Mortgage repayments have been getting steadily more and more expensive, but they exploded onto the headlines this week.

While most comparable countries are seeing inflation shrink, Britain’s core inflation figures shot up and the Bank of England reacted with a ‘double raise’ on the borrowing base-rate.

Herts Advertiser: MP Daisy CooperMP Daisy Cooper (Image: Courtesy of Daisy Cooper)

There are 2.4 million households who are estimated to face an average mortgage increase of almost £3000 per year as their fixed-rate deal comes to an end in the coming months.

Those on variable-rate deals will be immediately affected and there will be knock-on increases for renters too. With bills already sky-high these costs are predicted to cause a rise in repossessions and even homelessness.

So, what can be done?

In normal times, it’s the Bank of England’s job to keep inflation under control, mostly by adjusting interest rates, and some say they’ve been too slow to act.

But these aren’t normal times and with a backdrop of Brexit, COVID, the Conservative’s ‘mini-budget’ disaster, and Russia’s war in Ukraine there’s a greater risk of damaging the economy if they raise interest rates too far.

And what of the government? The PM has so far refused to provide any direct government support – seemingly paralysed by the fear of ‘doing a Truss’ and making things worse.

Critics say that the ‘voluntary charter’ he has agreed with some banks is little more than a sticking plaster.

The fact is that the Bank of England can’t deal with these major shocks on its own and although it should remain independent, the Bank and government should be taking complementary actions to get the country safely through.

From across the political spectrum, including the Conservative backbenches, there are many ideas being put forward for how the government could act to limit the scale of this crisis.

My party, the Liberal Democrats, has called on the PM to cancel his £3 billion tax break for the big banks and put the money into a highly targeted Mortgage Protection Fund to help those on the lowest incomes, facing the biggest increases and possible repossession.

The PM has so far refused. But he resisted our calls for a windfall tax on energy companies too, at first.

For homeowners in St Albans and across the country most at risk of losing their homes, I’ll be calling for the PM to U-turn on this issue too.