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Cashier number two, please.
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Hi, are you OK?
Hello, I'd like to make a withdrawal please.
Of course, how much would you like?
Um, £100,000.
That would be nice. How much would it be, though?
£100,000.
I can't do £100,000... Can I have 100,000?
Sorry, Kate, the gentleman would like to withdraw £100,000.
And a book of stamps.
A book of... I can get a book of stamps for you, definitely.
Spinning. Turning over.
OK. Um, My name is Michael Sheen, I'm Welsh.
People describe me as, "Welsh actor Michael Sheen."
I've been involved in working around issues of debt
and high-cost credit for years now.
But I've always wanted to do something big,
to expose the unfairness of the system.
It seems like a never-ending battle
because the interest is multiplied and getting bigger and bigger.
Meanwhile the lenders are making vast profits from consumer debt.
I want to see if I can help some people who are going through
a tough time,
and at the same time I
want to do something that gets people's attention.
The plan is that I am
going to use £100,000 of my own money to try
and buy a million pounds' worth of people's debt
and then just write it off.
I'm gonna make some enemies doing this.
There are people doing very well, thank you very much,
out of the way things are.
If anyone within the credit industry
finds out what we're doing, we're dead in the water.
I have never done anything like this before.
This is a moment.
This is definitely a moment where change,
actual change, could happen.
You feel like you've seen a lot of heist films in places like this,
don't you? Like Ocean's 11.
Ocean's One, in this case.
Morning. Morning.
Well, it's a beautiful morning isn't it,
Gorgeous.
My family all come from here.
My grandmother was a cleaner.
She used to clean at the police station.
Grandfather had worked in the works.
You know, it's totally what I consider to be my home.
Those are the iconic cranes of Port Talbot.
Extraordinary sort of cathedrals of industry.
You know, like so many communities through South Wales,
the towns themselves got built up around the industry.
And so as those industries declined,
it was a sort of existential moment of crisis
for all those communities.
But it is beautiful.
Behind the beauty is a harsh reality.
More than half the households in this area
are classified as deprived.
Living here has made me aware that, sometimes,
life kicks you in the wallet.
And when that happens, if you don't have savings,
your only option is to borrow money.
You bump into people,
and I started hearing about people in debt,
you know, for instance
a family who are like just getting by, pretty much,
and something happens like their washing machine breaks down,
or if they've got a car, their car breaks down,
school uniforms at the beginning of the year,
or getting through Christmas, or whatever it might be.
But borrowing, even small amounts,
if you're on a low income, can be punishing.
It nearly always involves high interest rates
and can lead to debt that's hard to get out of.
In October 2024,
2.2 million low income families had high cost credit loans.
Lovely to see you.
And you. Come on, you take one of us two,
and then you take one of us two.
Oh, thank you.
This is Bulldogs, a boxing club, gym and community centre.
Ceri is the manager.
We've seen a massive increase in
the people that are needing support with the cost of living.
I have debt and I have a good job.
I did have three months in savings.
I don't have that any more. Yeah, yeah.
And I've used the food bank at the end of the month
because I haven't had any money left,
and that's when they're like, "Oh, let's have a look."
Think if we can get a credit card to just plug the gap,
and then it just snowballs.
We're not talking about people with no jobs.
We're talking about people who are working
and earning money
and just finding it impossible
to make ends meet from week to week.
Ceri is a single mum in full- time employment,
who has ended up with £12,000 of credit card debt
that she is struggling to repay.
And she's not alone.
Last year, 20% of lower income households in
the UK reported borrowing money or using a credit card
to pay for rent, energy or council tax.
Ceri, who runs this place, you know, even for her,
she's already putting stuff on her credit card
and building up debt there.
She's exactly the type
of hard-working person I'd like to help.
While people like Ceri dread the end of each month,
the banks are, well, laughing all the way to the bank.
In 2023, the big four banks made
a colossal pre-tax profit of £44.3 billion between them,
mostly due to the high interest rates they're charging.
