Email to Amber Rudd re LOBO loans & potential savings.

Back in 2016 I was a signatory to an open letter to the Treasury, demanding an enquiry into the scam which is LOBO loans, and about which I campaigned in the election campaign in June 2016. Finally the issue of LOBO loans is receiving some, small, slow coverage. The main researchers into the issue, mentioned below, have now calculated, for various boroughs, what the savings would be if they were not tied to LOBOs and the borrowing was replaced with Public Loan Board loans, I have therefore written the email below to my MP, Amber Rudd for her comment. I wrote a similar email to Labour’s head of Hastings BC on 17 November and am still awaiting a response.
Dear Ms Rudd

You may recall my discussing LOBO loans at the election hustings last year http://nicholaswilson.com/6964-2/
 
I am still involved with this issue and work peripherally with Debt Resistance UK, Research for Action and People’s Audit. They are putting together some statistics to show what various council’s could save if their LOBOs were converted to fixed rate Public Works Loan Board (PWLB) loans, as has been achieved recently by Conservative run Northamptonshire and Kent County Council’s.

East Sussex CC has a total of £35.9m in LOBO borrowing at an average interest rate of 4.2%, with £1.5m interest paid annually. Currently PWLB interest is 2.1% which would represent potential annual savings of £750k, with potential savings over 40 years of £30m. 
 
As a former Treasury official, you may be surprised to learn that the issue of ‘mis-sold’ bank LOBO loans costing councils millions in extra interest payments was raised to HM Treasury and Andrew Tyrie by researchers, activists, councillors and Caroline Lucas MP and John McDonnell MP in an open letter back in March 2016, yet has failed to elicit any response from the Treasury, despite the potential for multi-billion pound savings for struggling UK taxpayers and service users?
 
Abhishek Sachdev, a Hertsmere Cllr (CONS), scrutiny Chairman and financial expert said in a recent BBC interview:
 
All taxpayers and residents across the country should care about this [LOBO loan] issue, because talking from my experience as a Councillor in my Borough, the kind of efficiency gains that can be achieved by sharing services or cutting down on benefit fraud and that type of thing doesn’t come anywhere near what councils could save, by cutting down on these very high rates of interest paid on LOBO loans.
In your opinion, as the local member for Hastings and Rye, what would be the Hastings’ BC local priorities for spending if a share of such refinancing savings became available to the council?
 
Are you prepared to raise the issue of refinancing LOBO loans with ESCC and the Treasury to encourage ESCC and other councils to pursue refinancing savings in the interests of local taxpayers?

Thanks in anticipation.
Sincerely
Nicholas Wilson