THIS TRANSCRIPT IS ISSUED ON THE UNDERSTANDING THAT IT IS TAKEN FROM A LIVE PROGRAMME AS IT WAS BROADCAST. THE NATURE OF LIVE BROADCASTING MEANS THAT NEITHER THE BBC NOR THE PARTICIPANTS IN THE PROGRAMME CAN GUARANTEE THE ACCURACY OF THE INFORMATION PRINTED HERE.

MONEY BOX

Presenter: Paul Lewis

TRANSMISSION 24th November 2001 1200-1230 BBC RADIO 4

Equitable Life

Getting Credit

Fuel Poverty

Choosing Power Suppliers

Railtrack

LEWIS: Hello, in today's programme, policyholders accuse Equitable Life of hiding a crucial Court hearing from members

The ban on junk mail that could make credit harder to get

The government's ten year plan to give three million people a warmer home,

Martin Lewis is with me today, Martin,

M LEWIS Yes I'll be looking at the flat rate heating plan that is not the cheapest

LEWIS: And the Prime Minister steps into the Rail track shares dispute

BLAIR: Whereas he would pay the shareholders an additional one billion pounds from taxpayers' money, oh yes that is the position of the Conservative party. We believe that that money is better spent on the railways.

LEWIS: All that later but first, some members of Equitable Life, the troubled insurance company, are accusing it this weekend of hiding the date of a crucial court hearing, to stop them attending and making statements. The hearing is on Monday, though until late on Friday night Equitable Life was not confirming that. The Court will be asked to approve the form of the compromise deal, which is to be put to all members in a vote later this year. The 480,000 Equitable Life members will be split into two groups for the vote, those with the guaranteed pensions that have caused all the difficulties and those without. For the deal to go through both classes have to vote 'yes' but some members are saying there should be more than two classes and they want to go to Court on Monday to make their views known. With me is Neil Britton of the Equitable Late Joiners action group, one of the factions whose members want to be counted as an extra class. Neil, first, why do you say Equitable's trying to stop you attending Court?

BRITTON: Well the real reason for that is that there were several requests made to the Equitable some months ago to give us information as to the timing of the hearing and indeed the briefings that were going to be given to counsel and indeed to other advisors. Those requests have gone unanswered and until I understand 9.35 yesterday morning, some of the members were looking at the Court List to see whether this action, this hearing was coming up, until that time we still had no knowledge of it.

LEWIS: Yes and we were finally told at just after seven o'clock on Friday night about the Court hearing. Why is it so important thought, because there is a further hearing after the vote where the whole thing will be ratified?

BRITTON: Yes, but it is our understanding that it is very unlikely that at the second hearing, which will of course be after votes are cast, that there will be an opportunity to really consider whether the classes were fairly composed. This is of course legislation that was intended to be applied to applying for voluntary liquidation, it has never ever been applied to a mutual society.

LEWIS: Now why do you want to be a separate class, what's different about you from the other people who don't have these guaranteed pensions?

BRITTON: Well of course we're not the only group who would like to be considered a separate class, the international group and I believe several others, income draw down and annuitants who of course are trapped in the fund have no choice about their future, would like to be considered.

LEWIS: So they all think their interests are different, so they should all have to say 'yes' to this deal?

BRITTON: I think they would at least like to have their views heard and considered by the judge, that's the opportunity that's been taken away by them and we believe basically the Equitable has gagged them and removed their opportunity to have their view heard.

LEWIS: But you see the Equitable says to us there was extensive consultation they say 40000 people responded and 8 out of 10 of those are in favour. This deal is in the interests of all members really isn't it?

BRITTON: It's certainly in the interests of all members that a compromise is found. That is in the interests of all members. It will remove from the fund the threat of an unknown cost to the fund that apparently is the situation hanging over us all. But we want that compromise to be a fair one, we don't believe currently that it is.

LEWIS: No one from Equitable could come onto Money Box at such short notice today. A spokesman did stress there was full consultation and that the hearing on Monday wasn't crucial to the vote and those are points supported by some of the several Equitable Life action groups and Ron Bullen is Chairman of the Equitable Policy Holders action group. Ron, will you be in court on Monday, are you worried about this?

BULLEN: Yes I am worried about it and hopefully we will have a representative in court on Monday.

