Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Chancellor’s letter of 14 November 2024 on the remit and recommendations for the Financial Policy Committee, what assessment they have made of the extent to which the Financial Conduct Authority has implemented its requirement to ‘have regard’ to reinforcing financial inclusion.

Ensuring everyone has access to the financial services and products they need is a key priority for the Government. This is why we recently published the Financial Inclusion Strategy setting out a range of measures to improve financial inclusion and resilience for underserved groups across the UK.

The Chancellor recognised the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) role in reinforcing financial inclusion in the most recent remit letter, which asks them to have regard to the Government’s priorities in relation to this. The FCA is required to respond annually to the remit letter and in its most recent response, published in July 2025, Nikhil Rathi (FCA CEO) emphasised the FCA’s support for the Government’s Financial Inclusion Strategy which was developed with input from a committee of consumer and industry representatives, including the FCA given their key role in the sector.
The FCA has a range of powers which it is using to promote financial inclusion and resilience and will play a key role in the delivery of several interventions within the strategy. We continue to engage closely with the FCA on this and the successful implementation of the strategy more broadly.