Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps have been taken to aid those firms affected by the mis-selling of synthetic fixed-rate loans between 2001 and 2009.

The Government has always stated that the mis-selling of financial products is wrong, and it is important that businesses that have been affected should be compensated.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is an independent non-governmental body responsible for regulating and supervising the financial services industry. The FCA does not have general regulatory powers over business lending.

As a result, the redress scheme covering the mis-selling of interest rate hedging products (IRHPs) only covers those products that were agreed separately to a business loan. Some banks voluntarily carried out their own reviews on the sale of fixed rate loans with characteristics of IRHPs, and have sought to mirror the IRHP redress scheme process.