By Kate Holton
LONDON (Reuters) – Nearly 2.5 million households in Britain are at a “high risk” of financial vulnerability or other problems and may need support to pay their bills, according to a new study tracking the impact of the cost-of-living crisis.
The analysis is based on the number of households that are registered with the Vulnerability Registration Service (VRS) – which notifies companies of financial problems affecting their clients – and extrapolated across the country’s population.
Produced by the VRS and data firm Outra, the study predicted that as well as the 2.4 million households at “high risk,” 6.3 million were at an “elevated” risk of vulnerability, meaning they may need some support to pay their bills.
There were an estimated 28 million households in the United Kingdom in 2022.
Britain is undergoing the biggest squeeze on living standards since records began in the 1950s as wages fail to keep up with soaring inflation, and that is set to intensify as mortgages and rents increase on higher borrowing costs.
So far, corporate results and official data suggest most consumers have managed to keep up their pace of spending, with savings built up during the COVID pandemic above their 2019 levels and the unemployment rate close to its lowest since 1974.
But the extent of inflation’s toll on consumers was laid bare in official retail figures last week which showed spending in value terms in May was 17% higher than in February 2020, shortly before the pandemic hit, but volumes were down 0.8%.
Supermarkets say many customers have downgraded to buy the cheapest ranges.
The VRS and Outra survey said the greatest pressure was felt in the north west and north east of England, where four in 10 homes were deemed to be at high or elevated risk of vulnerability.
The VRS register is designed to let landlords, banks and utilities know that a household is struggling financially. It defines vulnerability as a struggle with finances, health issues or a bereavement that can spin out of control. Some 400,000 households are registered with the service.
Finance minister Jeremy Hunt met regulators on Wednesday to discuss what they were doing to prevent profiteering by companies. A new Consumer Duty comes into force on July 31, setting new standards of consumer protections, including for those deemed to be vulnerable.
The Financial Conduct Authority, a regulator which introduced the duty, said last month the number of people struggling to meet bills and credit repayments had risen by 3.1 million since May 2022 to 10.9 million.
(Reporting by Kate Holton; Editing by William Schomberg and Toby Chopra)