LEWIS: And what's your view about the groups, the classes, these two classes. Is that enough or do you support Neil Britton?

BULLEN: No I don't support Neil in this one. I think much of what he said is very sensible but I think if we have too many classes the interests of the majority will be governed by possibly the interests of a very small minority and that doesn't seem to me to be reasonable. To give you a simple example, I can identify readily with the late entrance group, I am a late entrant, but I can equally identify with the with-profits annuitants because I'm also with-profits annuitant, and the two groups have basically opposed, if you look at their particular interests. It has to be narrowed down to a small number of groups.

LEWIS: Neil Britton, isn't there a danger that by fragmenting the membership in this way you will eventually scupper the vote and that could lead to really one thing which would be Equitable Life going into liquidation?

BRITTON: We don't believe that to be the case, if the classes were fairly composed I believe that most people would be happy to vote in favour of a fair compromise.

LEWIS: And isn't it too late, even if you went to Court, isn't it too late to restructure the whole deal and give you a separate vote?

BRITTON: We don't believe it will be necessary restructure the whole deal, in fact we have made proposals before previously, some weeks and months ago, that would allow the compromise to go ahead substantially unchanged.

LEWIS: Neil Britton from the Equitable Life Late Joiners action group thanks, and we heard from Ron Bullen earlier.

LEWIS: Now a Court victory by a man who didn't want to get junk mail may make it harder for all of us to borrow money. As we reported on Money Box last week, a High Court judge has ruled that the register of voters names and addresses can't be sold to junk mail companies without the permission of the people listed. But the register is also sold to credit reference agencies and used by lenders when we apply for credit to check that we live where we say we do. This week it emerged that the ruling will also stop the register being sold to them and that could mean it takes longer to get decisions on borrowing. The lawyer who took the case, Andrew Lockley of Irwin Mitchell, explains,

LOCKLEY: The judgement says that local authorities can no longer sell the data collected for electoral registers for commercial purposes, that means not for those who are going to send out junk mail, it means not for those who are going to use them to check on credit references and so on.

LEWIS: And when you say it can't be sold, do you mean it can't be sold under any circumstances, is this really going to stop the sale of electoral register data completely?

LOCKLEY: That is the implication of the judgement and of the order made by the judge who made a declaration at the end of the case as to what he says the law is. The government have decided not to appeal so that is the end of that, and indeed I understand that up and down the country local authorities are announcing that they're not going to take the risk of action being brought against them by disgruntled voters and simply not sell the electoral registers.

LEWIS: Well listening to that in Nottingham is Peter Brooker, a director of Experian, the UK's largest credit reference credit agency. Peter, how will you manage without the electoral register?

LOCKLEY: Well the government spent two years in consultation with organisations including banks, law enforcement agencies, credit reference agencies, consumer groups and the Information Commissioner and they were looking to strike a balance between peoples' perfectly legitimate concern towards rights of privacy and against a wider public interest.

LEWIS: But the Court has overturned that hasn't it?

LOCKLEY: Yes it has but what the working party felt was that there was a sensible balance that could be struck

LEWIS: The judge didn't seem to feel so though, I mean what the judge said is very clear, electoral registers can't be sold for a purpose other than that for which they're intended, i.e. to list voters.

LOCKLEY: The result of this consultation was that it was recognised that certain permitted purposes were in the public interest and these include credit granting, also includes money laundering, prevention of money laundering and prevention of fraud. And it is these issues that the judgement appears to have overturned.

LEWIS: And that's why I say to you now it's overturned those, which you may think are very sensible compromises, what are you going to do?

LOCKLEY: Well we're obviously in discussion with the government, with the Home Office, sorry not the Home Office but the Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions, who've taken over the legislation. The issue that the court case concerned was actually covered by the Presentation of the People Act passed last year. Its implementation has been delayed but the availability of the electoral role for marketing purposes had been covered in that

LEWIS: Yes but this judgement held that it was contrary to the Human Rights Act and it was also contrary, as I understand it, to the Data Protection Act, so there are Acts in conflict here. Just let me ask you, without access to the electoral role register, will lenders be able to give us quick decisions on credit or not?

LOCKLEY: The answer to that is they will not be able to give quick decisions and also younger people and people who are financially excluded, they will find it very difficult to gain access to financial services and of course this is in direct conflict with stated government policy.

