We need to finally fix social care but who will pay?

0:02Welcome to This Is Money podcast sponsored by Trading 212. Download the Trading 212 app today and open a cash item with promo code TIM to get the 12 month bonus promo rate of 4.51%. Terms apply. I'm Georgie Frost and joining me and Simon Lambert today is Helen Crane. And coming up, is the social care can finally going to stop being kicked down the road? Our new Prime Minister has promised to correct what he's calling a dereliction of duty by a generation of politicians. But how does he plan to succeed where so many before him have failed? No move for the Bank of England as interest rates are held again, despite fears that our recent spike in energy prices could prompt another inflation shock.

0:42What does it all mean for our money? Plus, would you haggle at a high street stall? We'll tell you how. And is Britain's love affair with the humble beach hut over? Don't forget to stay up to date with all the latest breaking money news. Just go to thisismoney.co.uk or download the app. But first, for decades, social care has been the elephant in the room of British politics. Impossible to ignore, yet somehow successive governments have done just that. Since 1997, we've had 22 reviews, green papers, white papers and commissions trying to work out what to do about it. But could that all be about to change?

1:20Andy Burnham has promised to correct what he's called a dereliction of duty by generation of politicians. But how will he do it? Does it mean even more tax rises are on the way? Welcome, Helen. Welcome, Simon. Helen, firstly, what do we mean when we talk about social care?

1:38Helen Crane: so social care as as we're sort of talking about it in these terms is either being elderly and having to go into a care home or being elderly and having to have carers come into your own home and look after you it also includes some other things um you know sort of care for disabled people and other vulnerable people but the focus this week from auntie burnham has been on care for older people, which is obviously a huge, huge issue. As we all know, it puts so much pressure on the NHS for people who end up in hospital because they can't get proper care at home. And, you know, this has been a huge, huge issue for years and years.

2:17Helen Crane: And Andy Burnham has come in, one of his big promises is that he's going to sort this out. But it's going to be much easier said than done. I think this is obviously something that costs the government huge, huge amounts of money and we're going to have to pay for it through our taxes. Well, yes, we will have to pay for it somehow. When I said at the start there, Simon, that, you know, successive governments have ignored it. Well, they sort of haven't because, as I said, we've had 22 reviews since 1997. I guess it's the reviews that they've ignored. Why is this so difficult to deal with? Because it's, I would imagine, becoming even more important as we

2:58Simon Lambert: live longer etc yes it is and it has been a thorn in the government's side for a long successive government sides for a long time trying to sort this out it's even worse for the people who are affected by it because it's not just a funding issue it's actually the system is a mess it doesn't integrate properly with the national health service people struggle to find the care that they need and then when they find the care that they need they struggle to pay for it and unfortunately the way that it works at the moment is it's means tested and if you have more than £23 ,250 in assets then chances are you're going to have to pay for your care and because care costs are so high a lot of it is you know private sector carrying out work for the public sector in the public sector parts and also there are obviously a lot of care homes and private care homes and then they might be paid for by the local authority but they offer lower rates the a lower authority subsidized by people who are paying their own fees it can wipe out as Andy Burden pointed out hundreds of thousands of pounds and we've got a system where rather than everybody paying a small amount for it you know the taxation system we have got a system whereby the unlucky few who fall foul of this but you know through no fault of their own they might end up with Alzheimer's or some other form of dementia or needing care in later life can see you know their life savings dwindle down to almost nothing.

4:25Simon Lambert: Now, at this point, I think it is important to offer a word of praise, I guess, which is very rare anywhere, or especially on this podcast, for a certain Mr. Boris Johnson. Was not expecting that. So yes, that's correct, Simon. That was unexpected. Right. And people forget this. As Prime Minister, Boris Johnson also promised to sort out care, very similar to what Andy Burnham said. Boris Johnson said that it was disgraceful that we hadn't sorted this out and that he was going to sort this out and he was going to make it a priority. and he didn't just say that he did actually do something about it he came up with a variation on a review that had been done all the way back in 2011 by Sir Andrew Dilnot the Dilnot review which involved plans to cap care costs and introduce a higher means test threshold and unbelievably for many people in terms of their view of Boris as prime minister and Boris as crowd pleaser he came up with a way to fund this that did involve imposing attacks on everybody it wasn't very popular at the time uh there was a 1.25 percent increase in national insurance which was known as the health and social care levy it was going to initially it was to help the nhs get out of the covid hole that the nhs had been in and then it was going to shift to being the health and social care levy which would then go towards you know paying for sorting out the care system and the system that he'd put in place.