The UK average credit card APR is 35.3%.
The whole system around access
to credit is skewed against the people who have the least.
If you're viewed as risky, up goes your interest rate.
Or worse, the banks can refuse to lend,
leaving those people in a desperate situation.
Nicola? Yes. Hello, Nicola I'm Michael.
Nice to meet you. Yes, nice to meet you.
Hello, Tony?
Nicola Harding and Tony Sales are experts on the dire alternative.
Oh, It's a grim old day, isn't it? It is.
They estimate that more than a million people across
the country owe money to loan sharks.
So if someone's looking to get, you know,
£100, £200 for a few weeks,
how much is that going to cost them to do that?
On the whole it's double. Wow.
But we definitely have lenders that told us that they want you to skip
a few weeks because the double then gets doubled.
So their business model is sort
of based on making sure that people aren't able to pay, right? I see.
There was a young lad about 19-20, he borrowed £500,
and erm, he ended up paying back £5,500. Wow.
I was quite shocked by some of the things they would do
to get their money back, you know,
whether that be threats, you know, an arm broken,
smashing windows, taking cars or, you know,
some of the stories we've been told
have been people being taken up into woods
and told to dig their own grave, you know?
Maybe you should meet one?
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, would you be able to put me in touch with someone?
Yeah, I can try.
Yeah, yeah. OK.
Illegal borrowing is just one of the consequences of
a lack of affordable credit.
I want a system that is fair,
where those in need can access credit at rates that won't send them
spiralling into further debt.
I want to be able to do something which grabs attention,
so I can challenge the banks, the politicians,
to try and force wider change on the system to make it fairer.
I'm prepared to take a massive financial hit myself
to try and make it happen.
So what are you planning to do, Michael?
The plan is that I am
going to use 100,£000 of my own money
to try and buy a million pounds' worth of people's debt
from around here.
And then once I have brought it, just write it off.
So how on earth can I buy a million pounds of debt
with just £100,000?
Well, when banks
and credit institutions no longer think
a personal debt is profitable for them,
they'll sell it on.
And while the borrower still owes the full amount,
including fees and the interest that has built up,
their debt can be bought for
a fraction of that amount by debt collectors.
Through the opportunities I've had in my life,
through my career, you know,
I've made that conscious decision to go,
"Right I'm going to use whatever I've got
"to help in whatever way I can."
I don't want to get to the end of my time
and feel like I could have done more.
So if I'm gonna stage a debt heist,
I'm gonna need an HQ like they have in the movies.
So I spoke to Neath Port Talbot Council,
and they've agreed to let me hire this.
Well, it's big enough, for sure.
Hello!
Coo! Coo!
How much money have you got? Let's go halves on this.
Right, let's get set up.
There's no bulb in there.
Nothing to plug it into.
Hm. Hm.
This is absolutely ridiculous.
But it does have the right vibe.
I mean, you feel like you've seen
a lot of sort of heist films in places like this, don't you?
Like Ocean's 11. Ocean's One in this case.
Well, that's the HQ sorted but to make my heist happen,
I need the help of a specialist.
So where are we off to?
Well, in order to get this done,
I'm gonna need an inside man, or it could be a woman,
but it's not, it's a man.
So I am going to meet him here.
I'm gonna try not to draw too much attention to myself.
Hello. You all right? Nice to see you.
Yeah. Are you well? OK, yes. Good, good. OK, bye-bye.
Hiya. Hello, you all right? Yeah, good.
Doing a great job keeping it on the down low, aren't I?
Hello!
Hello, Roland. Good to meet you.
Good to meet you. Come on in. How you doing?
I'm well, thank you, very well. Take a seat.
This is the man who I hope will make
the debt heist possible.
Roland Roberts was the director of
a debt collection company for ten years.
He's the gamekeeper I'm hoping will turn poacher.
So what do we have to do? How do we do this?
There's a few things that we need to do to get to
the point where we can do it.
