MSE Leaders' Debate 2010 PM candidates answer your MoneySaving questions

The recent rises in imported oil prices have driven up petrol prices. That’s why we decided in the Budget not to press ahead with the full planned rise in fuel duty and, instead, to stagger it over a longer period. What we have to do is balance the environmental effects and the impact on people’s finances with the revenue raised. So we’ve made sure fuel duty has not risen as fast as inflation over the last decade.

There’s been a lot of pain at the petrol pump over the last few years and when I’ve filled my car up I’ve been confronted with some frankly astronomic bills. Labour have hit motorists hard – and they are planning to make things even worse by increasing fuel duty by a further 7p over the next four years. If you add that to the cheap way they have hammered people with stealth taxes and retrospective VED hikes, then it’s clear that we’ve got to do things very differently and make life easier for motorists facing these sorts of sky-high bills.

I’m convinced we can have a better, a fairer, and a more honest approach to fuel duty – and with a fair fuel stabiliser, that’s exactly what motorists will get. It’s simple: when oil prices rise, fuel duty will fall, and vice versa. So instead of the erratic and unpredictable situation we’ve got right now as we’re battered about by the global oil markets, with our plan, prices at the pump would be more consistent and we can help families by cutting petrol taxes when global prices rise. That’s the kind of real and responsible difference a Conservative government would bring about and if we win this election we’re going to start consultations on this straightaway.

One of the peculiar things about our economy is just how vulnerable we are to fluctuating oil prices. But we do somehow have to hold down the growth in traffic (predicted to rise 30% between 2000 to 2015) and reduce carbon emissions. I certainly think there’s no need to impose a fuel duty escalator when prices are already soaring; that just adds insult to injury for people who need to use their cars.

There are many people in remote and rural areas, in particular, for whom a car is completely essential – and I want to see us take up an option we have under EU law to give a rebate to those people. And I want to invest more in public transport – especially rail – to give more people a realistic option to leave the car at home. It’s not fair to price people out of their cars when there’s no alternative.

The SNP have long campaigned for a fuel duty regulator - a financial mechanism which would stablise fuel prices by automatically putting duty up when oil prices were low but taking it down when oil prices were high. In many parts of Scotland, a car is a necessity not a luxury so preventing fuel price spikes is a vital part of helping Scottish families budget.

We know fuel prices are high, and we have called for a fuel duty regulator to keep the cost of fuel down, because we know our rural communities depend on this method of transport. Plaid Cymru recognises the need for a mechanism to mitigate the effects of major fluctuations in fuel prices and calls for a reduction in road-fuel duty in the face of the steep increase in VAT receipts.

Together with the Scottish National Party we put forward a motion to amend the Finance Bill in 2008 to create a Fuel Duty Regulator, but unfortunately it was voted down by Labour in Westminster. Only two Conservative MPs, and no Liberal Democrats turned up to vote.

We will make the energy market more competitive and better for consumers by opening it up to new suppliers and increasing downward pressure on prices. We will legislate for a new statutory code of energy consumer rights so that everyone gets a clear and transparent bill, with information on every bill about the cheapest available tariffs. The code will also give the Ombudsman the power to force suppliers which break the rules to give compensation to consumers.

We will use our new Energy Act to bring in more discounted tariffs for vulnerable customers, including around one million pensioner households who will have at least £100 off their annual energy bill. And the Post Office will help anyone to take advantage of cheaper direct debit tariffs with their new budgeting account.

We will make the energy companies help fund insulation, so that all lofts and cavity walls are insulated by 2015. By 2020 every home will also have a smart meter to help control energy use and enable cheaper tariffs. For people living in rented housing we will regulate landlords so that accommodation is properly insulated. And we will legislate to bring in ‘Pay As You Save’ financing schemes so that you can pay for home energy improvements from the savings you generate on energy bills.