6:04Simon Lambert: And also, again, perhaps even more unbelievably for people whose memories of the past aren't quite as pinpoint accurate as they could be. And I must admit, I had to look this stuff up. That was a manifesto breaching tax rise from Boris Johnson, who faced up to the whole thing where, no, we've got to sort this out. We need to sort out the NHS. We need to sort out care. And I'm going to put up taxes to do it. what was quite controversial about this was this was a national insurance charge rather than it being an income tax charge because once you reach pension age you don't pay national insurance anymore but you do pay income tax if it had been onto income tax then it would have spread the burden across not just those of working age but those who are in their pension years many of whom actually have incomes that are higher than some of those some of the people in working age is certainly higher than some of the younger people in working age.

6:57Simon Lambert: Anyway, that didn't manage to ever come in because the care costs element of it was delayed until October. This was announced in 2021. The care costs cap was meant to come in in 2023, by which point it was no longer Boris Johnson's problem. Boris Johnson had bounced out of office. Liz Truss had come into office and in her brief foray into being Prime Minister alongside her swashbuckling Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng. They scrapped the national insurance 1.25 % health and social care levy. And then Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt came in after the short-lived trust Kwarteng government, and they delayed the CAP's implementation to October 2025.

7:48Simon Lambert: By that date, it also was not their problem either. And having taken over as Prime Minister, Keir Starmer cancelled the care costs cap. So therefore cancelling the one plan that someone had actually managed to put in place to deal with this and booted the can down the road with another review, which is a can that, as you pointed out in the introduction to this podcast, has been being booted down the road so far that a certain Mr Andy Burnham, current Prime Minister, was actually involved in a plan to try and sought out care costs with something that ended up being labelled the death tax the last time that he was in government under Gordon Brown.

8:31Wow, wow, goodness me. Helen, Simon beautifully illustrated there that I suppose one of the big problems and we pointed it out when we were doing our rundown of the new Burnham government that if you keep chopping and changing it's very difficult to get something like this to be taken seriously, as it were. But where will Mr. Burnham succeed where others before him have just kicked away?

9:00Helen Crane: I think it's interesting that he's announced this, you know, within his very first days of coming into office. You know, it's clearly something that he genuinely cares about. It's such a big issue. But I think perhaps previous administrators have looked at as something that you know they really should get around to solving rather than a massive priority I think it's a difficult issue isn't it social care because there's a small group of people that it really really affects currently people who are sort of looking after older parents who are in this situation people who are in the situation themselves but when you think about things that happen in later life most people who aren't dealing with anything like that kind of don't really think about it and think oh you know that probably won't happen to me deal with older age when I kind of get older so I think it's it's kind of difficult as a as a vote winner isn't it people don't like to think about you know being in their 80s in a care home would probably be difficult to push all this through um before the next election it's gonna involve probably legislative change um and uh i think already more reviews will be taking place on this as you said we've already had uh loads of reviews on social care but andy burnham has now uh is fast tracking apparently a review of social care um but that won't report until next year so that kind of takes us into 2027 and he's obviously gonna have to uh get cross-party support on that as well it might happen but it's certainly not going to happen quickly and then there's obviously the sort of funding issue as well we've had recently this talk about where we're going to get money for defence from and things like that and this is just another thing that's going to cost probably quite a lot of money.

10:52Well that's the thing Simon isn't it it's cost so Chancellor Simon Lambert your advice dare I say?

10:58Simon Lambert: I think the first thing I should say is that I was really impressed with Andy Burnham the other day um when he stood up and he gave his speech I thought it was really good you are full of praise today Simon this is lovely it was an impassioned and impressive speech you know he drew on his own personal experience um he reflected on the undervalued job that care workers do who were some of you know the lower paid members of society doing a very difficult job and we need to remember that. And he promised to do better and was very clear, you know, about, as he said, a dereliction of duty, that this wasn't good enough and we were letting people down.

