstaka vinglaser eftersom han är optimist. En extra tandborste. Simon, det vore alltid ett djur i dig, din rackare. Få dejten att hända.