High energy bills are a massive problem for millions of people and Labour have not done enough to help bring them down. Not only is the average fuel bill now more than £1,000 a year, but one in five families are living in fuel poverty; with pensioners, it’s almost one in three. So we need a new approach, and a Conservative government would start by giving every household in Britain a Green Deal – the right to have home energy efficiency improvements worth up to £6,500 at no upfront cost.

It works like this: every household will be given an independent assessment of what improvements could be made to their homes to save energy and money. They would then get an entitlement worth up to £6,500 to have those improvements carried out – with more for hard to treat homes. The finance would be provided by banks and the commercial sector, and then the householder can choose from a number of retailers, energy providers, social enterprises and local authorities who will carry out the work. The banks will get their money back by taking a slice of the savings made in the homeowner’s electricity bills. The rest of the saving goes straight into the homeowner’s pocket.

It’s a really exciting policy because everybody wins. Families win, because their homes will be more efficient, they will be warmer in the winter, and above all their energy bills will come down – with a typical home seeing around £20 a month knocked off its energy bills. Businesses win, because we are throwing up open a whole new energy efficiency market, worth at least £2.5 billion a year and creating around 70,000 new skilled jobs. And of course our Green Deal will help the environment and save millions of tonnes of carbon by encouraging families to be more energy efficient. Getting this scheme started is a big priority for me and it would be a key part of my first Queen’s Speech as Prime Minister. It’s another sign of how if you vote blue, we can go green, save money, and get the economy moving, together.

It is crazy that energy companies charge you less for your energy the more you use. It means a pensioner heating one room pays more per unit than a millionaire heating a mansion. We believe people who use less should pay less, so we are determined to change bills so that the first units are cheapest. We also want proper social tariffs – that are at least equal to the lowest price available – for all vulnerable customers (those on means tested benefits) no matter how they choose to pay.

And of course, the best way of cutting people’s energy bills is to help them save energy. So we will launch a ten-year programme of home insulation, with a home energy improvement package of up to £10,000 per home, paid for by the savings from lower energy bills. We will also run a one-year ‘eco-cashback’ scheme to give people £400 towards energy efficient home improvements – to help kick-start the economy in our first year in office.

SNP Energy Spokesman, Mike Weir, has long championed lower energy prices for consumers. In the next Westminster Parliament, SNP MPs will call on the UK Government to use the powers it has to force energy companies to bring down prices in line with wholesale costs.

We note with concern that fuel poverty is rising sharply in Wales. Around 320,000 households in Wales, a quarter of all households, experience fuel poverty. The average energy bill is now more than double the average bill of five years ago, and in Wales, consumers pay approximately 5% more than the rest of the UK. This is a deplorable situation when energy companies’ profits are at a record high.

Plaid Cymru calls for a cap on increases in energy prices, a windfall tax on energy companies to help pay for grants for insulation for lower income families, a reduction in VAT on energy fuels and the introduction of a fuel price stabilisation mechanism to protect the vulnerable. We also want to see the widening of criteria for the Winter Fuel Allowance and the introduction of social tariffs on energy products to help more low-income groups.

We have raised the annual limit for ISAs to £10,200 and we are committed to raising the limit in line with inflation. We will also make it easier to switch ISAs by bringing in single, transferable account numbers. For pensioners, the amount of savings they can have and still get the Pension Credit will be increased from £6,000 to £10,000.

Our new Savings Gateway account for people on lower incomes will be available to over eight million families from this July. This gives savers an extra 50p for each £1 they save, up to a limit of £300. To encourage savings among young adults, we will also offer a matched savings account for basic-rate taxpayers aged 18-30.

We will protect – not cut – the Child Trust Fund – which is already giving 4.8 million children a free nest egg for the future. We will give an additional £100 a year to the Child Trust Funds of all disabled children.

One of the worst things about Labour’s recession has been the way that many of the people who were hit hardest were those who had done least to bring the crisis about. As I said last year, savers and pensioners have been the innocent victims of this downturn. We need to change all this and have a government which says very clearly: if you save for your retirement, we will support you. If you work hard and want to pass something on to your children, we’re on your side.