You have to have the right licences to be able
to purchase debt,
because nobody will sell us anything unless we're registered.
Right.
So, we need to set up a debt-buying company,
get approved by the Financial Conduct Authority
and then find someone willing to sell us some debt.
Oh, and keep it a secret.
The worst thing that can happen is it gets out
and people don't want to sell to us,
which effectively shuts us down. It'll kill us before we start.
Right. Why should they care?
Why should they care what we're going to do with it?
I think there'll just be a reluctance
to have that corner illuminated, of business.
It's a traditional nervousness around how they will be portrayed.
Yeah. So then the idea of me,
with my £100,000 buying
a million pounds of people's debt.
That is something that is a possible thing for me to do.
Yes.
There is also a but.
£100,000 - it's not a massive amount
in the debt purchase market.
We're talking about the consumer credit industry -
billions and billions of pounds being transacted every year.
Right, yeah.
In fact, it's estimated that
the industry is worth £55 billion.
My £100,000 is pocket change to these guys.
So, how could it work?
OK, so right now might be a good time
to explain how 100,£000 could ever possibly buy up
a million pounds' worth of debt.
It's to do with something called
the secondary debt market.
Let me explain using this handy cardboard cutout
of actor George Clooney, star of Ocean's Eleven.
Let's say George borrows £100 from
a bank or online lender
with eye-wateringly high APR rate,
and for whatever reason, George struggles to pay it back.
George's debt, plus whatever interest or charges he owes,
could get sold on to a debt-buying company,
and if they can't collect it,
it might get sold on to another debt-buying company.
And here's the thing -
each time debt like George's gets sold on,
it gets cheaper and cheaper to buy.
But not for George,
who still has to pay the original debt.
So that's how, if I can get inside the system,
I might be able to buy up a million pounds' worth of debt
with only £100,000.
I mean, it's a lot of money for me.
It's a shed load.
This is a lot of money. I mean, this is fake money.
It turns out it's quite hard to get £100,000 over
the counter in the post office in Port Talbot.
But it gives a sense
to me of how much I'm putting on the line here.
Don't look at it too much.
So why do you want to do this? Why do you want to help me?
I think the big picture is, is that it can't be right that there's
a system where those that are most vulnerable,
their personal affairs and their debts,
have been passed from place to place to be collected.
And there's that long term, you know,
drip, drip, drip of pressure all the time.
So you think I can do this?
Yes, I think you can. Right.
Well, finding out £100,000 is not very much money is...
It's ah, a little bit bracing.
I mean, it seems like this is going to be a bit of
a minefield in all kinds of ways.
Here's to it.
Yes, I'll be in contact soon, OK?
OK, good luck.
Roland also tells me
I'll never know whose debt I've bought and written off.
Data protection means their details are rightly kept private.
I'm fine with that.
This about making a difference and making a point.
There's so much that's unknown about this,
knowing that we're setting the ball rolling now and it's...
It's actually gonna happen.
I'm looking to wipe out a million pounds of debt,
but I don't think borrowing money is a bad thing.
Lots of people need to borrow money
for everyday expenses like an MOT bill or school uniforms.
I caught up again with Ceri,
the manager of the Bulldogs Centre.
Unable to make ends meet,
she'd used credit cards to plug the gap.
The eye-watering interest rates are ruining her financially.
Her debt has now reached £12,000.
It's really hard because it just seems like it's
a never-ending battle,
because I pay all this money per month,
but then only half of it's gone on actually paying off
the debt because of the interest,
and then all of a sudden, the interest is multiplying
and getting bigger and bigger.
Ceri is not alone.
The average credit card debt per household in the UK is over £2,500.
Presumably, the money you're earning for your job is staying the same.
Yeah.
Your outgoings are going up, presumably,
and you're trying to pay off your debts. Yeah.
But you don't feel like you're really getting anywhere too much.
No. Right. OK.
Have you ever had any experience of your debt being sold on?
Yes, I have, actually. Oh, really?