11:38Simon Lambert: So I thought that that was very good. I also think he's absolutely right to try and seek cross-party support on this. I think he was very clear that, you know, he said, I have an idea of how I think we should do this, but that's not what we're doing here we are doing a review you know he's starting this big national conversation which you hear those words and you just go oh another one but actually you know he's like what should this look like what do we want to look like and then we work out how we're going to pay for that and how we're going to fund it and i think getting the cross-party support is really important and i think he was right to say we need to not derail this by it turning into you know mudslinging etc and i i think it would be really good to see i think the tories and the lib dems have also been quite impressive on this as well um and i think that you know the three of them getting together can sort it out the point was made that you know it was because the tories and the lib dems apparently had written to andy burnham about this that they were invited to meeting and that was why reform weren't invited reform very cross that they weren't invited um i mean i don't know maybe there's some like crypto billionaire who could pay for it for them or something but so the will is there but here's the way and ultimately there is a problem here is that someone is going to have to pay for this and that is the issue how are we going to pay for this.

13:07Simon Lambert: And as Helen pointed out, there is a reluctance on the part of everyone to spread the cost of this because they sort of see it as a might not be my problem thing. We've had attempts to try and get people to pay into, you know, care insurance or almost pension style plans for to cover the cost of care. People worry about the cost of care, but they're not, they're just not willing to, you know, to do what needs to be done themselves. There's the question of should, you if people are sitting on a large amount of assets should they be not be paying for some of their care do you detach the cost of the accommodation from the cost of the care itself there's a lot of stuff that needs to be considered here and and how you do it um and arguably if people are sitting on large sums of assets then maybe they and they maybe they should be paying for their care certainly if they want you know a better level of care but then there's there's little things as well like i was thinking about this the other day so say for example you you have to go into care and you you live alone that's when the real risk of you know your your value of your house being run down comes into play if instead of that you had to for example rent your home out and renting your home out could help to cover some of the care costs which obviously your family would do that rent your home out for you do you end up paying tax on that rental income i'm pretty sure you do but surely at the most basic level we should make it if someone has to rent their home out to pay for care costs then they get a tax break so that they're not paying tax on the rental income and losing a chunk of that money before it can actually go on the care costs there's little things like that maybe we should be thinking about but i think that the big risk here is this death tax thing now the the reason why this has resurfaced is because the last time andy burnham was involved in this.

15:01Simon Lambert: He was talking about a national care service and he has spoken about this since. And he said that he thinks, you know, maybe everybody should have a 10 % tax on inheritances to fund this national care service. And he has actually said before that he thinks inheritance tax is an issue for people. People hate it. Maybe we should just get rid of it and have this 10 % tax on everyone. But if we had this 10 % tax on everyone, that would mean that, OK, yes, it spreads the cost, but those with smaller estates who now pay no inheritance tax whatsoever will end up paying some. And those with larger estates will end up paying less than they would have done otherwise because inheritance tax is 40%.

15:42Simon Lambert: So then you come down to this, well, could you really see a Labour government doing that question? So then it's like, okay are we going to end up with another set of double taxation here 10 social care tax on inheritances 40 inheritance tax on top of that and then triple taxation because we've already got double inheritance taxation coming down the line due to the fact that when pension pots are pulled into it if you die after the age of 75 the money that your beneficiaries take from the pension when it's withdrawn will face income tax and that could be at 20 but actually because it's added to their normal income it's more likely to be at 40 percent and for some people on bigger pots it could be 45 so you need to have three levels of tax 10 40 45 up to 45 clearly that's going to cause a massive backlash and i think if i was andy burnham what i would do now is i would in order to stop this i would say there this isn't necessarily what's going to happen we're not going to have this 10 tax to fund it but if we did then i will make sure that there is not a double taxation that the 10 is taken off the 40 kind of thing you know and double taxation treaties exist all over the place we have them with other countries with you know brits working in other countries or people from overseas working abroad here so they don't get double taxed it's not you're not creating an entirely new system but i do think that that could diffuse quite a lot of the row because the risk is that I think is a good thing to do a proper review.

17:17Simon Lambert: I think it's a good thing that he's pulled it forward to report in a year's time. But a year creates a lot of time for speculation. And if you create a vacuum, then we know what happens because Rachel Reeves decided to create two vacuums over the last two years ahead of her budget and we saw exactly what happened due to the fact that, yes, okay, we can be held responsible for some of that speculation. But, you know, she'd made it clear she needed to raise money talked about 22 billion pound black holes and things and she wouldn't rule things out and i think if we've learned one thing from the sort of pension lump sum pulling panics that have gone over the last two years is that actually sometimes it is just a good idea to rule some things out because it does diffuse the situation there's a lot of speculation because there's a lot of different avenues that could be taken you know it's i suppose our job to explore them and then you've got leaking and kite flying and all that sort of business it's very difficult unless he's literally going to go right I've seen like a TikTok video almost like I've seen today's newspaper this is wrong this is wrong this is maybe okay this is totally wrong the the daily refute where where our politicians go through the day's paper going no no no no uh yeah actually we are going to do that oh good idea hadn't thought of that one well Simon we shall see what happened.

