Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of measures taken to ensure that directors of insurance companies are fit and proper.
Answered by Richard Fuller
The Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority are independent bodies responsible for the regulation and supervision of the financial services industry. They have set out rules determining the assessment of the fitness and propriety of individuals applying to become an approved person within an insurance company, including director, and are responsible for the monitoring of adherence to these rules.
The government has no plans to change these arrangements.
Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an estimate of the cost to the public purse of liabilities as a result of the liquidation of Lamp Insurance Company Limited being covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
Answered by Richard Fuller
HM Treasury does not routinely provide estimates relating to Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) costs in relation to individual cases.
The FSCS is funded by the financial services industry and is operationally independent of government. Firms that are authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority pay an annual levy to fund FSCS compensation and management expenses. Some of the funding also comes through recoveries from the estates of failed firms and any third parties that might be liable for, or connected to, the compensation claim. This can reduce the cost of the levy to the wider industry. The FSCS also has in place a revolving credit facility with a consortium of private lenders from which it can drawdown at short notice.
In the unlikely event the FSCS exhausts its available resources, it may request a loan from the National Loans Fund. This means public funds are only used to fund FSCS compensation in a very limited set of special circumstances.
Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what arrangements exist between authorities in the UK and Gibraltar for cooperation when investigating failed insurance companies at a cost to the public purse.
Answered by Richard Fuller
The Government is committed to maintaining high standards of consumer protection in UK financial services. Authorities within the UK and Gibraltar work together closely, including when insurance firms fail. The current arrangements for cooperation between the financial services regulators in Gibraltar and the UK are set out in a Memorandum of Understanding available here: https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/mou/fsa-mou-gibraltar.pdf.
The forthcoming Gibraltar Authorisation Regime will be a new permanent legislative and institutional framework. It will govern UK market access for certain Gibraltar-based financial services firms, including insurers, and will cement arrangements for insolvency and resolution requirements.
Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to the case of the Lamp Insurance Company Limited, if he will make an assessment of the adequacy of the steps required of (a) liquidators and (b) regulatory bodies in (i) Gibraltar and (ii) the UK to ensure that (A) creditors and (B) consumers are protected when a company goes into liquidation.
Answered by Jane Hunt
LAMP Insurance Company Limited is a Gibraltar-incorporated and registered company which was authorised and regulated by the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission. The company was placed into liquidation in Gibraltar on 31 May 2019 in accordance with the Gibraltar Insolvency Act 2011. The UK Government has no involvement in the legal or regulatory functions of the authorities in Gibraltar.
LAMP Insurance Company Limited also operated in the UK and was authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority. In the event that an authorised insurer fails operating in the UK or Gibraltar, there are consumer protections in place. Eligible policyholders can seek compensation from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme and refer claims disputes to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Creditors of the company who are not policyholders can lodge their claims and obtain further information via the Liquidator’s appointed agents, Grant Thornton Limited, who can be contacted by email at lampinsurance@gi.gt.com.
Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham, Erdington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to support (a) Wilson Stuart School in Erdington and (b) other special academies to cover the costs of higher energy bills to ensure that they do not have to make cuts to other parts of their budget.
Answered by Will Quince
The department is aware schools are facing cost pressures, especially around energy costs. Cost pressures should be seen in the wider context of funding for schools. This government continues to deliver year on year increases to the core schools budget with a £7 billion cash increase in funding by the 2024/25 financial year, compared with the 2021/22 financial year, taking total funding to £56.8 billion by 2024/25. As a result, we can announce that high needs funding for children and young people with complex needs, including funding for the special schools in which many of them are educated, is increasing in the 2022/23 financial year by £1 billion, to a total of £9.1 billion.
Special schools, including Wilson Stuart School, should discuss with the local authorities placing pupils in their schools, how much high needs funding is passed on to them for helping with energy and other cost increases. Birmingham will attract a high needs funding increase of 15.6% per head of their population aged 2 to 18 this year, compared to the previous financial year’s allocation, bringing their total high needs funding allocation in the 2022/23 financial year to £243.5 million.