A key part of that is about sending the right signals to restore our savings culture and encourage people to save more for retirement. So we will restore the link between the basic state pension and average earnings – a change made possible because we will ask people to retire a year later, starting with men from 2016 and women from 2020. Over the longer term, we will also reverse the effects on pension savers of Gordon Brown’s disastrous tax raid on pension funds. What’s more, by raising the Inheritance Tax threshold to £1 million, we can reward aspiration and support people who want to pass something onto their children. And our Home Protection Scheme will end the scandal of people who have saved for their retirement having to sell their homes to fund long-term care. It’s simple: if you put aside £8,000 when you are 65, you will have the guarantee that your home will be there for your children, because you’ve done the right thing.

It’s hard to balance the needs of businesses and borrowers with those of savers. We now have such low interest rates that it is causing problems for savers, especially retired people. There are several things we can do: first, raise the income tax threshold to £10,000 a year, so that those who rely on their savings income lose less in tax. We will use a new Infrastructure Bank to open government bonds to retail investors more easily, allowing people to put their money into improving Britain while still getting a good return (We’d do this through NS&I).

We will allow people to be more flexible in saving for their retirement – allowing people to access their pension lump sum early if they choose, to help stave off a financial crisis like repossession for example. We will end compulsory annuitisation, so you don’t have to buy an annuity at 75 but whenever you choose. And we want to look at the rules that imply you get a huge rate of interest on your savings when they assess you for things like pension credit, so people aren’t penalised for planning for their retirement.

As the banking sector recovered after the financial crisis, it became increasingly clear that interest rates on savings accounts were remaining low. SNP Treasury Spokesman Stewart Hosie has called on the UK Government to use its influence as a major bank shareholder to exert influence and return interest rates to a level which makes saving worthwhile.

We call for a state sponsored pension savings scheme, open to all those in work, including the self-employed and part time workers. We do not support the means-testing of benefits which is unfair and deprives people of their savings. Plaid Cymru calls for the founding of a Welsh People’s Bank on the model of local savings banks to provide savings and current accounts to those who would not otherwise have access.

Plaid Cymru believes in redistributive economic policies aimed at helping low earners, the unemployed and their families to have an adequate standard of living. We would introduce a new tax rate of 50% on those earning over £100,000. In order to help poorer families, Plaid would also raise the personal tax allowance by £1,000. This would take 1 million people on low incomes out of the income tax net altogether, and would allow them to save more if they so wish.

The regulator has said that bank charges have halved on average since 2007. But we think the banks must move further and faster to treat consumers more fairly. So we will legislate to impose fair charges if progress on this is not good enough.

If re-elected we will bring back – as quickly as possible – our legislation to give consumers a right to take collective legal action against the banks. The Conservatives blocked this in the last week of Parliament in April.

And we will make it easier for everyone to switch their accounts to take advantage of better deals. We’ll do this by bringing in portable account numbers for everyone, which will be transferable like your mobile phone number, to take the hassle out of switching.

Martin Lewis and I were in touch about this last year when the Office of Fair Trading was carrying out its investigation. Like Martin and many Money Saving Expert subscribers, I thought the Supreme Court ruling in December was a huge blow for consumers and we called for the OFT to look at other ways of getting a fair deal for consumers.

For me, this issue highlights precisely why we need a new, powerful consumer champion to stop these sorts of problems from arising and fight even harder for consumers when they do. Our proposed Consumer Protection Agency would provide this kind of protection. It would take on the OFT’s powers for regulation and be given a clear mandate from government to protect consumers and punish banks who do the wrong thing. So for example, it would require far more transparency over bank charges, it will name and shame banks that break the rules and it will levy significantly larger fines that we have seen in the past.

What’s more, we have also called for a competition review of the banking sector, including a close examination of bank charges. We need much more fairness and transparency when it comes to these issues, and a Conservative government would work to bring that about.

