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1135818

	registered interest
	date	01/07/2019
	answering body	Treasury
	answering dept id	14
	answering dept short name	Treasury
	answering dept sort name	Treasury
	hansard heading	Credit
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of introducing (a) a minimum dwell time and (b) prompts that require active demonstrations of consumer understanding on consumer credit application pages.
	tabling member constituency	Newcastle-under-Lyme
	tabling member printed	Paul Farrelly
	uin	271398
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 04/07/2019 answer text <p>The Government has fundamentally reformed regulation of the consumer credit market, transferring regulatory responsibility to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on 1 April 2014. Although the Treasury sets the legal framework for the regulation of financial services, the FCA is an independent body. Therefore this is a matter for the FCA.</p><p> </p><p>The FCA has tough enforcement powers – criminal, civil and regulatory – to protect consumers and to take action against firms and individuals that do not meet its standards. Since the transfer, the FCA has taken a proactive approach on consumer credit, to ensure that all consumers who use high-cost credit products are treated fairly.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Salisbury answering member printed John Glen question first answered 04/07/2019 14:11:40 answering member 4051 label Biography information for John Glen
	tabling member	1436 label Biography information for Paul Farrelly

1131016

	registered interest
	date	10/06/2019
	answering body	Treasury
	answering dept id	14
	answering dept short name	Treasury
	answering dept sort name	Treasury
	hansard heading	Pension Funds: Consumer Information
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of advice given to retirees accessing their pension funds for the first time.
	tabling member constituency	Newcastle-under-Lyme
	tabling member printed	Paul Farrelly
	uin	262271
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 13/06/2019 answer text <p>The Government works closely with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the independent financial services regulator, to ensure that the market for pensions advice works well, competitively and fairly, especially as consumers now have a wider variety of choice, with the onset of pension freedoms.</p><p>In 2017, the FCA published the results from its Assessing Suitability Review (ASR I) which looked at pension and investment advice delivered during 2015. The review showed that generally financial advice was suitable in 93.1% of cases, across a statistically representative sample of the entire market. The FCA are undertaking further work looking at the market for pensions transfer advice.</p><p>In August 2015 HM Treasury and the FCA launched the Financial Advice Market Review (FAMR) and have since then implemented its recommendations to ensure the financial advice market works better for consumers. The government and FCA are conducting a review of FAMR throughout 2019.</p><p>The Government is also committed to ensuring that people have access to free-to-access financial guidance and information on the options available to them when accessing their Defined Contribution pension, which is why PensionWise, now part of the Money and Pensions Service (MAPS), was set up in 2015.</p> answering member constituency Salisbury answering member printed John Glen question first answered 13/06/2019 13:25:01 answering member 4051 label Biography information for John Glen
	tabling member	1436 label Biography information for Paul Farrelly

1123970

	registered interest
	date	30/04/2019
	answering body	Treasury
	answering dept id	14
	answering dept short name	Treasury
	answering dept sort name	Treasury
	hansard heading	Loans: Interest Rates
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of introducing an anti-usury law to cap interest rates and give borrowers more protection.
	tabling member constituency	Newcastle-under-Lyme
	tabling member printed	Paul Farrelly
	uin	249240
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 07/05/2019 answer text <p>On 1 April 2014 the Government transferred regulatory responsibility for consumer credit from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The FCA proactively monitors the market, focusing on the areas most likely to cause consumer harm. The Government has given the FCA the power to cap all forms of credit, and the FCA can do so if it thinks it is necessary to protect consumers.</p><p> </p><p>The FCA introduced a price cap on the cost of payday lending in 2015, and more recently introduced a price cap on rent-to-own which came into force on 1 April 2019. The Government has strong concerns about the practices that the FCA has identified in the rent-to-own market, and welcomes the FCA’s decision to introduce a price cap.</p><p> </p><p>The FCA has said that it will keep the issue of capping the cost of credit in other markets under review.</p> answering member constituency Salisbury answering member printed John Glen question first answered 07/05/2019 13:33:58 answering member 4051 label Biography information for John Glen
	tabling member	1436 label Biography information for Paul Farrelly

1122396

	registered interest
	date	23/04/2019
	answering body	Treasury
	answering dept id	14
	answering dept short name	Treasury
	answering dept sort name	Treasury
	hansard heading	Personal Savings: Older People
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps he is taking to enable older people to (a) build and (b) maintain an adequate level of savings.
	tabling member constituency	Newcastle-under-Lyme
	tabling member printed	Paul Farrelly
	uin	246476
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 30/04/2019 answer text <p>The Government is committed to supporting people of all incomes and at all stages of life to save.</p><p> </p><p>Older people will continue to benefit from a number of measures the Government has introduced in recent years.</p><p> </p><p>The Government has increased the amount that individuals, including older people and those of State Pension age, can earn or receive in savings interest before paying income tax to £12,500 per year. As a result, people can keep more of their income to invest as they choose.</p><p> </p><p>The amount of money that people can save into their ISAs each year (the annual subscription allowance) has been increased to a record £20,000.</p><p> </p><p>Since April 2016, individuals have also been able to benefit from a new Personal Savings Allowance of up to £1,000 for basic rate taxpayers and up to £500 for higher rate taxpayers.</p><p> </p><p>As a result of these measures, over 95% of people with savings income pay no tax on that income.</p> answering member constituency Salisbury answering member printed John Glen question first answered 30/04/2019 16:13:50 answering member 4051 label Biography information for John Glen
	tabling member	1436 label Biography information for Paul Farrelly

1121732

	registered interest
	date	18/04/2019
	answering body	Treasury
	answering dept id	14
	answering dept short name	Treasury
	answering dept sort name	Treasury
	hansard heading	House Insurance
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the 10 April 2019 Insurance Age article entitled Citizens Advice slams home insurers in dual pricing report, what assessment he has made of the implications for his Department's policies of the finding that home insurance companies make over half of their profits from people defined by the regulator as potentially vulnerable.
	tabling member constituency	Newcastle-under-Lyme
	tabling member printed	Paul Farrelly
	uin	245669
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 25/04/2019 answer text <p>The Government is focussed on ensuring that the insurance industry functions well for everyone.</p><p> </p><p>To that end, Government welcomed the launch of the FCA’s General Insurance Pricing Practices Market Study in October 2019. The Market Study is investigating consumer outcomes from insurers’ pricing practices; it is looking specifically at the potential harm suffered by the vulnerable long-standing customers that Citizens Advice refers to in its press release of 10 April 2019. As a part of the Market Study the FCA will consider all potential remedies that may be required to make the market work well for consumers.</p><p> </p><p>The FCA is empowered to address misconduct, and where this has occurred it can undertake investigations and impose financial penalties or order firms to cease certain activities.</p><p> </p><p>The Government is monitoring the outcome of this Market Study and is prepared to ask the FCA to take further action if required.</p> answering member constituency Salisbury answering member printed John Glen question first answered 25/04/2019 08:49:18 answering member 4051 label Biography information for John Glen
	tabling member	1436 label Biography information for Paul Farrelly