False encouragement given on debts (8)
I believe the answer is:
spurious
'false' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'encouragement given on debts' is the wordplay.
'encouragement' becomes 'spur' (spur is a kind of encouragement).
'given on debts' becomes 'ious' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'spur'+'ious'='SPURIOUS'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for spurious that I've seen before include "deceitful!" , "False, fake" , "Bogus" , "Artificial and phoney" , "Not genuine or authentic" .)