So I had a credit card
and that was then sold on to
a third party finance company,
and I got a letter through the post.
It said something about, "Your debt is now with us."
Was that quite scary?
Yeah, it just was, like, debt.
It like had that all, like big, big writing over it,
and, "This must be paid."
Just some of the wording that they used,
and I was just like, Oh, I don't know what to do."
Do you feel that the attitude is that somehow
you've got the money to pay it off,
but you're just choosing to spend it on something else?
Yeah. Sometimes. I'm like, no I really want this gone.
My ideal situation would be I've paid off all my debts
and I can save, start saving to buy a house.
I don't know if that will happen.
It's just really tough. Yeah.
Getting into trouble around debt and credit is not just
because of people being feckless
and making sort of bad choices.
It's actually as a result of just things being very difficult.
Now, it might surprise you
to know that there are lenders offering much more affordable credit
to people like Ceri.
There are companies out there,
small ones called CDFIs and Credit Unions.
Right now they're not growing at the rate needed
to meet the demand.
But with the right support from banks,
they could be scaled up
and become a big part of the solution in the future.
It's not as if the banks don't have the money.
In 2023, pre-tax profits at
HSBC's UK operation were £24 billion.
Lloyd's reported a profit after tax of £5.5 billion -
up 41% from 2022.
If they're doing so well,
why can't they provide more affordable loans?
I'm sure they'll be happy to explain,
so here's hoping one of
the big four UK banks will agree to meet me.
Everyone's not available.
I mean, I know people are busy, but, you know,
some people aren't available when you haven't even said
what the dates are.
Sorry. We're gonna decline.
Sorry, thanks. Sorry. Bye, thanks. Bye.
"Unfortunately, we have had to decline.
"I hope the rest of your filming goes well."
I can't tell you which bank that is,
because of various legal things, but it doesn't matter,
because they've all said that.
You are number seven in the queue.
If you've tried speaking to a human at your bank,
this might not surprise you.
The banks don't want to talk to me,
and they certainly don't
want to talk about helping people on low incomes.
Those at the sharp end in trying
to help argue the banks must do more.
You all right? Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
We've got 20 million people that are deemed to be in
a financially vulnerable circumstance
and that's increasing 16% the last year.
The scale of that problem needs big solutions and fundamental changes.
I mean, one of the obvious places, I suppose,
is like, well, what's the role of mainstream lenders,
high street banks? What are they doing about this?
Well, they should be playing a massive part in
the solutions to this.
But beyond, I mean offering overdrafts,
there's very little in terms of small value lending,
the banks, building societies, are offering.
In my opinion, a change in the law is long overdue.
The Fair Banking Act is something that we've been championing for
the last 20-odd years.
It would force financial institutions -
banks, building societies -
to actually make sure that there's a fair playing field
and people aren't excluded because of cost or
because of their circumstances.
In America of all places, a similar law
forces the banks
to reveal how fairly they're treating consumers.
This has encouraged them
to provide more affordable lending to low income households.
If you look at the US, six of
the eight largest banks over there have started providing,
I mean, $500 loans over a couple of months.
The scheme has strict caps on interest rates and fees.
Each loan saves the borrower hundreds of dollars.
And now it's opening up access to about a million people
to affordable loans where they would have previously gone
to payday loans and those type of facilities.
And so it can be done.
I'm not saying everyone in the US has access
to affordable credit - there's still a long way to go -
but at least it's a start.
I feel quite fired up after talking to Gareth.
The Fair Banking Act requires government
to be courageous and to be radical and,
and to do, you know, take a major step,
and I would love to be able to go
and talk to someone about this
and see if we can get a commitment.
It feels like a good time to meet my inside man
Roland for a progress report on the heist.
I'm going to make a wild guess that this may not be
the first time a heist has been planned in this area.
Hello. Hello, Michael, how are you?
I'm good, how you doing? Good to see you.
Fine, very well.
So, you got any news for me?
Yes, we've set up the business,
so that's in existence and registered at Companies House.
