Pod Insights The Martin Lewis Podcast Question Time: Cutting Credit Card Debt, Scrapping the State Pension and more… About this episode In this Question Time podcast Martin answers your questions on credit scores, scrapping the state pension, cutting the cost of credit card debt and the car finance compensation scheme, plus loads more.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
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1:44 Martin Lewis? Hello and welcome to the cunningly named The Martin Lewis Podcast. I do wonder what that's going to be about. And this is the first of our new The Martin Lewis Podcast Question Times, where each week you can send in your questions or call in, and I will do my best to answer them. And we'll put a new one of these out every Monday. In this week's question time, you're asking about: How does the credit scoring system work and could it be improved? Could the government ever scrap the state pension? How do you cut the cost of credit card debts? Is a power of attorney worth it if you're married? Is there a deadline to reclaim car finance?
2:26 Martin Lewis? What do you do with a maturing cash ISA and a host more? Want to know how it's all going to work? Me too. Let's play the theme tune.
2:49 Martin Lewis? I'm joined for this one because it's podcast only by podcast producer Matt. First question time podcast, you are the voice of the listeners. It's got to be good. Have you a good selection of questions for me?
3:01 Speaker 04 I think I've picked the best selection of questions and I'm very excited for the new pod.
3:07 Martin Lewis? Okay. And I'm very excited because this is podcast only, unlike live. So I think I can admit to those people listening to it. If you were to ask me a question that I didn't like, I could just say, don't want to do it. Move on to the next one. You would edit it out and it would be seamless. So every question I'm sure will be good.
3:23 Speaker 04 Let's hope. Shall we go into our first question?
3:26 Martin Lewis? Yeah.
3:26 Speaker 04 Okay. Dogweeze, that's their handle. Shouldn't we have a law that there's only one credit score that everyone uses? I'm fed up of different scores, different rules and criteria. It's confusing and frustrating, even if you use Experian, some banks still have their own extra criteria on top.
3:45 Martin Lewis? I mean, I'm afraid the question is based on a fundamental misunderstanding. You do not have a credit score. There is no such thing as a credit score in the UK in the way that you're talking about it. When you apply for credit, every lender will score you differently based on its own wish list of what is a profitable customer. Now, they may well use data from one of the three credit reference agencies, TransUnion, Experian or Equifax, and they will plug that data in. And some may even plug it in a bit of a similar form to the credit score that you've got. But we don't have an official number that dictates your borrowability in this country. They do in other countries, including the United States, I believe.
4:28 Martin Lewis? So what's actually happening is when you go and get your credit score, the one that you're given, where you know your number, maybe out of a thousand or out of 700, depending which agency it's with. All that is, is that particular credit reference agencies idea of how a typical lender may see you. It doesn't mean a lender will see you that way. So it's actually, your question of wouldn't it be standardized, it's so far from being standardized. Now, to an extent, I think that works because different lenders have different priorities. And if it was standardized, then you would, you know, when you're rejected by one, you'd be rejected by all, and we don't want that to happen. So I'm slightly unsure whether it's the rejection ability or the lack of transparency ability that you just want to be able to know your credit score.
5:13 Martin Lewis? My answer would be, you don't have a credit score. The credit scores that you get from the credit reference agencies are interesting. My view would be if you saw a big drop in your credit score, that is something to look at and to be concerned about. But when you see small moves in your credit score, I mean, just ignore it because it isn't a material thing. The credit score doesn't actually mean something particularly solid. And it's most important to note that credit scores don't contain the single most important piece of information that lenders use when they assess whether you are going to be able to borrow or not, which is your income. Because a whole part of deciding whether you'll be able to borrow or not is an affordability score based on your income. Well, credit reference agencies don't have your income. Firms get that from your application form data.
5:58 Martin Lewis? So the credit score you get is actually missing a whole load of other factors that could mean you're rejected, such as your affordability score. And which is more important, credit score or affordability score, depends on the product. Let me give you an example. Apply for a credit card and your credit score is pretty important. Why? Because when you apply for a credit card, they give you a credit limit. Now, your affordability score, how much you can afford to repay, will often dictate your credit limit. So poor affordability score, low credit limit. Good affordability score, high credit limit. Whether you get a credit card or not depends on your credit score, which is basically where they're trying to predict your future behaviour based on your past behaviour with credit.
