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

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have given any guarantees to the Financial Reporting Council to cover legal costs for cases brought against accountancy firms.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has not given any guarantee to cover the legal costs of cases brought against accountancy firms.

The Department has given the following undertaking for the 2017-18 financial year. It relates to audit investigations and sanctions work resulting in a statutory fine under the Statutory Auditors and Third Country Auditors Regulations 2016. Those regulations require the fine to be paid to the Secretary of State. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy would establish a programme of grant payments to cover any loss of funding to the Financial Reporting Council, which would otherwise have been funded from the fine income.