We've sent off the application for the licence.
Right. And we can't actually buy
anything until we've got the licence.
No, the application process is, you put all your paperwork together,
and then you have to wait for it to come back.
Once the licence comes through we can try
and buy personal debt belonging
to hundreds of people in South Wales.
Is there any chance that that licence won't come through?
Nothing's 100% certain.
OK.
Even with a licence, this won't be simple.
We are after a relatively small
and specific amount of debt
which could raise questions.
We can't tell them anything about why.
Yeah, that complicates things.
A little bit.
See, normally at this point I would say,
"Just throw my name in and see if that..."
I can't do that.
I'd love to do it, but I can't.
That's not going to cut the mustard.
It might be counter-productive I think.
Now we just sit and wait,
and as soon as that comes through, I'll let you know.
OK, touch Formica.
Touch Formica. Yeah.
Hello, Roland, it's Michael. I got your e-mail,
are we all right to have a chat?
It's been six months since I set up a company to try
and buy a million pounds of personal debt.
I got an e-mail this morning from Roland,
my inside man, with a little progress report,
which basically says there has in fact been very little progress.
None, actually, so our company still doesn't have
a debt-buying licence
and Roland hasn't actually met any debt sellers yet.
So that's a bit of a stress
so if things don't move forward a bit quicker, like at all,
then I'm not entirely sure how this is gonna work
or indeed actually happen.
While of the future of the debt heist hangs in the balance,
I'm talking to more
and more people in my area of Port Talbot suffering
because they can't access affordable credit.
Well, hello.
Hello, you OK?
I'm good, I'm good, you're hard at work here.
I'm Amy, nice to meet you. Nice to see you.
So this is a bit different to nursing, isn't it?
Very, very different.
I'm an assistant nurse practitioner.
I am also a painter. I work the two jobs,
mainly because the cost of living is so, so high.
I hate that last week of the month before you get paid,
and it's just... you just drag yourself to
the finishing line almost, and doing the other work,
it just takes that pressure away a little bit, you know, so?
So, have you had to deal with debt at all,
have you got into debt,
or using credit and that kind of stuff.?
So I've always avoided loans
and stuff like that as much as I can.
So because of that,
I'm in a position where I actually can't get myself,
like a credit card or loans of any kind,
because I haven't got a credit rating.
You know, I had a look the other week,
because we've got some things coming up in the next year,
and nobody will have me because I don't exist.
To them, it looks like I'm blacklisted so...
Really? Yeah. So because you haven't had a credit card...
because I haven't got...
You haven't got into trouble with anything? No.
You just haven't had a credit card.
And now that you've gone to look
to try and be able to access credit, you can't.
I can't get it because I don't exist.
So it's shaped me massively in that sense that
that's why, you know, that's why I only ever had one child,
because I knew if I had more,
that I potentially couldn't afford to have more, you know?
STOMACH RUMBLES
Oh, sorry, I haven't eaten.
Oh, no. Sorry, that was really loud. Do you want a banana?
No I'm fine. There's a bunch of bananas there.
I don't what's going on, that was really loud.
It's hard work doing the painting out there.
It's shocking, shocking,
the fact that she's not able to get credit,
not because she's got bad credit history
or she's not been making payments,
it's because she hasn't got any credit history,
because she didn't want to be in
the position of getting into trouble.
You know, someone who's come in with that kind of mindset
and is punished for it, it's just crazy.
Between May 2021 and May 2023,
2.8 million low income
households reported being declined credit.
So where does that leave them?
For many - loans sharks.
Hello, Tony.
And one has agreed to meet me
to explain what his work involves.
How ironic that no legal lender will speak to me
but an illegal one will, on condition of anonymity.
I lend money.
I have done for a long time, and it works.
I'll try and be firm, but fair.
The purpose is to help,
especially in these times.
I find myself helping more and more families
and it feels good to do that.
The way he describes it,
there's almost a nobility in what he's doing.
But his Ts and Cs suggest otherwise.