18:38But let's move over to the Bank of England, because in case you missed it, they held rates again at 3.75 % for the fifth time in a row. Helen, I think it stayed there since December last year, despite fears over another inflation shock due to the recent spikes in energy prices. It wasn't unanimous, though, was it, Helen? The MPC voted six to three in favour of keeping rates steady. So does that give us some sort of idea about where they might head next? The decision as I said wasn't exactly that exciting let's be honest. The minutes are what we normally look at or the conversation with the governor afterwards.

19:17What was interesting in there?

19:19Helen Crane: So as you say yeah a whole bit boring nothing to sort of set the world on fire however it does give us a really interesting sense of where things might be heading next. So it was a 6-3 vote and the three who went against wanted to put the rates up to four percent so katherine mann one of the people on the npc committee who set the rates actually changed her mind at the last minute and voted for a hike um so it shows how quickly things are moving um and a lot of this is based on the us iran conflict and i think you know i can't speak for katherine mann but i think maybe part of the reason she changed her mind is because the situation is moving very quickly.

20:02Helen Crane: We've kind of seen things escalate in recent weeks. The peace deal has apparently collapsed and it looks like this is going to go on for much longer than people perhaps thought. Why that matters for rates and inflation is that that's going to drive up the cost of energy, which not only drives up people's energy bills, but also things like the cost of food, when rates are higher, mortgages, cost more. So if they were to put rates up, it would ideally rain in spending and make people save more, which would bring down that risk of inflation. So in the notes after the meeting as well, the Bank of England highlighted a risk that inflation could go up later this year, only slightly.

20:49Helen Crane: So inflation is at 2.6 % now. And it predicted that it will peak at 3 % later this year. And that's probably going to be in October when household energy bills rise for people on the off-gen price cap. And that was the central forecast, which is it's almost likely scenario. But they also published a worst case scenario, which is that inflation will top 4 % next year if oil prices go over$100 a barrel. They're currently about$80 to$90. So, you know, We're not seeing predictions of huge spiralling inflation as we saw a few years ago. But inflation's not going away. The Bank of England's target is at 2 % and it's not been down at that level for several years.

21:42Helen Crane: So slightly higher inflation kind of here to stay. And it all depends on how the Middle East conflict develops. that could potentially be another rate rise later in the year, maybe in September, is what's sort of been predicted at the moment. Simon, talking about financial journalists, when you've got a rate hold, the fifth since December, what new things do you write about when it comes to our money?

22:10Simon Lambert: Well, as Helen pointed out, it's less about what they did and more about what they said and how they voted. um and also what's interesting is that the scenario under which they held rates has changed each time um i mean we're seeing a real seesawing aren't we of what's going on and and arguably even the scenario under which they decided to hold rates this week looked quite looks quite different to where we were two weeks ago were things better two weeks ago i can't remember I struggle to think but it is very much markets are looking at what they're saying and how they're voting rather than whether it's a hold or not and you get different types of hold you could get a dovish hold which might indicate they're going to cut rates in the future or you might get a hawkish hold which might indicate they're going to raise rates in the future and I think this one was a hawkish hold Just to wrap this one up Simon that's when my mortgage is coming up what do I do savings rates where are they headed what should I look at anything decent out there if you've got a mortgage coming up for renewal a mortgage fixed rate that's running out this year or in the next six months I would recommend having a look now in fact actually if you've got a fix coming up anytime in the next year I'd recommend at least finding out now what the difference is going to cost you for many people it will mean higher monthly payments because mortgage rates are relatively high at the moment and certainly if you're coming off a five-year fix then you're going to be paying quite a lot more there's still a good chunk of those people who've still got that pain to come uh you know it's happened to me it's no fun whatsoever but there are people potentially who might actually see their mortgage payments come down there are people who might have fixed when rates were higher than they are now and in which case it's good news but have a look speak to a broker if you go to thisiswoney.co.uk forward slash mortgage hyphen finder you can use our mortgage comparison tool which is powered by l and c and basically you can put in your house price you can put in your mortgage size you can put in how long your mortgage runs for how long you want to fix for and it will show you the numbers if you've got it coming up in the next six months speak to a broker look to lock in a rate now if rates improve between now and then then you should still be able to switch to a better rate check that before you sign up to anything but if rates don't go down and actually rates go up you will have at least locked into a rate that's decent now savings rates are looking perkier we've seen a continuing tussle for cash ices including this podcast sponsor trading 212 which has been really putting the heat on everyone with its cash isa rate but also we're seeing some uplift in fixed savings rates we had the first five percent three years fixed rate savings deal on the market since 2024 this week and lots of our readers wanted to read about it so it is worth having a look at your savings and seeing if you can shift them to higher rates and you know maybe you might want to consider thinking about fixing your savings as well but if you've got a very big pot of savings that you can afford to leave untouched for some time over and above your rainy day fund then you should probably consider potentially investing it as well.

