Random sampling of data on household debts
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
1 SD moves for approval of the proposal to obtain a better overview of over-indebtedness 1. SD argues that personal privacy is important and that one should avoid collecting information on assets as this could be used for a wealth tax 1 2 3. 4 S considers that one cannot get a handle on over-indebtedness without also looking at households' assets 4 5. S argues that the government chooses to stop halfway and that statistics without assets provide an incomplete picture 5. S moves that the bill be rejected and that assets should also be included 5. 6 M emphasizes that the government has taken measures against irresponsible lending and now wants to better understand the vulnerability in cases of high indebtedness 6. 6 M considers that more data enables better analyses of households' resilience and vulnerability during economic disruptions 6. 6 M argues that one does not need to collect hundreds of pieces of information about assets, as it is not needed for a vulnerability analysis 6. 7 M considers that one must weigh the need for statistics against privacy, costs, and risks of data leaks 7. 7 M argues that the information requested by authorities would not change things radically but would only affect at the margin 7. 8 M argues that the proposal gives authorities better opportunities for analyses than since 2007 8.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
David Perez (SD)
Madam Speaker! The hour is late, so I will keep my remarks relatively brief.
I would like to begin by, on behalf of the Sweden Democrats, move for approval of the Finance Committee's proposal in the report on sample collection of data on household debts. The proposal means, simplified, that Statistics Sweden is tasked with collecting data on household debts and debt payments.
Over-indebtedness is a subject we often debate in the Finance Committee, and it is a real problem. Swedes are one of the most indebted peoples in Europe; according to a report – which is admittedly a few years old – it is actually only Denmark and Luxembourg that surpass us. The high level of debt means that households are extra vulnerable during a rapid interest rate increase, which we have also seen during this parliamentary term.
Mortgage loans constitute approximately 80 percent of household debts, and even though they are loans, they are nevertheless loans with collateral as a basis. The Tidö parties have during the mandate period focused on making it less attractive to have unsecured loans, precisely to shift the indebtedness and more clearly direct it towards mortgage loans. It is about strengthening the power of the economy and the households.
During the mandate period, we have repeatedly discussed the need for facts and statistics regarding both assets and debts. We in the Sverigedemokraterna are happy to map out the debts but have a somewhat different stance when it comes to the assets. This is partly because the information gathering becomes an extensive administrative burden, which we have seen in the responses from the referral bodies. Above all, however, it has to do with personal integrity. We believe that weighs heavily.
It would not be the first time that sensitive information could end up in the hands of the wrong actors, Madam Speaker. We have seen recurring cases of this, for example when companies have been subjected to data breaches during IT attacks and when the Transport Agency was careless with its IT procurement and subsequently damaged the nation's security.
The Sweden Democrats welcome that with the bill we will get a better overview of household credits and over-indebtedness in society. It also means that we will be able to follow what effect different political proposals have regarding these credits and which policy actually works to reduce over-indebtedness.
Fundamentally, it is the case that over-indebtedness constitutes a risk to the economic system in society. When one takes out a loan – whether it concerns a home, a car, or something else – the starting point must be that one shall pay back the loan. I see a worrying trend: People take out loans, often larger than their annual income, without having any plan to pay it back and thus only pay interest on the loan. I think it is the wrong path for the economy's development. One must, in some way, strive for all loans to be paid off.
Joakim Sandell (S)
Madam Speaker! I want to start with a side comment. It was interesting to hear that Member Perez thinks it is troublesome that people are amortizing to a lesser extent. One might ask why a proposition has been submitted to remove the amortization requirement. However, it was not this I wanted to ask about.
I agree with the member regarding the concern about over-indebtedness. The question I have is: Can one really get a grip on what the over-indebtedness looks like if one does not also look at what assets exist? A debt can mean different amounts for different households. If one has large assets, perhaps a loan is not so serious, but if one instead has small or no assets, we have a problem.
The Riksbank, SCB, Riksgälden and so on want this so that they can see if it is a vulnerability for households. You, however, say no to it. How can one get a grip on over-indebtedness by only looking at the debt side and not looking at the asset side?
