Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are taking steps to contact all members of the public who have taken pensions advice from Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) regulated pensions advisers who have had their authorisations revoked or have been otherwise instructed to cease giving pensions advice; if not, why not; and whether each case is being individually reviewed by the FCA.

The Government is committed to working with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to ensure consumers have access to high quality financial advice. The FCA, as the independent financial services regulator, has responsibility for ensuring that the financial advice market works well, competitively and fairly.

The FCA conducts investigations into firms in relation to pension transfer advice. If this work results in formal action the FCA publicly sets out their detailed findings on those firms responsible for serious failings and ensures affected customers are aware.

In cases where the FCA suspects serious misconduct may have occurred and harm needs to be prevented immediately, as a first step the FCA may also ask firms voluntarily to accept a variation of permission or the imposition of a requirement (VREQ). Typically, when the FCA uses this power it will be displayed on the FCA’s Financial Services Register which is free to access and publicly available. Through their work on pension transfers advice, they identified a number of firms which gave cause for concern. This resulted in VREQs being put in place.