25:27Right. Talking of sort of property, I think, beach huts. Let's go there. They began popping up on Britain's beaches in the late 1800s, becoming a symbol of leisure and increasingly aspiration, especially during the Edwardian era. After a bit of a post-war malaise, though, prices soared during Covid as we'd rediscovered the great British staycation. But Helen, has the tide now turned for beach huts? Tell me about this.

25:58Helen Crane: That was a lovely potted history of beach huts, Georgie. Thanks. I didn't throw this together. You know, I do some research occasionally. Great. So this is some research this week on beach huts. And it's saying that the prices, which we know are astronomical right this is one of these stories that every so often pops up like god someone's paid a hundred thousand pounds for a shack by the beach and you know it is one of those i think quite uniquely british things i can't really see someone in any other country paying this much money for a small wooden shack by the beach i mean do correct me if i'm wrong some of them don't even have like running water or you know you're not allowed to sleep in them overnight some of them are basically just a shed but people in sought after locations will pay hundreds of thousands of pounds for them but perhaps not for much longer so this research says that asking price to beat charts plunged 9.8 percent in the year to july and that's according to Yopa data but in some places they've plunged by a third.

27:08Helen Crane: So in some places the prices of beach huts have dropped by a third or more so it's important to say that this is coming off a really high base so back during the pandemic when everyone was going on holiday in England staycationing you know we were going to Norfolk and Kent and Devon for our holidays instead of heading abroad unsurprisingly beach the beach hut market went absolutely bananas you know the prices really really spiked so we climbed by 37 percent in the year to july 2022 um so you know that they're still if you've owned a beach hut for 20 years you've probably still made a decent bit of money on it but it just shows that sort of shifting attitude you know people aren't going on holiday in the UK so much anymore there isn't this crazy hot demand for beach huts just so people are probably going back on holiday abroad prices are falling a bit but you know still still really high um so you're you're looking at probably tens of thousands at least for a beach hut we've got a map in our story uh on the website so uh Dorset 105 ,000 pounds uh for the average beach hut 105 ,000 for a place you can't even sleep in.

28:25Helen Crane: So Dorset obviously takes in places like Sandbanks and Bournemouth and, you know, some of the top, top sort of staycation destinations. But yes, very expensive. You want a slightly cheaper beach, West Sussex, only a mere£21 ,400. And that's gone down by 35%. So that is one of the areas where prices have fallen. But it's still a fairly big chunk of cash, your little wooden shack by the beach. I don't have to question Simon potentially but um do you just get them off right move or something or is it more like allotments or something where you have to put your name down on a waiting list or how does it work not that I would spend 105 000 pounds on a place where I could just put my

29:10Simon Lambert: bikini on in peace uh you might find them cropping up on property sites like right move or zoopla uh you might find them only sold you know locally amongst I'm sure all beach hut bits have their own Beach Hut Residence Association. I imagine you probably find quite a lot of them sold via word of mouth. You'll find some coming up for sale at auction as well. So yeah, there's lots of different ways to do it, but you can't get a mortgage on a Beach Hut, a traditional mortgage. Lenders don't like financing them because typically you only own the wooden structure, not the land underneath it. I see.

29:45Simon Lambert: And you presumably have a right to use the land underneath that I don't know. I've never looked in enough detail into this subject. You surprised me, Simon. I thought that, no, I didn't think you'd be a beach hut man. Right. When you think of haggling, it might conjure up images of animated bargaining over ornate hand-woven rugs or piles of saffron in a bustling rock and souk. What probably doesn't automatically come to mind is negotiating with the staff over a pack of Helen, in your local M &S. Most of us, I think, just wouldn't even think about it, let alone dare to do it. But your intrepid reporter, Toby Warm, says he sweet-talked his way to up to 50 % savings at some major UK stores.

