A new legal ombudsman service is being launched on Wednesday with powers to investigate clients' complaints

People who are dissatisfied with the service they have received from their lawyer can, from this Wednesday, complain to a legal ombudsman. The ombudsman can compel all regulated lawyers to comply with its investigations, and has the power to impose penalties ranging from apologising to a client, through to paying up to £30,000 compensation.

Equitable Life board is 'imploring' ministers to make full and proper payout of £4bn-£5bn to victims. Equitable Life today made a last-ditch attempt to persuade the government to award at least £4bn in compensation to victims of the scandal that engulfed the company – 10 times the amount proposed in an official report.

The banks won't lend and loan sharks charge exorbitant interest. The pawnshop has been rehabilitated, and apparently this is not even such a Bad Thing. The decline of these seedy outlets was once measured in inverse proportion to the advance of the welfare state, until such businesses achieved vivid attention only when one was reading the novels of Dickens, Lawrence or Dostoevsky, or perhaps the early writings of Orwell, when he was down and out in Paris and London, or on the road to Wigan Pier.

Treasury writes off debt of 40% of underpayers, while those owing more could have up to three years to pay. As part of an effort to sort out anomalies in the past collection of tax, anyone who has been undercharged up to £300 in the past six tax years will have it written off, while those who owe more than £300 could have up to three years to pay.