Labour government wants to allow Bailiffs to use force, break in to homes to recover consumer debt

That's pretty shocking

Money collection is pretty heavily regulated, particularly when it comes to actual enforcement with bailiffs, having dealt with debt collectors and bailiffs, I certainly wouldn't want them to have more power than they already do.

My experience is that Bailiffs and debt collectors will be sent to the wrong address, be requested to enforce disputed payments or even fraudulent invoices as well as various errors.

I've never had a dealing with a bailiff or debt collector regarding a debt that I actually owed :
* for somebody elses business that I ran the website for (which was also disputed, and being the guy who ran the website I helped to deal with the dispute, and was livid that Citylink were trying to bill for a package sent by another of their customers from a totally different address and it was clearly a fault in their system).
* for a gas bill unpaid by a previous tennant
* for rental arrears by Felicity J Lord on a property they forgot to update on their automated billing system, which nobody spotted until threatening letters arrived in the post

I've heard of friends receiving fraudulent threats by both criminals and legitmate businesses.

That's why we need to ensure debt collection and recovery / enforcement is tighly regulated - it's the most vulnerable people who are on the receiving end, and it's used carelessly, badly or fraudulently - the last thing we need to do is allow the use of force.