David Perez (SD)
Madam Speaker! I thank Joakim Sandell for the question.
I want to start by saying that this proposal has been a series – not least have we seen it in the Committee on Finance. We have discussed the risks that exist in the information that is gathered.
It is this that weighs heavily in our assessment. I am thinking of personal privacy, which I believe is very important. It can absolutely be interesting to obtain information and facts, but when it comes to obtaining information about the assets that exist in society, we – and many others out there – have a fear that it is very much within reach to use this information for a single purpose. I am talking about something that the Socialdemokraterna have pushed for for a very long time, namely a wealth tax. We believe that the introduction of such a tax would pose a great risk to society.
Above all, we see that the risk in the economy does not concern the assets that exist but the debts that exist. To look only at that side will, I believe, be a perfectly sufficient way to obtain a clear picture of the situation.
Joakim Sandell (S)
Madam Speaker! It is interesting to hear that the reason we should not have an asset register is that you, David Perez, have already calculated that you will lose the election. If you had had a little self-confidence and believed that you would win the election, there would have been no problem with the asset side based on what we might think.
What the member says about what we think is not true – we have no proposal for a wealth tax. On the other hand, we think it is reasonable to raise other taxes. It is actually like this both with politics and with life as a whole: If you want the expenditures, you must also want the revenues somewhere. It is not possible to borrow for short-term tax cuts for those who have the most. Such tax cuts do nothing for growth or for reducing unemployment.
It is true that we have proposals for tax increases. However, we have no proposals for a wealth tax – what that member said is simply not true. I am aware of this because I was actually at the Social Democratic party congress where, among other things, tax policy was discussed.
David Perez (SD)
Madam Speaker! It may be because the hour is late and the day has been long, but I did not quite perceive any question from the member.
It is reassuring to hear that you, from the Social Democrats' side, have no plans to introduce a wealth tax. Vänsterpartiet, one of your potential coalition parties that you may come to depend on, has however already signaled that they are prepared to introduce a wealth tax, or a billionaire tax, as they call it.
We simply see a risk that personal privacy is eroded if too much information is gathered in this manner. That is what we are guarding against. I thank you anyway for the question.
Joakim Sandell (S)
Madam Speaker! Let me begin by saying that it would have been good if we had received better statistics on household finances. No one disputes that there is a need to understand how Swedish households are affected by interest rate hikes, inflation, and economic crises. To make wise political decisions, we need good knowledge of what reality looks like. It is also for that reason that the Social Democrats for a long time have requested better underlying data to analyze the economic situation of households.
That is why it is difficult to understand why the government chooses to stop halfway. In the bill that we are discussing here, it is proposed that SCB should collect data on household debts and debt payments. The purpose is to improve the analyses of households' resilience and sensitivity to economic shocks. It is a reasonable goal. The problem is that the government simultaneously chooses to ignore the other side of the balance sheet. They want to measure the debts but not the assets.
Madam Speaker! If two households have equally large loans, their economic situation can still be completely different. One household might have large savings, shareholdings, or other assets that serve as an economic buffer. The other household might lack savings entirely. Therefore, the debts alone do not say enough about the households' economic resilience. It is roughly like trying to assess a company's finances by only looking at the debt side of the accounting and closing your eyes to the assets. No serious economist would accept such an analysis. Yet, it is precisely the method that the government now wants to legislate.
Madam Speaker! I will think of an article I recently read about how researchers reacted when parts of the US ocean monitoring risked being dismantled by the Trump administration. The main reason the researchers protested was not that all information would disappear, but that important parts of the information were being removed. The forecasts would still remain, and the measurements would still be made. However, they would be based on a poorer foundation. The researchers warned that one risked flying blind because crucial parts of reality would no longer be captured.
I think there is a clear parallel to the bill we are discussing today. The government collects some of the information regarding household finances, but we do not get the whole picture. The statistics will exist, and analyses will be made. But they will be built on a basis where important pieces of the puzzle are missing, and when one only sees half of the reality, the risk of drawing the wrong conclusions increases.