LEWIS: There must be another way though. I mean you're an international company, what do you do in other places where there isn't an electoral register like this?

LOCKELY: In almost every country, certainly in Europe, there is either availability of the electoral role or there is some other universal identity database which organisations are able to access. Britain would be alone in not having any form of almost universal identity database.

LEWIS: Now you already hold old data, do you feel free to use that or are you scrapping all that as well?

LOCKLEY: At the moment we are able to use it, that was obtained within the legislation.

LEWIS: Peter Brooker, thanks very much, from Experian.

LEWIS: Now as the cold of winter spreads across the country, I saw a temperature of one degree centigrade this week, the problems of paying large fuel bills will start worrying millions of households. But on Wednesday the government produced plans to end fuel poverty, that's not having enough money to afford a warm home. The scheme is in response to an Act of Parliament which commits the government to fix a date to eradicate fuel poverty completely. The man behind the Act was David Amess, Tory MP for Southend West but he was amazed to find that there was no firm date in the government's plans.

AMESS: We really do think that it's absolutely fundamental to this Act of Parliament that the government says 'yes, within this time frame we should say that fuel poverty has been eradicated'. And in any case it's up to Parliament to scrutinise the executive to hold the government of the day to Account and unless we're given a pr�cised date that's going to be jolly difficult. I can see shifting sands here.

LEWIS: Well that was David Amess. Live now to Glasgow and the Energy Minister, Brian Wilson - who launched the plans. Brian Wilson, the law says you have to specify a date for really removing everyone from fuel poverty, why didn't you do that?

WILSON: Can I just say that our commitment to this issue, it stems from a general social inclusion policy for the elimination of poverty in general and it's certainly not tied to a specific Bill, it's a much more fundamental point than that.

LEWIS: Well you may have this commitment but there is an Act of Parliament that makes you do it?

WILSON: We've set a target of eliminating fuel poverty among the vulnerable households by the year 2010, and that amounts to three million households. There's a category of people who are within the fuel poor definition who are healthy adult households who are much more difficult to identify but I'm less interested in these playing with statistics than with the fact that we have a total commitment to eliminating this as a problem. Nobody should be unable to heat their home to reasonable standards and to enjoy the quality of life that derives from that.

LEWIS: Right, let's look at what you're planning then. What exactly are you planning to lift at least some people out of fuel poverty in the next nine years.

WILSON: Well three million, and I might say that the figure within the accepted definition of fuel poverty, the number of households, has come down over the past few years from five and a half million to four million..

LEWIS: Well some people say you've redefined the problem out of existence, a bit like the Tories used to do with the unemployment figures.

WILSON: Well if some people say that they're wrong because what we're actually interested in is people and actually achieving something in this rather than playing with statistics. But if you take the same constant definition the number has come down. There are two ways of approaching this. The definition is based on ten per cent or more of income, going on the heating of the home and other energy needs within the home so if you increase income then that takes a significant number of people out of that definition and the other way is to attack it from the energy efficiency perspective so that people can get warmer homes for substantially less money.

LEWIS: So what will you do to remove people, what are the practical steps?

WILSON: If I can give an example, what we call the Warm Front programme that last month alone 23000 people had insulation measures taken within their home. 3500 had central heating installed within their homes and the aim through that specific approach is to tackle 800000 homes over the next three years. At the same time I think there's a huge potential in the adoption of renewable energies to individual homes. We're running a pilot for instance, which will install micro CHP in 6000 homes. There's a lot of potential for community heating schemes.

LEWIS: Wouldn't a simple solution though be to extend the Winter Fuel Payment, which has been a great success among the over sixties to, for example, disabled people, even for young families with young children who don't have much money?

WILSON: Well that's a matter obviously for the Chancellor to look at.

LEWIS: But it's not in your plans, you publish the plans

WILSON: We've a whole range of measures which are specific to the fuel poverty issue and I think that they should be given a chance to work and I think they're being very effective, 23000 homes a month is not an insignificant figure. The two approaches of increasing peoples' incomes through our general policy and also reducing the size of their fuel bills is going to make a very, very major impact on this.

LEWIS: Brian Wilson, Energy Minister, thanks very much for talking to us.

