Thank you both, didn't actually need an output file so this is what I have and is enough.
f = open('debt.txt','r')
for line in f.readlines():
print line.split()[1].replace("£", "") + "\n"
f.close()
f = open('debt.txt','r')
for line in f.readlines():
print line.split()[1].replace("£", "") + "\n"
f.close()