In addition, all schools can access the department’s schools resource management (SRM) offer. This includes a range of practical tools and information to help schools unlock efficiencies, for example, by saving money on regular purchases and avoiding paying ‘over the odds’ for services like energy, insurance, or recruitment advertising, which they can then reinvest in line with their own priorities.
The SRM offer includes the Get Help Buying for Schools service, which provides specialist support, advice, and guidance for schools around their procurement activity. The service signposts schools to ‘department-recommended’ frameworks for schools and trusts to recommended deals for energy costs and services relating to energy, which can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/buying-for-schools/energy.
Asked by: Barry Sheerman (Labour (Co-op) - Huddersfield)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will meet with FairLife to discuss the potential merits of a fair trading mark for firms in the financial sector.
Answered by Richard Fuller
The Government wants to ensure that everyone, regardless of their background or income, has access to useful and affordable financial products and services. These include products and services such as banking, payment services, credit products and insurance.
The Government also shares FairLife’s aims of ensuring that people build financial capability, meaning that they are able to use, and maximise their use of, products and services made available by the financial services industry.
Government policy on financial capability focuses on ensuring that people can access the guidance they need and have the confidence and skills to manage their money well.
To promote financial inclusion and capability, the Government works closely together with regulators and stakeholders from the public, private and third sectors. The Chancellor, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury and HMT officials regularly meet with a wide range of organisations to exchange views, collaborate and inform our policy development and delivery. The government would welcome a discussion with FairLife as part of this engagement and HM Treasury officials will get in touch with them to arrange this.
Asked by: Barry Sheerman (Labour (Co-op) - Huddersfield)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will consider supporting the work of FairLife to raise standards in finance by adopting a fair trading mark for financial firms.
Answered by Richard Fuller
The Government wants to ensure that everyone, regardless of their background or income, has access to useful and affordable financial products and services. These include products and services such as banking, payment services, credit products and insurance.
The Government also shares FairLife’s aims of ensuring that people build financial capability, meaning that they are able to use, and maximise their use of, products and services made available by the financial services industry.
Government policy on financial capability focuses on ensuring that people can access the guidance they need and have the confidence and skills to manage their money well.
To promote financial inclusion and capability, the Government works closely together with regulators and stakeholders from the public, private and third sectors. The Chancellor, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury and HMT officials regularly meet with a wide range of organisations to exchange views, collaborate and inform our policy development and delivery. The government would welcome a discussion with FairLife as part of this engagement and HM Treasury officials will get in touch with them to arrange this.
Asked by: Barry Sheerman (Labour (Co-op) - Huddersfield)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps he is taking to raise standards in finance with a fair trading mark.
Answered by Richard Fuller
The Government wants to ensure that everyone, regardless of their background or income, has access to useful and affordable financial products and services. These include products and services such as banking, payment services, credit products and insurance.
The Government also shares FairLife’s aims of ensuring that people build financial capability, meaning that they are able to use, and maximise their use of, products and services made available by the financial services industry.
Government policy on financial capability focuses on ensuring that people can access the guidance they need and have the confidence and skills to manage their money well.
To promote financial inclusion and capability, the Government works closely together with regulators and stakeholders from the public, private and third sectors. The Chancellor, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury and HMT officials regularly meet with a wide range of organisations to exchange views, collaborate and inform our policy development and delivery. The government would welcome a discussion with FairLife as part of this engagement and HM Treasury officials will get in touch with them to arrange this.
Asked by: Baroness Sater (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to improve the provision of financial education for pupils eligible for free school meals.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department wants all schools to offer high standard of financial education. In delivering the curriculum, including financial education, schools should take account of pupils with particular needs and adapt lessons accordingly.