6:41 Martin Lewis? If you apply for a personal loan, which is for a fixed amount, well, then your credit score is part way for dictating acceptance, but affordability will be really big. So someone may be accepted by a company for a personal loan at £3,000 and rejected at £10,000. That's not because their credit score's changed, or that the credit score that particular firm does. That's because... They've failed the affordability that it looks like they can't afford to repay a £10,000 loan. They can afford to repay a £3,000 loan. So I think we're so far away from the process in the question. We're never going to get to that type of standardisation. It would mean a massive shift in the structure of how lending works in this country.
7:23 Speaker 04 Okay, understood. Thank you very much.
7:28 Speaker 04 Another question, fee. Should we get power of attorney for each other, even though we're married?
7:34 Martin Lewis? Yes, next question. I should probably explain.
7:39 Speaker 04 Why?
7:39 Martin Lewis? Power of attorney. I mean, I often argue power of attorney is more important than a will. A will is something that dictates what would happen to your money when you die. Power of attorney dictates what would happen to your money when something happens that stops you being capable of looking after your finances for yourself. And there's also a health power of attorney, which is what happens and who can make your health choices for you if you no longer have the capacity to make those choices for yourself. And so let's just think about this, let's be blunt. If you don't have a power of attorney and you were to lose capacity, then it is incredibly difficult for somebody to take over your finances. All your money may be locked away in your bank account and they couldn't even use it to pay for the care that you needed, if you needed to pay for care.
8:23 Martin Lewis? They would have to go, in England it's called the court of protection. I cannot tell you the nightmares I hear about people applying to be, to get court of protection and to be awarded that for one of their relatives who's lost capacity because they didn't have power of attorney. Power of attorney is not perfect. I'm not going to go into details. There are problems with it and it can be a system that's abused. But it makes it so much easier in the event that if somebody loses capacity, that somebody else can take over, manage their finances and get everything sorted. I would very strongly recommend it. I suspect your question is, I mean, the fact that you're married is neither hidden nor tither here. That would affect what happens if one of you were to die, but it doesn't mean you can automatically control the other's finances. I mean, maybe if you had everything in joint products,
9:08 Martin Lewis? then you could, you might be able to work a way through without power of attorney. But in general, it's power of attorney, both for finances and health, is something I'd strongly recommend that people get to. You know, when someone loses capacity, it's incredibly difficult and stressful time. To compound on that difficulty of accessing money and financial, the financial knock on problems that would occur on the back of it isn't something you want. Oh, and I should note, I'm talking here about lasting power of attorney, the document that works and everything. You can have a sort of single standalone, different types of power of attorney here, but we're talking about the main one that people think about. So I go back to my original short answer. Yes.
9:48 Martin Lewis? Okay, Martin, I've got a caller for you. John is in Hyde. Hi, John.
9:52 Speaker 05 Hi.
9:53 Martin Lewis? Hello, John. You are our first ever caller on the Martin Lewis Podcast Question Time. Welcome on board. No pressure, but it needs to be a good question, mate, okay?
10:01 Speaker 05 I was gonna say, no pressure at all. Thanks, Martin.
10:04 Martin Lewis? What can I do for you?
10:05 Speaker 05 Yeah, so the question was, is it possible that our UK government could remove the state pension? If it was possible, how likely do you think that could be?
10:16 Martin Lewis? Okay, technical answer, yes, it is possible. So Parliament is what's called omni competent. A technical term meaning Parliament can legislate anything it chooses to do. I mean, just to take this to an absurd level, Parliament could legislate that the United States was part of Great Britain. And under UK law, the United States would be part of Great Britain. Clearly, it would be a nonsense, but it could do it. So when you ask me about possibility, I can't answer anything other than yes. Do I think it's likely? No. So what do I think is more likely? I think the most likely eventuality with the state pension is that the age at which you get it is increased.
