Consumers pay £60m to withdraw their own cash - papers 21st Sept

ONE in three cash machines now charges consumers for withdrawing their own money, reports this morning’s Scotsman newspaper.

A report compiled by Nationwide building society reveals the number of cash machines applying a fee has risen 40% in the last year, from 13,000 to 18,500, whereas almost all cash machines were free five years ago.

Charges are typically between £1.25 and £1.50, although they can be as high as £5 so this means consumers are now paying around £60m to access their own money, says Nationwide.

OLIVER LETWIN, the shadow chancellor, has fired the “opening shots” in the Conservative party's election campaign, according to the Guardian, by suggesting Labour would be forced to raise taxes if it won a third term in office thanks to Gordon Brown’s handling of public finances.

It’s not actually a new war chant from Letwin to suggest Brown’s Budget is out by around £10bn, as he’s been saying it since the last Budget, but Letwin’s position was backed up a little more yesterday as official figures now showing the improvement expected this year by the chancellor had so far failed to materialise.

At that stage, the Treasury apparently believes it is too early to predict whether taxes will need to go up and officials will not release fresh forecasts until the pre-budget report later in the autumn.

AND THE Liberal Democrats sought to convince voters of their economic credibility yesterday, says the Times, by unveiling details of £5bn of cuts at Whitehall it would deploy to fund a series of policy pledges on pensioners and tuition fees.

Vince Cable, the party’s economics spokesman, told delegates at the Bournemouth conference in Bournemouth economic discipline and credibility would be essential in managing public coffers.

Cable said in order to achieve the £5bn needed elsewhere, he would make cuts at Whitehall saving £2.6bn in the first year rising to £7bn in the fifth year of a Parliament, and abolish the DTI, saving around £1.6bn a year in export and defence subsidies.

Scrapping work on identity cards and the Child Trust Fund – raising around £930m a year - and the department for culture and the environment would make the necessary savings, while another £650m a year could be cut from health service agency staff costs and drug bills, ordering fewer Eurofighter aircraft and central purchasing of Whitehall computers.