The first quarter of 2007 saw 30,075 people go bust, an increase in personal insolvencies of 23.9% on the same period one year ago, according to figures released today by the Insolvency Service. Whilst bankruptcies rose 10% to 16,842, Individual Voluntary Arrangements accelerated by 47.6% over the past 12 months to 13,233.

December 2007 anne robinson ofuswitch.com commenting on the fact that Britons are spending 53% of their earnings on paying of debt.

Commenting on the figures, Damon Gibbons - Chair of Debt on our Doorstep - said:

"That over 30,000 households in a single three month period has had to resort to extreme measures and declare themselves insolvent reflects a severe indebtedness problem in this country.

1.3 trillion pounds of Debt in Great Britain October 2007.

2008 record levels of debt are expected

As you may have read elsewhere, Citizens' Advice has reported another huge increase in debt-related problems this year. Debt enquiries have gone up 20% to 1.7m

Credit card lending went to £310 million in September the biggest increase in 18 months, bringing total owed on plastic to a staggering £54 billion.

A recent report by shelter found that one million people paid their mortgage or rent with a credit card in the past year.

The council of mortgage lenders has predicted that home repossessions will increase to 30,000 this year a rise of 75 per cent on 2006.

There have been 125 separate rate and fee increases in the past two months some credit cards raising rates by 5% in a single day blaming market conditions aka credit crunch = banks not trusting banks.

Also, over the past ten years, debt problems have doubled.

The last quarter has seen 26,000 new Ivas set up.

Citizens advice are struggling to cope with nearly 6000 cases a day of people in debt over fifty per cent of its work load.

We should remember that every county court judgment, insolvency, and repossessions increases the market for high cost credit as people are excluded from mainstream financial services.

The challenge for Government should be to ensure that people going insolvent are given a way back into the financial services mainstream as soon as possible.