11:00 Martin Lewis? And I certainly think by the time, you know, someone who's 18 now retires, it's probably gonna be in their 70s when they get their state pension, not in their late 60s. So I would say in terms of, it sort of, my assumption is you're getting what are the risks to the state pension? And I'm gonna give you that in order of likelihood. So I'd say that would be the most likely risk.
11:23 Speaker 05 Okay.
11:23 Martin Lewis? The next most likely risk, and I think we've moved from the first one is probable. So I think that is likely to happen. This next one, I think, is unlikely to happen, but but not improbable. If you see what I'm trying to say. So I'd say limited odds, but I wouldn't be bowled off my chair if it did happen at some point in the next 20, 30 years. How old are you, by the way, John?
11:49 Speaker 05 Fifty three.
11:50 Martin Lewis? Okay, so I still think this is unlikely by the time you're going to hit your state pension age. But maybe not impossible by the time that you got, you know, you're getting on later in life, once you're in your 80s or something. That is a means testing of the state pension. So therefore, I mean, the state pension is already taxable. Many people go, no, it isn't. It is. The state pension is already taxed. The income you get from the state pension counts towards your taxable income. Now, if you only get state pension income at the moment, it's under your personal allowance, the amount that you can earn tax free each year. So it you won't be taxed on it. But if you have state pension income and other income, both are added together and it counts as taxable income.
12:31 Martin Lewis? Means testing could occur, they just say the amount that you're going to get depends on how much other income you have. I still think it's unlikely, it would be hugely hotly contested. And I think certainly if you were a government and you wanted to do something unpopular, that would be incredibly unpopular. It would be less unpopular to get rid of the triple lock. You know what the triple lock is?
12:52 Speaker 05 I've heard of it, I'm not sure I do.
12:54 Martin Lewis? Triple lock says each year the state pension goes up with the higher of average earnings, inflation or 2.5%, whichever is higher. Which means it's guaranteed to keep rising. I certainly think before we saw means testing, we'd see the end of the triple lock, maybe go to a double lock. Or, you know, you get rid of the 2.5% minimum because it means it keeps going up and up and up, you know, almost disproportionately to everything else. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but I'm saying that's how it works. And then getting rid of the state pension in its entirety. I mean, I that would be that would be fall off a chair, gobsmacked, protest in the streets type stuff. So in terms of likelihood, I've slightly changed my original order. Most likely is increasing the age. Second most likely, and still relatively likely, is getting rid of the triple lock.
13:40 Martin Lewis? Much further down the scale is means testing and virtually unthinkable is getting rid of the state pension. But you know what? I'm saying that with a 2025 head on. Maybe you would ask me in 2040 and the whole world is different and who knows?
13:53 Speaker 05 Yeah, understood.
13:55 Martin Lewis? What's your thought?
13:56 Speaker 05 Hopefully I'll be retired by then.
13:57 Martin Lewis? I think you'll get to retirement and nothing much should change.
13:59 Speaker 05 Yeah, I think my concern, Martin, was really along the lines of, you know, obviously I've got a pension and I've contributed to a pension since I was 18.
14:07 Martin Lewis? Yeah.
14:08 Speaker 05 And I guess you make that on the best assumptions that, you know, there will be a state pension. I guess my fear was, you know, would I, at this sort of later stage in life, after we make an adjustment that I hadn't really planned for?
14:21 Martin Lewis? I think that is unlikely.
14:24 Speaker 05 Unlikely, yeah.
14:25 Martin Lewis? Very, very, very unlikely. And I would suggest that most people planned for the state pension to continue to be there in the form that it is currently, maybe with the odd little bit of tweaks at the sides. But for it to be there, and that's all we can do. Simple as that. Thank you so much for your call. Thank you for being our first caller.
14:43 Speaker 05 No, thank you, Phil.
14:44 Martin Lewis? Thanks, John.
14:45 Speaker 05 No, no, thanks, Martin.