It really is a scandal. The UK banks only exist because they have been bailed out by British taxpayers, yet financial service companies are still ripping people off – I don’t think that’s putting it too strongly. It means that customers who slip into minor difficulties can see mountains of debts pile up. Legal action against the banks hasn’t worked, so we will legislate to end unfair bank charges on unauthorised overdrafts, bounced cheques, or failed direct debits.

Any charges really have to relate to what these mistakes actually cost the banks (I’d like a similar rule for transaction charges like credit cards to crack down on unscrupulous companies like Ryanair who seem to charge you just for breathing!). As for charges from the past, while it’s usually a very bad idea to pass retrospective legislation – I believe the banks have a moral obligation to pay them back. The idea that chief executives taking home millions of pounds a year can begrudge people struggling to get by a few hundred pounds simply beggars belief.

The SNP group at Westminster believe that services offered by the Post Office network should be extended to include banking services. By creating this 'Postbank' network, we believe the needs of low earners and vulnerable consumers can be better met.

We will support vulnerable consumers through the process of reclaiming money. In addition, Post Offices provide an invaluable community service and are essential to building sustainable communities in Wales. We believe that, as mentioned above, these community hubs could help low income and vulnerable customers. Plaid will continue its strong campaign against the proposed closures. We will explore ways in which Post Offices might better be used by local authorities and businesses to provide other services, such as a location for free ATMs and facilities to pay council tax on the premises.

We will do all we can to keep interest rates low. We have put special arrangements in place to keep mortgages flowing and we have introduced new support for first time buyers during the recession, as well as a wide range of extra help for anyone struggling to keep up with their payments.

I absolutely understand your concern about this issue, and this is one of the reasons why we have made tackling the deficit such a big priority. Unless we start cutting the deficit this year, confidence in the economy will be undermined, our credit rating could be downgraded, and interest rates – and mortgage rates – will rise. That would be a disaster for the people concerned and a huge setback to our recovery. And as we’ve been warning, it’s hard to see how a hung Parliament would stop this from happening.

Another thing we want to do to stop people losing their homes is to prevent lenders from forcing families to sell their homes in order to pay off credit card debts. If we win this election, we will prevent lenders from forcing families to sell their homes in order to pay off credit card bills, or other unsecured debts, of less than £25,000. Families, who never realised their home was a risk when they took out the credit card, should not be forced out of their homes by aggressive lenders.

There’s no doubt that many people are already struggling with their repayments - 46,000 homes were repossessed last year, the highest level for 14 years. And you’re completely right that this could get far worse if interest rates rise to the levels you suggest. We need to encourage people to pay off what they can as quickly as they can (our plans to cut income tax by £700 for most people by raising the tax threshold to £10,000 will mean more people can afford to do this), and regulate the supply of mortgages more effectively so bubbles are never created again.

But there is also more we must do to protect homeowners. We will give the courts the power to enforce a statutory Code of Practice so mortgage lenders have to offer every alternative to homeowners before they take back their homes. We want to make sure that repossession is an absolute last resort. It is true that other parties are suggesting stronger guidance, but we think there’s no point in doing this unless it is legally enforceable.

The SNP will encourage more competition in the market. The more products available, the greater the choice to consumer regardless of LTV.

Housing is a devolved area of competence in Wales. Wales was the first country in the UK to instigate a Mortgage Rescue Scheme. So far £5m has been allocated for 2010/11 and consideration is being given to further funding during that year. Until March 2010, 305 applications have been approved which has helped prevent 609 adults and 319 children from becoming homeless.

Our HomeBuy Direct is a really popular scheme which the Lib Dems would scale back – we will keep it. This has already helped 10,000 first time buyers. It provides equity loans to help people who can afford a mortgage but struggle to find the levels of deposit needed to buy their home.

I’ve lost count of all the times over the last few years that young people have come to see me in my constituency surgeries and said “just look at my salary, just look at the cost of buying a house – how on earth will I ever own my own home?” Under Labour we have had ten Housing Acts and nine Housing Ministers – but home ownership is now at its lowest rate for nearly twenty years and the number of first-time buyers is at its lowest rate since modern records began. In fact, the average age of a first time buyer is now 36.