30:33How on earth, one, did he have the gumption and two, did he do it?

30:37Helen Crane: Yeah, I absolutely love this story because I think you're right. Most people would never dream of doing this I certainly don't think I'd be brave enough the most I've ever done is you know when you try on a top or a dress and it's got someone's makeup on it or sort of fake tan or something I'll go up to the till and say oh I'm ever so sorry but is there any chance you'd be able to just just cut a tiny bit off and like some sometimes they they often do it but beyond that oh no I do I don't think I could I'd be I'd be way too nervous but um Toby has uh gone into some of the biggest high street shop.

31:10Helen Crane: So, you know, you often associate this with, you know, independent shops or markets, but he's gone into Boots, he's gone into Tesco and sort of gone in to see what money he can get off. And he has actually been quite successful. So he edited Bishop's Stortford High Street. First of all, in Tesco, he managed to get a£7 bottle of olive oil for£4.20. To be honest, I think£7 is quite cheap for a bottle of olive oil anyway, let alone, let alone£4.20 and they are a bit bashed which is how he's managed to get the discount on those and that's kind of the point of this story really. You need to find a way in to getting your discount.

31:51Helen Crane: I think if you just go up and say I want this with some money off people would probably say well no you know company policies and things like that but also he went to M &S. A lot of routers now have sort of schemes where you can get money off so he bought in some uh old clothes and donated them back to the shop and if you do that you can get five pound discount on buying something new um so it's not necessarily just haggling but there are ways that you know you can if you're a bit clever you can cut down your bill at some of these big high street shops simon have you ever done it

32:27Simon Lambert: i've definitely asked people for money off in a standard high street shop before on something where it's you know something's wrong with something sometimes it's when there's only one thing of something it's got a mark on it like well can i have some money off because i've got a mark on it or i think the thing with you know dented food or dented tins or things like that i've definitely had it before where i've found something that's got the use by date of today and said can i have some money off on this if i buy it and they go yeah sure and that is where somewhere where toby did win out with some of these things is if you can obviously you can follow the person around doing the stickers you can go in when they're doing the stickers but if you find something on the shelf that's going off that day or going off the next day they probably will reduce the price the interesting one i thought was some shops where prices online can be cheaper than prices in the shop now there was two examples of this h &m they would not reduce so he found a linen jacket costing 84.99 in the shop selling a 55 discount for 38 pound online and presented his findings to the to the manager who said sorry we stopped price matching a year ago but you're still more than welcome to order online and pick it up later so that's what you could do i mean would you would you really want something so much that you wanted to take it away now rather than order it online and pick it up later or could it be later though or would it be the next day i don't know how much the price of convenience waterstones though on the other hand toby found some books that were reduced online and the store assistant said to him we can match book prices that are on the waterstones website so if you find it cheaper simply show me and i'll be happy to charge you the lower price and another interesting one i thought was waitrose which uh did not have the same dented tin success as um i think it was tesco uh toby had the supervisor said we've had issues with this in the past no longer offer a discount it used to be around 10 percent i'm presumably waitress has had a problem with customers coming in bouncing tins off the floor and then going Can I have some money off, please?

34:39Simons, scatter the week.

34:43Simon Lambert: £2.79 billion. That is the amount in tax that cash-isers saved Britons in the 2024-2025 tax year, according to HMRC figures. Goodness. That's a huge amount. I bet you, though, there's still loads of people paying loads of tax on their savings that don't need to be and aren't doing that in a cash ISA. So if you heard that figure and you've got all your cash savings nicely stashed in cash ISAs and you're not paying any tax on your savings, well done you. Pat yourself on the back. But if you heard that figure and you've got savings outside of ISAs that you're paying savings tax on and you can move them into ISAs, you must try harder.

35:29Simon Lambert: Try and get that money into an ISA. All right. And thank you very much, Simon. Thank you, Helen. And thank you for listening. that is it for this week you can keep up to date with all the latest breaking money news just go to thisismoney.co.uk or download the app and if you have any comments or questions team anything you'd like them to look into Simon you can email us at podcast at thisismoney.co.uk and come to thisismoney.co.uk forward slash podcast to join in the debate and read your comments and if you like our podcast why not rate us wherever you found us it helps other people find us too