14:46 Martin Lewis? Cheers, mate. Now, just to say, I do hope you're enjoying this, our first of the new The Martin Lewis Podcast Question Times. If you would like to suggest a question for a future Question Time, then just email martinlewispodcast, and Martin is with an I, I'm not the former newsreader, [email protected] and they will all go to producer Matt, who will have to filter them through. And also, we're looking for some successes of the week. What I'd really like to do in future podcasts is to try and do some successes of people who've listened to some of the information, acted on it and saved money and can inspire others with their stories. So do get in touch with your successes, either from listening to this podcast or the normal
15:29 Martin Lewis? podcast or any other work I do, but just don't tell the BBC that. And it should all be good.
15:37 Speaker 04 Prakash has asked, "Credit cards are piling up and interest is horrendous. How could I move to clear these debts and start saving for the future?"
15:47 Martin Lewis? Okay, look, it's never particularly easy and you have to work out whether you want to do this inside the system or outside the system. So I'm going to start by giving you my three questions that will help you decide. So, question number one, are you able to meet at least the minimum repayments on your debt? Question number two, are your debts bigger, and I'm talking not counting student loan or mortgage, are your debts bigger than a year's after-tax salary? Question number three, are you having anxiety or struggling to sleep over your debts? If you can't afford the minimum repayments, or they're bigger than a year's after-tax
16:29 Martin Lewis? salary, or you're having anxiety or mental health issues over your debts, then I would opt out of the system and I'd go and get help from a non-profit debt counselling agency like Citizens Advice, National Debt Line, Step Change, Christians Against Poverty. If however it's not that bad and it's just annoying and you're paying the interest each month, then you may want to try sticking within the system. When you go outside the system, you're effectively putting your hands up and saying, "I want it to be sorted, I want a debt management plan" or some other form like that. "I accept that I'm going to struggle to get borrowing in the next few years because of it." If you don't want to do that, then the first thing you would look at doing is whether you can do a balance transfer.
17:11 Martin Lewis? A balance transfer is when you get a new card that pays off debts on old cards for you, so you now owe the new card money, but hopefully at 0% interest. And you can currently get up to 34 months 0% interest balance transfer cards. So effectively, you're going to shift the debt from one card to another, but it's now interest-free, which means... More of your repayments clear the actual debt and this can save you hundreds or thousands of pounds in interest repayments alone. It's absolutely worth doing. The difficulty is being accepted for a card. So make sure you go onto a site that has an eligibility calculator for balance transfers that will compare all the top cards on the market and tell you which ones you're most likely to be accepted for.
17:55 Martin Lewis? So you can hone in on the easiest form of acceptance. You then want to move your most expensive debts, the ones with the highest APR, onto the 0% card. If you've got more debts after you've filled up the 0% card, then once that's all done, apply for another 0% card. It's also worth looking at the cards you currently have. Some existing credit cards, if you're not up to the credit limit, may allow you to move debt from other cards onto them at a cheap rate. So you might get a 0% offer from your existing card. So you could move debt from another card onto that. And even if they don't, let's say you have two credit cards and one is at 18.9% interest and one is at 22.9% interest. Well, if there's room on the 18.9% interest card, because it's a lower interest rate,
18:38 Martin Lewis? see if you can shift any of the debt from the highest interest rate card onto the lower card. So that's, you know, it's all about credit card shuffling and moving debt around to where it's cheapest. Then you focus your repayments on the highest APR card. That's the one that's most expensive. That's the one where the debt is building up more and more and more. So you want to get rid of that quickly, do minimum repayments on everything other than the one that's got the highest interest rate. And then as soon as that highest interest rate card has gone, you move to the second highest interest rate card. Work through that, put yourself on a tight budget, do a money makeover on every other product that you have to see, could I do the get the same for less? Do I really need this? Go that cold turkey on your spending for a year or two.
19:20 Martin Lewis? Get rid of the debt, move into the savings world, the clouds start to disappear, the sun comes out and life gets a bit easier. I know in reality, it's never quite that easy, but that's the type of way that you should be thinking and I wish you the best of luck with it.