You'd have to have a guarantor,
you'd have to have an asset.
So you'd give me like a watch,
or car log book with a key, and a letter
saying that you've sold the car to me should you default.
And have you ever had to do anything, go further than that?
Have you ever had to use intimidation or violence or anything like that?
I make a nuisance of myself.
No-one likes someone hanging outside their house. Yeah.
You know, what I mean?
But I'm not going to beat you up for a grand, right?
Why do you think that what you're doing is helping people when...
You know, what is it that other people aren't providing for them,
that you're able to provide?
OK, like, especially now,
people are having to make the decision
of whether they pay their rent or whether they eat.
It is self-evident that people are in trouble.
It's not really that they're just looking for money,
they're looking to survive,
and they're not surviving out there.
And the banks are a no-go.
Some people are just... it's just not going to work.
It's not even an option.
OK. Ready?
Yeah, done, thanks. Thanks, mate.
Well, that wasn't weird in any way at all, was it?
Scary to know, you know, what he's up to,
who he really is, what's really going on there,
in spite of how he might describe it himself.
But the really scary thing is that systemically,
the need is so great out there that people are prepared
to go to him, and people like him.
That's what's really scary.
So there's clearly something wrong there.
You know, there has to be a way to be able to make this fairer.
There has to be,
because otherwise it's just infuriating.
And clearly wrong.
I've found out there's a meeting in Westminster about
the proposed Fair Banking Act.
After years of campaigning,
could it finally be on the government's agenda?
Chairing the meeting is Labour MP Lloyd Hatton.
Hello. Lovely to meet you, how are you?
Good, very good.
He is one of parliament's fresh new faces,
but has he got the stomach for this fight?
So this fair Banking Act,
what would the remit for that be?
And you know, what would it cover?
We want to know what banks are doing
and what they're not doing.
We want to know if
a bank is unfairly excluding certain customers.
It's a big rebalancing of
the way our banking sector works.
I think the intention and the goodwill is there
with this new government,
but now's the time to deliver on it.
What I heard in the committee meeting made a big impression,
so it's a shame we weren't allowed to film it.
While the proposed law might not stop people getting into trouble
with debt altogether,
it would force banks and other lenders
to offer affordable credit to low-income households.
I think it could be game-changing, this.
This is a moment,
this is definitely a moment where actual change
could happen that could really benefit so many people.
You know, my worry is that this now gets snarled up in
the political process and could take forever.
You know, we haven't got forever.
Back in Port Talbot, Roland wants to meet.
It's 18 months since we started the debt heist
and I am desperate for news.
Hello, stranger. Good to see you.
How are you? Good to see you too. It's been a while.
Roland tells me we've finally got the go-ahead to buy debt.
It looks like the heist is on.
So you asked me to try
and find you a million pounds worth of debt
for about £100,000, and I think I've done it.
Great. OK.
OK.
Oh, thank you very much. Cheers.
So let me show you what we've got.
Right.
So this is debt that belongs
to just normal people, everyday people?
All consumers, normal, regular people.
Right, and so what kind of debt?
You've got banking debt, so that would be overdrafts,
credit cards or store cards, OK, plus personal loans.
And this is debt belonging to people who all live South Wales...
South Wales corridor, from the bridge, from all the way...
Newport through to Port Talbot, Swansea.
Yeah, all the way.
And what kind of impact will it have on people?
Well, you'll wipe out 33% minimum of their overall debt,
because if they owed £10,000, you know,
you're paying off a third of it. That's the average.
So these people are going to have
a significant difference made to their debt position. Right.
OK. And then once I have that,
I'm in a position to sign off the contracts.
Right. I can't quite believe we've got to this point.
We got there.
Yeah.
After waiting so long,
the reality of what I am able to do hits home.
We've been doing this for quite a long time.
And you know,
things have changed in the sort of landscape of debt,
and things have shifted.
But things have sort of changed for me a lot in
the time that we've been doing this.