Madam Speaker! It is not only we Social Democrats who point out this deficiency. Several of the country's heaviest referral bodies have expressed the same criticism. The Riksbank has requested data on household assets in order to be able to analyze how monetary policy affects different groups, how interest rate changes hit different households, and how resilient the Swedish economy actually is. The Konjunkturinstitutet, Riksgälden, Statistics Sweden, and Uppsala University have pointed out the same problem. They argue that debts without assets provide an incomplete picture of household finances.
The Pensions Agency has also pointed out the need for better knowledge regarding household assets. The agency emphasizes that such data are important in order to be able to analyze pensioners' economic situation and assess how well the various supports of the pension system reach the groups for which the supports are intended.
If we do not know what assets people have, we risk getting a misleading picture of their economic circumstances. This applies in particular when we are to evaluate housing supplements, guarantee pension, and other supports aimed at strengthening the finances of pensioners with small resources.
Even here, it is about the same fundamental question. If we want to make well-founded decisions, we must start from the whole picture of people's finances and not just parts of it.
When so many expert agencies and research institutions point in the same direction, the government should actually listen. But the government chooses to proceed with a system that is already incomplete from the beginning.
Madam Speaker! Sweden is today one of the few European countries that lacks a coherent basis regarding the economic assets of households. Nevertheless, we know that assets play a decisive role for people's economic security.
Those who have savings can manage a period of unemployment, rising interest rates, or unexpected expenses in a completely different way than those who lack financial resources. Those who have large assets can carry significantly higher debts than those who have no assets at all.
If we want to understand how households are affected by economic crises, we must therefore understand both the debts and the assets. Otherwise, we risk making decisions based on a basis that only shows half of the reality.
Madam Speaker! We Social Democrats do not say no to better statistics – on the contrary. We want better statistics than the government proposes. We want statistics that give researchers, authorities, the Riksbank, the Pensions Agency, and decision-makers the opportunity to understand the households' overall economic situation. We want a basis for decisions that is built on the whole reality, not just parts of it.
Therefore, we believe that the bill should be rejected and that the government should return with a proposal where household assets are also covered by the statistical collection. Only then will we have a basis that can seriously contribute to better analyses, better crisis preparedness, and a better economic policy.
Ida Drougge (M)
Madam Speaker! Household debts have increased for a long time in Sweden. Irresponsible lending can worsen a person's finances and life to a frightening extent. A contributing cause to the problems we have with over-indebtedness among some Swedish households today is that the market for consumer loans has grown very rapidly.
Mortgage credits certainly constitute around 80 percent of households' total credits, but higher interest rates and a faster amortization rate on consumption credits mean that they still account for a very large part of households' debt payments. This applies particularly if one puts them in relation to the credit's original size.
Because of this, the Moderate-led government has taken a number of measures and achieved more than previous governments have managed to accomplish over a much longer period. We have ensured that only banks and credit institutions are allowed to issue consumer loans. We set higher requirements on companies' own capital holdings. We increase the transparency and supervision of companies.
We have further halved the interest rate cap from 40 to 20 percent. We have tightened the rules for the total cost caps that can be applied to consumer credits. We have limited how many times one may extend an amortization period. Today, you may not extend it more than once if the extension period involves a cost for the person who has taken out the loan.
We also set clearer requirements for the information that must be provided when marketing loans. We have removed the possibility of interest deductions on loans that do not have any fixed collateral. We prohibit license holders and gambling operators from allowing or contributing to gambling being financed by credits. We increase the requirements that such license holders and gambling operators must actively counteract players financing their gambling with loans.
Now we take the next step to better understand and analyze the vulnerability that high indebtedness entails. This applies to both households and individuals, and to us as a society.
By us giving SCB more data on the household sector's debts, much better analyses of individuals' and households' resilience as well as the sensitivity to different types of economic shocks are made possible. It concerns data such as the debt level and what type of loan the debts come from, for example a mortgage, a consumer loan or a student loan.