And what’s Labour’s response to all of this? The Labour Housing Minister gives a speech saying it doesn’t really matter at all: “home ownership had been dropping since 2005”, he says, “and I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing”. That tells us everything we need to know about this government. But I want everyone to achieve their dream of owning their own home, so if we win this election, we’re going to build a new property-owning democracy – and we’ll start by permanently raising the stamp duty threshold to £250,000 for first-time buyers. This means that nine out of ten first-time buyers will pay no tax at all on their first home purchase, helping everyone to get their foot on the housing ladder.

Another idea we have, which I’m very excited about, is our plan to create new Local Housing Trusts. The idea is that local communities in villages and towns would be able to come together and form a new kind of community-led body which will have special planning powers to develop local homes for local people, provided there is strong community backing. Local Housing Trusts will allow communities to provide affordable homes specifically for local people in their own area. This might include offering below-market rate housing to local people, so that everyone who was brought up in the community has a much better chance of buying a home in that area too.

It would be up to the Local Housing Trust to decide what kind of housing they want – it could be anything from sheltered housing for elderly local residents to low cost starter homes for young people in the area. But the crucial thing is that benefits of development will remain in the community. So any affordable housing that is sold at below market rates to local residents could not be sold on to the open market – but only back to the Trust so that this great source of local housing stays within the control of the local community.

The government stoked up the housing bubble to create false growth in our economy. They refused to heed Vince Cable’s warnings about this bubble and rejected his proposal to include house price inflation in the Bank of England’s targets in order to prevent homes becoming so unaffordable. We are all paying the price for this mistake, and yet the government is still trying to lever up prices. In a fair society, everyone should be able to afford somewhere decent to live – not necessarily to buy, of course, but at least to rent. Out of control house prices has led to a real crisis with 1.8 million families on the waiting list for a home and so many young people unable even to dream about buying a home of their own. We need to manage house prices very carefully so they become more affordable but without a crash that could be devastating. In my view, a home is a home, not a speculative investment.

There are specific things we can do to help first time buyers: Liberal Democrats have already been rolling out some innovations, especially in rural areas, where people find it especially hard to get onto the housing ladder. There’s the Home on the Farm scheme, started by my colleague Tim Farron, which encourages farmers to convert existing buildings into affordable housing. There are Equity Mortgages, like the ones we started in South Shropshire, where the council owns a share of the home, which means they can be sold at the cost of building. We also need to do something about empty buildings, which are not just a waste – they are a blight on the local community, and attract crime and anti-social behaviour. My plan is to give the people who own empty homes a grant or cheap loan to renovate them so they can be used again. This is cheaper, quicker and greener than building new. We also urgently need to look at changing public sector borrowing rules so that councils are allowed to borrow against their trading income and build more council housing again.

The SNP Scottish Government has introduced Low-cost Initiative for First Time buyers (LIFT) - a shared equity scheme to help households get onto the housing ladder. The Scottish Government website also contains practical information to assist first time buyers choose the best option for them.

Plaid Cymru understands the difficulties that first-time buyers face in getting onto the first rung of the housing ladder. To address this, Plaid calls for a moratorium on stamp duty for first-time buyers.

We have imposed new rules on credit card companies to end the sharp practices which sting so many credit card holders. When we did this we took into account the views of MoneySavingExpert. For example, they must change how your repayments are allocated to your credit card debt so the most expensive part of the debt is paid off first. This will help put hundreds of millions of pounds a year back into your pockets and purses.

We will also give you a statutory right to reject interest rate increases, so that you can keep paying off your old debt at the old rate. And we will ban companies from hiking up the interest rates they charge you - or increasing your credit limit without being asked - if you are struggling to make ends meet. We have already banned credit card cheques.