I've lost family members during this time.
I wasn't sure that we would ever get to this point.
It didn't look like it was going to happen for a long time.
And financially things have changed.
Ironically, I genuinely am not sure if I can afford to do this.
But I'm still going to do it, because I've made a commitment.
Because I know that this problem isn't going away.
We're sitting in a cafe at the moment with
the steel works right behind us and
the ladies that work here, before we started filming,
told me that, like tomorrow is the last ship,
the last boat load coming into the dock here
to deliver stuff to the steel works.
And now they've described people sitting in here
just crying at these tables.
And... I'm sorry.
So it couldn't... it couldn't be more real,
like how much people are hurting.
It's made me realise that this is, you know,
you've got to give it a chance, you've got to give it a go,
and maybe this programme will make a tiny difference,
or maybe it won't, but I can't walk away from it now.
High cost credit is ruining people's lives.
Two years ago I decided to do something dramatic
to draw attention to this problem.
Hello, I'd like to make a withdrawal please.
Of course, how much would you like? £100,000.
That would be nice.
Using £100,000 of my own money I've managed
to buy £1 million of debt,
belonging to nearly 900 people in South Wales.
Here's to it.
If you're watching this then that means you've just received
a letter saying that personal debt belonging
to you is now owed to a different company.
Well, that company is mine.
I'm writing all that debt off, including yours.
And just like that, it's gone.
I really hope that someone who found out that
a debt that had been weighing on them, worrying them,
stressing them out or whatever, has just gone,
I really hope that that has made a difference.
But then there's this other reality where
a million pounds of debt is like nothing,
it's like a drop in the ocean.
So I really need to make people in power sit up and take notice.
Household debt of all types in the UK is forecast
to reach £2.4 billion in 2025.
And still no-one wants to talk about this.
Lloyds, Barclays, NatWest, Nationwide and HSBC
have all refused to be interviewed.
UK Finance, the Trade body representing 300 financial firms,
has also declined.
So have the former Conservative
and current Labour Chancellors of the Exchequer.
That's why I am back in Westminster.
Because until the government makes the banks responsible
for affordable credit, the problem will only get worse.
So I've been trying to talk to someone at
the Treasury about all the fair
and affordable credit stuff for months now,
and I'm just being blanked.
And I've got try and get them on board with this Fair Banking Act.
So, I'm just thinking, well, if they won't talk to me,
who will they talk to?
So it needs to be someone who's got
the ear of government,
someone who can get inside the Treasury
and really push these issues for me.
So it's someone who I do have common interest with,
but I'm still gonna really need to persuade them.
So here we go.
Hello. Michael, what a pleasure. Lovely to see you. How are you?
Great to see you, come and sit down.
Gordon Brown bailed out the banks during
the financial crisis of 2008,
and you could argue the banks could have been made
to do more as part of that deal.
Could he open doors for me now?
15 years ago, you know,
obviously the banks got a lot of help
and huge amounts of money to help them out when they hit,
you know, unexpected waters.
Shouldn't they do the same for us now?
You know, we're not against banks.
But we need a banking system that works for
the people who depend on banks
and the people who contribute to banks.
So banks are making quite big profits at the moment,
because interest rates are quite high.
Banks can actually do more on financial inclusion,
and some do, as you know, and some want to do more.
Yeah, I mean, the fair Banking Act would make the banks have
to be transparent about who they're lending to,
who they're not lending to,
and would make them work to support
the organisations out there who are helping those people.
So first of all, what you what you're saying, Michael,
is right that the banks can't just tell people
"We're not having anything to do with you."
So we've got to do something about that.
You're absolutely right. We've got to look at, transparently,
at what could be excessively high rates
of interest charged by certain organisations who seem
to be able to get off with it at the moment when, clearly,
there are rules that people think are being applied,
but obviously they can get through them.
Over the two years that I've been working on this,
I've tried to engage with the banks to just start
a conversation about this stuff.
I've tried to talk with the government.
