THE Prime Minister told a father-of-four facing a huge hike in his mortgage payments to simply “talk to your bank”.
Rishi Sunak was taking calls on LBC on a range of issues as he said he’s “determined to bring inflation down for everyone”.
He gave advice to struggling homeowner Jack, who said he felt like he was being “punished” despite paying into the system all his life.
'I don't want to be paying my mortgage off until I'm in the grave.' 'The best way for me to help you is to bring inflation down.'@RishiSunak tells this @NickFerrariLBC caller that 'you've got to trust me' in bringing inflation down and 'easing' financial pressures. pic.twitter.com/XW1QHomxkl
— LBC (@LBC) August 2, 2023
He said he is facing a rise from £1500 to £2800 a month in mortgage repayments and asked: “Why do I feel like I’m being unfairly punished?”
The Prime Minister, who has made halving inflation one of his "five pledges", said: “Look in the short term for you or anyone else who is worried about this you should talk to your bank.
“And what we’ve agreed is a mortgage charter with the lending industry so you can talk to your bank and you can do a couple of things with them.
“You could extend the term of your mortgage by say five or 10 years or you could switch to an interest-only mortgage.
“Now it sounds like from your payments that you’ve got a particularly large mortgage so a typical payment for someone in the country is about £800 but that would go up to about £1000 a month at the current rate.
“But if you do one of the two things that I mentioned which you can do with your bank at no change to your credit rating that will save you hundreds of pounds a month on your mortgage payments.”
Jack replied: “I’m already on a 35-year term. I’m in my early 30s. I don’t want to be paying it off until I’m in the grave.”
Sunak (below) once again encouraged the caller to “speak to the bank” and added: “The best way for me to help you and your family and everyone else is to get inflation down.
“It’s not abstract – it’s inflation that is causing everyone problems with their bills. The quicker we get inflation down the quicker we can ease some of these pressures.”
Sunak said that he could be trusted with the economy and that he had proven this during the Covid pandemic.
It comes as the Bank of England is expected to hike interest rates for the fourteenth consecutive time on Thursday.