This is a real problem, and the Consumer Protection Agency which I mentioned just above, would take make sure that consumers are given much clearer information on credit card bills and advertising. What’s more, we will introduce new legislation requiring all credit card statements and adverts to contain standardised information about borrowing costs. This will include exactly how much the credit will cost if only minimum repayments are made every month – and how long it will take to repay. Millions of credit card users will benefit from this clearer information, which will help protect consumers and encourage more responsible borrowing, while also delivering legislative simplification and greater legal certainty for the financial sector.

Another important step we will take is to introduce a cap on excessive store card interest rates. The CPA will be given new powers to define “excessive”, and based on earlier OFT findings, we expect this could apply to store cards with interest rates of 25 per cent and over. We also want to see a new seven-day cooling off period for store cards, so that if a consumer signs up for a store card, the credit cannot be used for seven days. This will give consumers a bit of breathing space and time to think about whether other forms of credit, such as an overdraft extension or conventional loan, might be less risky.

Finally, a Conservative government would encourage consumers themselves to be more responsible about their personal finances, including by launching Britain’s first free national financial advice service. This will provide impartial and independent guidance on financial issues to people, including by personal meetings, telephone advisers and online information. This national financial advice service will be rolled out across Britain within twelve months of a Conservative government coming to office, and it will be funded by a new social responsibility levy on the financial services sector.

We urgently need to tackle the credit card industry, which has become extortionate and are pushing people further into debt. Average rates are now at 18.8 per cent – in a period of incredibly low interest rates – and some people have to pay 40 or 50 per cent APR.

It is good news that providers are now balancing repayments more fairly against different debts at different interest levels – the practice of paying off the low cost debts first while allowing high interest borrowing to pile up was irresponsible. Of course, credit and store card providers have to be able to change their rates to reflect the cost of borrowing. But we will put a maximum cap on interest rates both for credit cards and store cards, agreed through consultation.

Unsecured debt is a major problem in Scotland with some studies suggesting it is over a third higher north of the border than it is in the rest of the UK. SNP MPs have joined with SNP MSPs in the Scottish Parliament to call on a cap for commercial lending. By putting a ceiling on commercial lending rates, we can help hard pushed families better manage their debt.

We have no specific policy on this.

We want an all-party commission to come up with proposals on council funding, including on updating the Council Tax bands. We will also review the role of Ofwat, the water regulator, to ensure customers are getting a fair deal and their voice is heard when prices are being set.

I know that council tax bandings are a big Moneysavingexpert campaign. Conservatives have been leading the way in highlighting how the Government’s tax inspectors, the Valuation Office Agency, have been covering up errors to save money and save face. Our Parliamentary scrutiny has revealed how Labour Ministers have the ability to correct these errors, but they’ve chosen to sit on their hands. We’ve pledged a full and open investigation to restore confidence in the system.

But a wholesale revaluation isn’t needed to fix this, and would make things worse for many people. The 2005 council tax revaluation in Wales saw four times as many homes move up one or more bands as down. That revaluation was also littered with errors –bands are still being retrospectively corrected after the revaluation. In Northern Ireland, Labour Ministers under direct rule have introduced an intrusive house price tax which directly penalises people for home improvements. We know that Labour have been preparing for some form of property tax revaluation after the election, building a Big Brother database of every home in England. Conservatives are pledging to scrap these revaluation plans.

What’s more, a Conservative government will work with councils to freeze council tax for two years, funded by additional central funding by cutting spending on government spin and consultants. And we’ll give local residents a new power to veto high council tax rises, to provide a direct democratic check and balance to protect the interests of local taxpayers.

You’re right: Council tax is not just unfair, it is based on property valuations made right back in 1991. But we are the only party that wants to do anything about that. Rather than revaluing people’s homes we think Council Tax needs to be replaced with a fair local tax, based on people’s ability to pay. But we have to pilot Local Income Tax to tackle the practical issues of implementation before it can be rolled out nationally.