And nobody will talk to me, nobody. And so I need someone...
Let's do something about that.
Yeah, so I need someone, like your good self.
I promise you, we will do something about that.
Would you be able to bring this up,
the fair Banking Act with Rachel Reeves?
I will ensure that you have
the kind of meetings that are necessary for you
to get this.
I'm not saying who I can get to meet.
So will you help me get to talk to
the people that I need to talk to,
to try and get this stuff,
a conversation about this stuff, to get this change through?
Let's make sure that your voice is heard in those areas where
legislation or regulations need to be changed.
Thank you. I appreciate that. Pleasure.
Thank you so much, Gordon.
The really positive thing is Gordon has said that he will help me
to have conversations.
I do believe that he will hold to his word
and having someone like Gordon Brown,
kind of opening doors for you is
a massive help when it comes to things like this,
and that's incredibly encouraging.
It means that, you know,
in terms of the nuts and bolts of this,
I can move this steps forward,
big steps forward to what I've been able to do over
the last two years.
So that's a result.
Back in Port Talbot,
I want to catch up with some of
the people who inspired me at
the beginning of this journey.
So I'm back at Bulldogs,
the boxing gym and community centre.
Hello, how are you nice to see you.
Hello, nice to see you. What's been going on for you?
So since we last spoke,
I've drastically changed how I view money.
And I really think that this process,
has been the catalyst of that.
You know you had the dream of,
of maybe a house in the future, are you any closer to that?
Not really any closer, but I feel like it could happen.
I've moved back in with my parents so I can save.
I really do feel like it's on the horizon. Yeah.
And eventually I will own that house, that is so important to me.
Yeah.
Hi, you OK? Hiya, yeah good,
and you're not in your overalls this time.
Nope, I haven't done that for a little while now.
Nope, you're not doing that any more?
No, I had to pack it in.
Yeah, just for work life balance, wasn't having any at all.
Yeah, yeah. But I mean you were doing that
because of the sort of financial situation you were in,
so how has that affected things for you?
Oh, massive effect, I just had to adapt again.
You know, how are you feeling in yourself
about where things are at the moment for you?
I'm happy and I'm healthy,
I think that's a massive part of it.
Life's short, you only do it once.
You've gotta make the most of what you've got, and that's what I do.
Brilliant.
Sorry to interrupt tea and coffee and sandwiches,
but I just wanted to have a quick word if that's all right.
About two years ago now I started a campaign.
I called it a heist.
What I was trying to do was to infiltrate
the consumer credit industry
and I've bought
a million pounds' worth of people's debt in this community
and in communities in south Wales
and I've managed to write off 900 personal debts.
You know, it's a gesture that you wouldn't expect from anyone,
nobody's got to do that kind of thing
and the fact that he has is a huge thing, isn't it?
Partly to prove that it can be done,
you know, wanting to help,
but I suppose more important than anything is to make
a statement to say that we need a fair credit system.
And I have come across something called
the Fair Banking Act, which I'm trying to get behind,
and get the government to implement,
which would force banks to reveal who they are loaning
to and who they are not lending to.
It would make them accountable.
I think it's amazing,
and if there was more people like Michael, gosh,
the world would be a better place.
He's not one for sitting on his backside,
he will dig and research and take action.
So this is not the end by any means,
there's a lot to do, there's a long journey ahead,
but thank you for being part of this journey.
So enjoy the cake, enjoy the sandwiches, all right?
Good to see you.
In terms of the heist, this sort of madcap idea you had,
you pulled it off. How do you feel about that?
Ah, yeah, yeah we pulled it off.
This is about more than just, you know,
writing off some people's debts,
as much as that can help people and I hope it does.
But this is about something that has to change everything.
The whole way we look at these issues,
and that's a long road, that's a long road.
You've got to keep putting one foot in front of
the other and doing what you can,
and that's how you change laws or that's how you get
the banking industry
to change what they're doing, you know?
One brick at a time.
But it's going to change. It has to.
It has to.
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