LEWIS: Well of course those long term plans won't help necessarily with this winter's heating bills and a report out on Monday from the energy regulator OFGEM shows that around three quarters of people over the age of sixty five haven't changed their gas or electricity supplier, even though by doing so they could save money. One scheme specifically for the over sixties has attracted a hundred and fifty thousand customers in its first year, our reporter Martin Lewis has been investigating...

(Music "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire...") M LEWIS: Stay Warm's marketed on the concept that you have peace of mind, that turn the heat on full blast for days and you won't pay more. This is because your bill depends on the number of bedrooms and residents in your home, not your usage- though greenhouses and Jacuzzis are exempt. For example for two people in England in a two-bedroom house you pay �9-90 a week, that's �514 a year, regardless of how much gas and electricity you use. It's available to any house which has someone aged over sixty living in it. I spoke to Stay Warm customer, John, from North Manchester.

JOHN: The usage of gas and electricity was restricted to ensure that we kept the bills down. Now that we're retired we need a little more heat and a little more light in the house therefore this Stay Warm scheme is excellent.

M LEWIS: While John's made substantial savings they're not as dramatic for Nell in Glasgow.

NELL: We're saving not a lot, two or three pounds a month. But it's just being able to control your budget and manage your finances.

M LEWIS: In the past Nell hadn't changed supplier as the choice was too confusing, Stay Warm's simplicity appealed, but she was comparing Stay Warm to her old monopoly operators, British Gas and Scottish Power, not the cheapest supplier in her area. Richard Nickels is the head of Stay Warm

NICKELS: More than eighty per cent of our customers are first movers. Those people are saving a huge amount of money. The second category are those people who have perhaps already switched, we pitch the price at the lowest in the market. If you then compare that with their ability to use what they need to use to keep warm that has to be the cheapest.

M LEWIS: But as Nell found, comparing suppliers isn't easy, so how do we know it really is the cheapest?

MAN: You come to the uSwitch home page and you put your postcode in... so I'll put my postcode in...press go...

M LEWIS: uSwitch is one of five regulatory approved companies providing free independent Internet or phone price comparisons. As your cheapest supplier depends on your location, usage and payment method, you plug these details in and you find what's best for you. But Stay Warm's tariffs aren't included as it has a flat fee. So Money Box asked uSwitch's Managing Director, Andrew Salmon, to assess Stay Warm for a range of examples, like this one for the North West of England.

SALMON: With a three bed house, two people living in that house with Stay Warm you'd actually spend about �580 a year. However if you were to shop around we've found that actually you'd probably spend around �390 if you found the best deal in that area.

M LEWIS: So Stay Warm's a hundred and ninety pounds more. And this wasn't the only example where Stay Warm was more expensive. As a rule of thumb Stay Warm's likely to be cheaper if you live alone in a large house, have poor insulation or have the heat on all the time. If Stay Warm's not cheaper you'll need to choose between peace of mind and cash. Nell knows what she'd choose..

NELL: If we have a very severe winter like the one we had a few years ago we don't have any concerns about keeping the heating on but if I can switch and it's going to cost me twenty per cent less then I would switch, peace of mind wouldn't come into it in that case.

LEWIS: Martin, how difficult is it to switch supplier?

M LEWIS: Well not very Paul, to be honest. It's the same pipes, same gas or electricity, the same safety procedures; all that really changes is the company that sends you the bill.

LEWIS: So how do you find who's the best?

M LEWIS: Well the Regulator, OFGEM, publishes tables but the five free comparison services I mentioned are more user friendly. All you really need is an idea of the size of your bills and you could save around twenty per cent.

LEWIS: But Stay Warm isn't in the uSwitch comparison you mentioned...

M LEWIS: No, it's worth checking Stay Warm's price separately, though it must be pointed out it's not available in Northern Ireland, East Anglia and the old Norweb electricity region.

LEWIS: Thanks Martin.

LEWIS: The dispute over shareholders in Railtrack went right to the top this week. Answering a question from the Tory leader, Iain Duncan Smith, the Prime Minister made the government's view very clear.

BLAIR: They agree with the shareholders campaign for a minimum �3-60 a share handout. Now that is the case that amounts to over one billion pounds subsidy. So the difference between us is that I say money goes to the railways, he says it should go to the investors.

