LifeLine, London
Press release
Government launches youth debt life-line
Chief Secretary and Shameless star launch free financial training package for young people
Report to: Attlee Suite, Portcullis House, House of Commons, Westminster
When: 0930, 26 March 2008
25 March 2008
A new national package to head off future youth debt receives backing from Chief Secretary to the Treasury Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP tomorrow in a key-note presentation in Parliament.
The UK charity LifeLine launch of Young People and Money is part of the Financial Services Authority's £90m Financial Capability Strategy, and will outline a long term package of free financial training for youth intermediaries, directly benefitting up to 200,000 NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) young people by 2010.
Maxine Wrigley MBE, speaker at the event, ex care leaver and Chief Executive of A National Voice, says, 'In my experience of working with young people, helping them to take more responsibility for their money is the only way we will all be able to head off a serious debt crisis for today’s young people tomorrow. It is clear to me that those who have been more careful with their cash, managing and controlling what they owe, are going to be better equipped to weather the so called 'credit crunch'. It makes you wonder, if an initiative like Young People and Money had been around ten years ago, whether there would be so much doom and gloom in the money stories in the media today.'
David Threlfall, who plays reckless Frank Gallagher in Channel 4 series Shameless, suggests responsibility for youth debt is a two way street. In a video message to be shown at the Commons, he says 'With talk of the impending global recession there's a lot of scaremongering going on. So it's important that this forum is being created to help young people understand money....You walk into any shopping centre in this country and they're always offering you credit cards, and I find that a problem. I walk a mile from it - it's like a trap-door that opens and before you know it, you're on one of those reality shows as a spendaholic. Don't go there!'
The LifeLine event, hosted by Meg Hillier MP, comes at a time when consumer debt is increasing by about £1 million every four minutes. 90% of young people worry about their money and spending and tend to think of overdrafts and credit cards as easy ways to spend more than they earn, or to buy things they cannot normally afford.*
LifeLine and their delivery partners will train up to 20,000 youth advisers across the country between now and 2010, providing youth intermediaries with the skills, knowledge and awareness to teach young people money management and personal finance - key life skills to help improve their lives and potentially help them move out of the NEET group. The long term aim of the training is to create a new generation of financially responsible young people. The Young People and Money programme is part of the Financial Services' £90m Financial Capability Strategy.