These tasks are then linked with data that SCB already has in Fasit. This concerns data on property ownership, assessed value, income, social insurance payments and other.
Madam Speaker! Earlier here in the speaker's chair, it sounded as if one would only see the debts after this. That is not true. The truth is that we are now adding the debts.
In the registry, there are today pieces of information on income, which will be able to be put into relation with the new pieces of information on which loans and what interest costs one has. Thus, one can in the future make an important vulnerability assessment.
This is a basis that we as decision-makers will be able to use. Authorities will also be able to use it to make even better analyses of disruptions, interest rate hikes, and how loss of income affects Swedish families. We do this without unnecessarily mapping people's finances.
We have previously debated proposals to collect hundreds of pieces of information about people's assets. It is obviously true that a person can have more assets than the income one has every month. One can have more assets than the housing one owns. Obviously, that is the case.
But the other proposals that have been discussed, Madam Speaker, have involved hundreds more such points. It could be about collecting data on how far one has driven with one's car every year. In our view, that is not something that is needed in order to be able to conduct a vulnerability analysis.
I hereby move to approve the committee's proposal for a decision.
Joakim Sandell (S)
Madam Speaker! I have a question. If looking at the debt side but not the asset side were sufficient, why does the member believe that SCB, the agency responsible for collecting the statistics, the Pensionsmyndigheten, the Riksbanken, which has responsibility for monetary policy and interest rate sensitivity, the Konjunkturinstitutet, Riksgälden, and Uppsala University think that a better register of the assets is also needed? Why does the member believe that these organizations and agencies think that it is needed?
Ida Drougge (M)
Madam Speaker! I am the first to defend and understand that authorities and researchers request statistics and knowledge. That one, as a researcher, for example, always wants to know as much as possible about everyone is entirely natural. It is nothing strange. I do not believe that one wants anything bad with it. It lies in the nature of the matter.
We in this chamber and our government have to weigh it against other issues. It concerns how one views it in relation to privacy and the extensive costs that it would entail to collect all that information. It also concerns how one views it in relation to the risk of this type of data falling into the wrong hands and the efficiency.
Madam Speaker! During one of the meetings that we in the Committee on Finance have had with, among others, the Riksbank, it was asked an explicit question. What would be different if you had this information? What could it have changed?
Madam Speaker! The answer to that question from the Governor of the Riksbank was that it would not be radically different, but it would affect the margin. That is what we have to weigh against the other factors.
We mean that with this proposal, we will in the future have better data to base risk assessments on. They will be able to be run against income data and against property designations.
Joakim Sandell (S)
Madam Speaker! We are actually an odd bird in the Nordic countries and the rest of Europe. Not least, Finland has a comprehensive register of this. Denmark also has a register.
The authorities that I have mentioned earlier do not request it only because they want to know everything about everyone, but because they actually need to be able to make better-founded decisions.
When it comes to the Riksbank, even decisions on the margin affect households' finances. What is normally 0.1 points becomes a lot of money after a while.
It is self-evident, in any case I think, that we should give our authorities the best possible conditions to be able to make decisions as good as can be made.
SCB, Pensionsmyndigheten, Riksbanken, Konjunkturinstitutet, Riksgälden, Uppsala universitet, Finland, Danmark and Norge want this information, but not a majority in Sweden's Riksdag.
Ida Drougge (M)
Madam Speaker! I would like to believe that there are other reasons why just parties on the left wing in this chamber want an expanded register. That can be left to those parties.
With the proposal that we are debating today and will make a decision on later this week, all the authorities that the members here mention will get better opportunities for analyses than they have had since 2007.
Madam Speaker! Earlier here in the speaker's chair, it sounded as if the member thought that we were flying blindly. It is very strange from a party that, in that case, has ruled blindly for many years. That the member must stand for themselves.
With this proposal, we will get significantly more information about household debts, what type of loans they have, whether there is collateral for those loans, and whether they are mortgage loans or consumption loans. It will be possible to pair this with the income they have. It is therefore possible to conduct a good and solid vulnerability assessment.
The deliberation was hereby concluded.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.