Cashpoints: Cable takes on bankers' bonuses

This week's top stories • Vince Cable today warned bankers against embarking on a "self-indulgent bonus round" as he put soaring executive pay and potentially destructive takeovers at the heart of a new government review into the way the City operates . • Savers are missing out on £12bn a year in interest payments because banks and building societies are failing to inform them of better-paying accounts , it was claimed today. • The coalition government is to press ahead with a Labour scheme to force all UK firms, regardless of size, to automatically enrol their staff into a pension scheme from 2012 . • Do you have any feedback on any of these issues that you want to get off your chest? Email us at [email protected] Feature Benefits cut, rents up: this is Britain's housing time bomb Do they know what they are doing? Are they incompetent bunglers or do they mean to clear low earners out of the country's prosperous districts? As some residents since time immemorial are driven away – with maybe a few picturesque pearly kings and queens among them – this will become a cut that brands this government. Perhaps they think nobody will notice the new ranks of rough sleepers. Or that housing benefit is too fiendishly complicated to understand. Few Conservative voters claim it, and the removals will be an invisible migration, not a mass exodus in special coaches. However, these cuts are so extreme and random as to who will be evicted that the political noise will rise to ear-splitting decibels. Follow these numbers carefully and see how they multiply upon one another. This month people who lost their job have had their help with mortgage interest payments cut in half. Expect more arrears and repossessions. Next year housing association and council rents will rise from their present heavily subsidised rents to 80% of the market rent for new tenants – about £100 more a week. New social housing will no longer be available to the poorest, but only to those who can pay high rents. Read the full article here. Ask the experts: Homebuying Question of the week: "I hold power of attorney for my mother, who cannot make a will. What happens if I use some of her money to buy myself a house?" Our homebuying expert Virginia Wallis says: "Were you an only child, the fact that your mother has no will would not matter as you would inherit her entire estate. However, as you say that you are the only surviving offspring …" Read the answer in full here. • Any questions? Email our panel of experts on financial concerns, consumer gripes, legal wrangles, debt worries and career-related problems at [email protected] Tools Compare broadband deals Search online or call for advice on the best broadband internet package for your needs