New MPs were provided with guidance on how to deal with debt and insolvency in their constituency at an event in Parliament on Tuesday.
At the event, held by R3, the insolvency trade body, in association with Dods, The House Magazine and ePolitix.com, MPs and insolvency experts demonstrated how best to help constituents with debt issues.
Chair of the personal debt business recovery and insolvency all-party parliamentary group, Natascha Engel MP, spoke of the shame people associate with debt, and how visiting an MP is often seen as a last-ditch attempt.
"Unless people are shown very quickly how to deal with their debt, they just don’t get through it," she said.
Lorely Burt, MP for Solihull, raised the "anxiety" and "worry" associated with debt.
"These people have tremendous problems and they don’t necessarily know where to go for advice."
Andrew Selous, parliamentary private secretary to Iain Duncan Smith MP, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, expressed the need for education on debt issues from an early age.
"I think you have to start with schools, and much better financial education within schools."
Steven Law, president of R3, demonstrated the levels of formal insolvencies in the United Kingdom at present, which according to research commissioned by R3 are "likely to worsen following the recession".
He informed the audience that the levels of personal insolvency rose from nearly 30,000 in 2000 to nearly 135,000 in 2009.
"This is why it is important to understand how personal debt is going to affect you in your constituency," he said.
On average, there were 160 cases of formal insolvency per constituency in any one year.
R3 is able to provide MPs with individual information on how debt is affecting their constituency and provide them with an idea why their constituency figures may be higher or lower than the national average.
The insolvency trade body has produced a toolkit for MPs with information and guidance on constituent debt issues.
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