Shelter Scotland, the housing and homelessness charity, today welcomed the one per cent interest rate cut, and challenged banks and mortgage lenders to pass the saving on to help hundreds of thousands of struggling homeowners.

Shelter Scotland Director, Graeme Brown, said: 'Despite this being the lowest Bank of England interest rate for over half a century, some mortgage lenders are still using the rate cut to protect their own profits rather than passing them on to hard-up homeowners.

'This rate cut could make a massive difference to hundreds of thousands of families struggling to balance the financial demands of the festive period with sky-high mortgage repayments, so we will be watching carefully to make sure lenders who didn't pass it on last time, do so this time.'

If passed on, the rate cut would mean that a household paying a mortgage of £150,000 would see an average monthly saving of around £91.

Brown added: 'Shelter is calling on lenders to give struggling customers the best Christmas present they could have and urgently cut mortgage rates.'

Notes to editors

1. Shelter expects almost 125,000 people will have logged on to its mortgage help and advice web pages by the end of this year, an increase of 54 per cent on 2007.
2. Shelter figures show more than 900,000 homeowners across the UK are constantly struggling or falling behind every month with their mortgage payments.