2004
Department for Work and Pensions - Research Report No 211

The rather emotive term 'debt' is used to describe two quite different situations. First, it is frequently used to refer to use of credit, and having outstanding money to repay. So someone is said to be 'in debt' if they, say, have a personal loan from a bank, owe money on a credit card, or have bought goods on hire purchase or through a mail order catalogue...