Mortgage Charter

Justin Madders Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

We will be making big efforts to sign up any remaining lenders who have not subscribed to the charter. To reach a level of 85% over a period of four days is a good start, but we would love to get the other 15% on board. I should add that if they are not on board, that will make their mortgage offer less competitive from the viewpoint of the many thousands of families who will want to arrange their new mortgage with a lender who makes an effort to reduce the anxiety they may feel.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

My constituents who are facing eye-watering increases in their mortgage repayments are asking—as have other Members—how they can square those increases with the increased profits that the banks and building societies are making, and are also asking whether this pain is for any gain. Inflation has not fallen in the way that the Government hoped. Is the current mortgage market not fundamentally different from that of the early 1990s, when we last had spiralling interest rates, and is this tool not merely hammering a group of people rather than tackling the core problem? Does the Chancellor believe there is an element of truth in that, and does he believe that there are other tools at his disposal to get inflation down?

[Jeremy Hunt]

The hon. Gentleman is entirely right to say that the mortgage market has changed, given that 85% of deals now involve a fixed-rate element, but I still think that interest rates are the most effective tool. Other countries that have used them are seeing their inflation starting to fall, and I would expect it to do so here.