Education on financial matters helps to ensure that pupils are taught the functions and uses of money, the importance of personal budgeting, money management and managing financial risk. Finance education forms part of the citizenship national curriculum which can be taught at all key stages and is compulsory at key stages 3 and 4: https://www.gov.uk/national-curriculum. At secondary school, pupils are taught about income and expenditure, credit and debt, insurance, savings and pensions, financial products and services, and how public money is raised and spent.
The department has also introduced a rigorous mathematics curriculum, which provides young people with the knowledge and financial skills to make important financial decisions. In the primary mathematics curriculum, there is a strong emphasis on the essential arithmetic knowledge that pupils should be taught. This knowledge is vital, as a strong grasp of numeracy and numbers will underpin pupils’ ability to manage budgets and money, including, for example, using percentages. There is also some specific content about financial education, such as calculations with money.
The department has not made any specific requirement for financial education provision for pupils who are eligible for free school meals, however, as with other aspects of the curriculum, schools have flexibility over how they deliver these subjects. This means schools can develop an integrated approach that is sensitive to the needs and background of their pupils.
The Money and Pensions Service published financial education guidance for primary and secondary schools in England, to support school leaders to enhance the financial education currently delivered in their schools to make it memorable and impactful. The guidance is available here: https://maps.org.uk/2021/11/11/financial-education-guidance-for-primary-and-secondary-schools-in-england/.
The department will continue to work closely with the Money and Pensions Service and other stakeholders, such as HM Treasury, to consider learning from other sector initiatives and whether there is scope to provide further support for the teaching of financial education in schools.
Asked by: Lord Colgrain (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question
To ask the Parliamentary Works Sponsor Body what has been the cost of the work on the Restoration and Renewal programme since 2012 in respect of (1) the salaries, recruitment fees, and redundancy payments for non-parliamentary staff, such as those working for the Sponsor Body and Delivery Authority, (2) the costs of contractors to undertake surveys and preparatory work, and (3) the work assessing and preparing decant locations.
Answered by Lord Best
The Sponsor Body and Delivery Authority were established in April and May 2020 respectively. Prior to this, the R&R Programme was funded and managed by the House Administrations.
The costs outlined below represent those incurred by the Sponsor Body and Delivery Authority since April and May 2020 respectively until the end of March 2022. Costs included for the 2021/22 financial year are based on the Quarter 3 forecast, which was presented in the Main Estimate Memorandum. The 2021/22 Sponsor Body and Delivery Authority accounts are currently being audited, and the final outturn position for 2021/22 presented as part of the Annual Report and Accounts will therefore vary from the forecast position.
The Sponsor Body has spent £8.2m on salaries (includng associated costs such as pension and national insurance contributions) and £45,000 on recruitment costs. The Delivery Authority has spent £25.3m on salaries (including associated costs such as pension and national insurance contributions) and £0.4m on recruitment costs. There have been no redundancy payments by either organisation in this period.
A further £10.9m has been spent on work assessing and preparing decant locations.
Excluding the costs outlined above, the Delivery Authority has spent £151m over this period on contractor costs. This comprises all third-party spend, including design and surveys work, programme delivery and project and programme management. It also includes spend required to establish and mature the organisation in preparation for delivery, such as in data and digital, and procurement. Excluding the costs above, the Sponsor Body spent £16.1m on all third-party suppliers. The most significant pieces of work included business case and Strategic Review consultancy, independent assurance, organisational development, corporate services, and public engagement.
The total expenditure on all these items is £212m.
Under the Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Act 2019, the Sponsor Body must, in exercising its functions, have regard to the need to ensure that the Parliamentary building works represent good value for money. The costs of the Sponsor Body and Delivery Authority to date have been through a comprehensive process of review and challenge led by the CEOs and Boards of both organisations, and scrutinised by the Commissions of both Houses as well as the Parliamentary Works Estimates Commission. These costs are also audited by the National Audit Office.