19:36 Martin Lewis? Right, back to Matt. What other questions have you got?
19:39 Speaker 04 Okay, let's ask you a question from Lucy. Not a question, she said, but she was walking down the street when she heard one neighbour shout to another, "Have you booked your travel insurance yet? Martin Lewis says you must do it straight away." See, Martin, people are listening.
19:56 Martin Lewis? Well, I'm very glad they are and hopefully some people are listening to this podcast or I'm just talking into the air and so are you. Yep, that's the ASAB rule. When you book a holiday, get your travel insurance ASAB, as soon as you book. Because half the point of travel insurance is to cover you in case something happens before you go away that stops you going away. So the ASAB rule is really important. It's very simple on a single trip policy. If you're just buying a policy to cover a single trip, you go to the travel insurer, you put in the dates of your holiday, even if that's in four months' time, but you pay for the policy now. That means you have a policy in place, even though the date you've given is for a holiday in four months' time. If you have annual travel insurance, you want to have a policy in place that's active
20:41 Martin Lewis? until and including the end of your holiday. So why do I stress it that way? Well, let's say you're going on holiday next April and your annual travel insurance stops in January. You want to get yourself a policy that covers you from January onwards in place, as soon as you possibly can really, to stop any issues just in case you won't be able to go on holiday in advance. That wasn't a question, but I liked it anyway.
21:07 Martin Lewis? Okay, Matt, we've probably got time for a couple more. What have you got?
21:10 Speaker 04 I've got one that's actually quite topical. There's two actually. I'm going to ask them together because they're quite similar. So Sally is asking, "Is there a deadline for claiming compensation through historical car finance agreements? And what if I've not retained the information necessary to claim them?" And Alec is also asking, "When can people start expecting compensation for car finance?"
21:32 Martin Lewis? There's absolutely no deadline for claiming. We are still in the regulator is deciding what will happen stage. We're hoping that a consultation will come out in October. It will probably take time to go through that consultation and payouts are not expected until sometime in 2026. When in 26 depends on exactly what the regulator will decide to do. Now, the regulator suggesting over 14 million people may well get a payout, primarily people who had a discretionary commission arrangement. A discretionary commission arrangement is where the broker or car dealer could charge you more interest and get more commission on the back of it. And if they did that without telling you and they never normally told you, then you
22:17 Martin Lewis? had a discretionary commission arrangement and you are likely going to be entitled to some money back. The only way to know if you had a discretionary commission arrangement, because it was done without telling you, is to put in a complaint and ask the car finance firm if you had one. Do not use a claims management firm for doing that. The regulator says if you feel that that's the situation, you might want to put in a complaint now. There are free tools online that will do that for you without any problem. So don't need to pay anybody, even on a no win, no fee basis to do that. We don't yet know, and this is what will, the timing is all about, whether it will be an automatic payout system where you could opt out of being paid out and firms will just write you and say, here's the money, or you will have to opt in. So they'll write and say, we think you're owed, do you want to put in a complaint?
23:02 Martin Lewis? The second version will be quicker, so I suspect that's the one they'll go for, but I haven't got a clue. We're not going to hear about this until the end of the year. But no, there are no deadlines in place. You have not missed out. This is still in play and I would go and do a little bit more reading on it. And maybe if you think it's you, because you had a higher purchase or PCP deal between 2007 and January 2021, then you might want to put in. I'm just thinking of the exact phrase of your question. You asked me, is there a deadline? There is no deadline in place at the moment, but almost certainly when the regulator announces what's happening, it will put a deadline in place. But that's a future deadline. It's not a past deadline, so it's not one you need to worry about right now. But we don't know what it is right now. You know, they might say you've got a year to claim or something, but we're not at that
23:47 Martin Lewis? point where they've even set the deadline yet.
23:53 Speaker 04 Right, Martin, a bit of a random one. Paul wants to know pineapple on pizza, yes or no?
