Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will introduce new regulatory regimes to provide statutory protections for consumers aimed at strengthening protections for policy holders with companies in administration.

The insolvency regime strikes a balance when distributing funds from insolvent estates to ensure that all creditors in an insolvency are treated fairly. Changing that balance, by giving a higher priority to certain customers, will have a detrimental impact on other unsecured creditors, as well as having wider implications (for example, on lending, credit terms, and other trade activity). Protection of policy holders is a matter for regulators in the sectors in which they operate rather than in the insolvency framework.