As for water bills, they have soared since privatization, and they hit places hardest often where incomes are low – like the south west, with its miles of coastline. What we want to do is to introduce a social tariff for people on low incomes (in England and Wales). We will also roll out smart meters to every household in the country over the next decade, because then people can be charged for the water they actually use, rather than the value of their homes 20 years ago.

The SNP Scottish Government has frozen council tax for the past three years. We have also frozen water rates for the first time this year. We are committed to a fundamental reform of how public services are funded. The SNP Scottish Government brought forward proposals for a local income tax based on ability to pay. Under these proposals, four out of five households would have been better off and no-one would have been worse off, however when these plans were put forward by the SNP, they were voted down by Labour, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats.

Council tax is unfair as it bears little or no relationship to the ability to pay. Plaid is committed to replacing council tax with a fairer local income tax, where the amount taken from each person would be calculated in the same way as general income tax is assessed.

Such a move would directly benefit people on low incomes, with many older people not paying anything at all. Plaid will campaign for 100% council tax discount for active combat personnel and those deployed on UN peace keeping duties.

This was a plan that Labour announced with Martin earlier this year, and we are 100 per cent committed to bringing back the legislation to make financial education compulsory – legislation that the Conservatives blocked – as quickly as possible if we are re-elected.

Financial education is a great idea, and with a Conservative government, financial literacy will continue to be part of the PSHE curriculum. But the best way to help young people is raise school standards right across the board – and we’ll do that by giving teachers more power to restore discipline, and giving people more power to set up new, smaller schools. At the moment, four out of ten kids are leaving primary school unable to read, write and add up properly – so that’s hardly a good platform for young people to start making decisions about money and personal finances.

The free national financial advice service that we are proposing will also help boost financial literacy amongst young people. And our plans to by forcing banks and credit card companies to provide much clearer information to customers will also help to protect young people from unscrupulous lenders.

Financial literacy is absolutely crucial in a society like ours where – as Martin always says – we’re in a constant battle for consumer revenge against companies whose job it is to make as much profit out of us as possible. But I also think children are being let down by a National Curriculum which is already hundreds of pages long, is far too rigid and fails to engage or motivate many of them. So we’ll encourage financial education, but without trying to dictate to every school exactly how to run every single lesson.

Every child is different, and we need enough flexibility for teachers to adapt the curriculum to suit all their pupils. Yes, children should learn how to handle money, but we don’t want to add to the inflexibility of what is already the most centralised and controlled education system in the developed world.

The SNP Scottish Government which is responsible for education in Scotland recently announced a plan to ensure good quality financial education is delivered to every pupil in every school in Scotland through the new Curriculum for Excellence. We are committed to ensuring that no child misses out and every school in Scotland provides the basic knowledge to enable young people to make informed financial decisions.

That is a matter for the Welsh Assembly to decide. We certainly don’t have any outstanding objections to financial education on the Welsh curriculum.

We have abolished stamp duty for first time buyers buying homes under £250,000 for two years. This will lift 90 per cent of first-time buyers out of paying stamp duty.

The truly ludicrous thing about the housing ladder is that so many people just can’t get on it. That’s why our plans to the stamp duty threshold to £250,000 for first-time buyers are important. It will mean that nine out of ten first-time buyers will pay no tax at all on their first home purchase, helping everyone to achieve the dream of owning their own home.

It certainly is unfair, and we have a long-term ambition to change it. But changing stamp duty would come at with a huge price-tag unless you increased the rates, and – with the black hole threatening to engulf public finances already – this isn’t something we can do right now. We’ll help people more by cutting their income tax, and by empowering councils to provide more affordable homes.

The current stamp duty regime simply does not meet the needs of Scotland's unique property market. That's why the SNP wants to see control of this tax devolved to the Scottish Parliament so we can put in place a system which is fairer and more balanced.

Plaid Cymru understands the difficulties that first-time buyers face in getting onto the first rung of the housing ladder. To address this, Plaid calls for a moratorium on stamp duty for first-time buyers.