LEWIS: And new figures from the Railtrack liquidator, Ernst and Young, widely reported in the weekend press, suggest that the government will have to spend three and a half billion pounds just to keep the trains running over the next few months. That seems to make it even less likely there'll be anything left for Railtrack's shareholders. Andrew Chalklen, the Chairman of the Railtrack Private Shareholders action group is in Birmingham. Andrew it couldn't be clearer could it, the government is not going to compensate you?

CHALKLEN: Well the whole point is we're not looking for compensation..

LEWIS: Well you're looking for more money...

CHALKLEN: Of course, but that's money that we are entitled to. All this non-sense about handout and subsidy is just that.

LEWIS: Go on; tell us where this money is and why you're entitled to it?

CHALKLEN: If the government has acted illegally or in any way unethically in putting the company into administration we're obviously entitled to recompense for that

LEWIS: And do you have evidence that they have?

CHALKLEN: No, but we're certainly asking government to actually provide the evidence that they haven't.

LEWIS: Now Railtrack Group, which isn't in liquidation, has got assets. Do you think that they are available to you, what would you do would you sell them off and distribute to shareholders?

CHALKLEN: That's up to Railtrack Group but obviously those assets are there and they are valuable, yes.

LEWIS: Now you met Stephen Byers earlier this week, what did he say to you?

CHALKLEN: Well he roughly said the same things as you've heard on the clip. We were encouraged, it was a positive meeting and he did agree to start talking to us and we're just arranging another meeting in middle of December and we're also going to write him some questions, hopefully he'll answer.

LEWIS: So just to be clear, Railtrack Group assets, you say that's up to Railtrack Group, well you're the shareholders. If you don't sell those off, unless you get compensation from the government for what you see as some kind of mal-administration, shareholders are not going to get anything at all are they?

CHALKLEN: Well either the Group will continue going, in which case we will own shares which will be worth something, or it will sell itself.

LEWIS: Shares are a risk aren't they, may be all of you thought this was a State based monopoly company, it couldn't fail. You were just na�ve, you've lost your money, shareholders do that from time to time.

CHALKLEN: I don't have a problem with taking risks, we own shares in a number of companies. This is different. The government put the company into administration for no obvious reason and that's why we're very angry.

LEWIS: And how do you react to Tony Blair's point that if there is a billion pounds to spend it's better to spend it on the rail service for all of us than a few hundred thousand shareholders?

CHALKLEN: That's completely irrelevant. If the government has taken the company away then it needs to pay for it.

LEWIS: Ok thanks very much for talking to us. Andrew Chalklen from Railtrack Private Shareholders action group. And Martin, worrying news this week that two million fewer people pay into a company pension than they did five years ago.

M LEWIS: Yes that's right. The Association of Consulting Actuaries carried out detailed research into the pensions market. Now this indicates that worryingly few people are saving enough money for their retirement. This is the Association's Matthew Denwell,

DENWELL: We reckon that somebody starting a pension, say at the age of 30, needs to be paying in around fifteen per cent of their pay throughout their working lifetime in order to have a decent retirement income. And if you leave it until, say, age 45, then you need to pay in a whacking twenty five to thirty per cent of pay.

M LEWIS: But it seems that of the people who do contribute the average amount is just eight per cent of salary, at best half of what's needed.

LEWIS: And there's a special Money Box programme on Monday evening looking at final salary company pensions and the growing fears that many of them will not pay the pensions they've promised. That's Pensions in Peril at 8pm here on Radio 4. And Martin bad news for people with second homes in England?

M LEWIS: Yes the government's published a consultation paper this week on doubling their Council Tax. At the moment second homes that are left empty much of the year only attract half the full rate of Council Tax but the government plans to give councils in England the power to charge them the full whack.

LEWIS: Thanks very much Martin and that's all we have time for today. You can get more information about today's stories from the BBC Actionline, 0800 044 044 , calls are free 0800 044 044 our website is www.bbc.co.uk/moneybox. Vincent Duggleby's here on Monday with our phone-in, Money Box Live, taking your questions on rights at work. Our e-mail address is [email protected]. I'm back with Money Box at the same time next week. Today the reporter was Martin Lewis, the producer was Jennifer Clarke and I'm Paul Lewis.