24:02 Martin Lewis? Personally, no, but I would defend anybody else's right to eat food in any way they want. And if they want to ruin their pizza by putting pineapple on it, then that's a perfectly legitimate decision for them to do. Personally, I was surprised the other day to learn that if I have a bowl of barbecued baked beans and I just put them in a bowl and I eat them a bit like soup, that that is apparently unusual. Well, I don't want the toast, I don't want the carbs, but you know what? If I want to eat my baked beans that way, I will eat my baked beans that way. And if some people want to take that overly acidic fruit, which is very nice when it's fresh and you're eating it, but should never be cooked and put in a savoury dish, but if they want to do that, well, I would defend my right not to eat it, I would defend their right to put pineapple on pizza any day.
24:47 Martin Lewis? Next question, move on.
24:49 Speaker 04 I'm learning so much about you.
24:53 Speaker 04 Karen is asking, can you explain the ISA rules? My fixed rate ISA has matured and I've already got another fixed rate for this tax year. Where can I put the matured ISA? It's currently in a cash ISA.
25:06 Martin Lewis? Okay, so I think what that question means, I can explain the ISA rules, but I'm not going to go into the big ISA rules. I think you want the specifics on this question. So you have opened a new cash ISA for this tax year, but you have a cash ISA you set up in the previous tax year that's going to mature. And it sounds to me like you're a bit worried because you can only put £20,000 in a cash ISA per tax year, what happens? The important thing to understand is the rules on ISAs are about putting new money in. You are only allowed to put £20,000 of new money in per tax year. But once money is in an ISA, unless you take it out of the ISA status, it stays tax-free year after year. So what do I mean?
25:50 Martin Lewis? Your fixed rate cash ISA that has matured and has now probably gone into an easy access cash ISA is still a cash ISA. And you can move that to a different provider and that does not count as putting new money in a cash ISA because it's money that you already have within the ISA wrapper. So what you need to do now is find yourself an ISA that you like, the tax-free ISA. Accepts transfers in, which the vast majority do. I mean, I couldn't make it easier. Find an ISA that you like and then check whether it accepts transfers in because 95% of them, made up statistic, but it's about that scale, I would guess. 95% of them will allow you to transfer ISAs in. And whether that's a new fixed rate or a new easy access, as long as it's paying a good rate, and there are some great sources out there, when you can look at the best current paying current cash ISAs.
26:36 Martin Lewis? You apply for the new cash ISA. You don't put any money in it. You just fill in as you're filling it in. There will be a bit on the form that says, transfer in. You fill in the details of your existing cash ISA and then the new provider will move that money across for you. It's not using any of your £20,000 of lambens because that money was already in cash ISAs. So you can do that absolutely no problem alongside the new cash ISA that you've already opened for this tax year.
27:03 Martin Lewis? And that is it for this, the first Martin Lewis podcast question time. I do hope you've enjoyed it. If you've any questions you want to ask or any feedback on how you think we can improve it and make it even better, and do be nice, we don't want to upset podcast producer Matt, he'll be reading them, then get in touch at [email protected] . And if you haven't already subscribed, well, why not do so? Then you'll get instant notification and when we put out a new one of these or a new one of the normal podcast, we hope to be doing two a week. Aren't you lucky? I should say so.
27:53 Speaker 06 Martin Lewis is the founder of moneysavingexpert.com. But of course, other consumer and price comparison websites are available. You can get in touch with Martin's podcast production team by emailing [email protected] . The offers and rates mentioned in the podcast are correct at the time of recording. However, if you are listening on demand, it's worth double checking as details can date. Remember to subscribe on BBC Sounds and leave us a review however you listen.
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29:38 Speaker 00 During the COVID-19 pandemic, Carby Lame was laid off from his job at a factory in Italy.
29:44 Speaker 07 He began posting videos on TikTok, and in just a few short years, he's become the platform's most-followed user with over 160 million followers.
29:52 Speaker 00 As well as the face of major luxury brands and even a judge on Italy's Got Talent.
29:57 Speaker 07 On Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service, we're exploring the rise of billionaire influencer Carby Lame.
30:02 Speaker 00 Listen on bbc.com, the BBC app, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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