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Written question asked by Lord Spellar (Labour) on Friday, 5 January 2024, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 9 January 2024. It was answered by Bim Afolami (Conservative) on Thursday, 11 January 2024 on behalf of the Treasury.

Funerals: Financial Services

Question

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps he is taking with the Financial Conduct Authority to help ensure funeral fund providers have sufficient resources to meet their obligations.

Answer

In January 2021 the government legislated to bring all pre-paid funeral plan providers and intermediaries within the Financial Conduct Authority’s regulatory remit.

The FCA has extensive experience of both conduct and prudential regulation. As part of its regulation of the sector, the FCA have introduced requirements that ensure that funeral plan providers have sufficient funds to fulfil the funeral plan contracts they have entered into.

This includes rules that require funeral plan providers to:

  • place sufficient funds to provide any agreed upon funeral in a trust or insurance arrangements;
  • have systems and controls in place to ensure the adequacy of those trust and insurance arrangements and to ensure that pricing does not lead to insufficient sums being available to provide the agreed upon funeral; and
  • consider the risk of inflation and volatility of trust assets when assessing the sums needed to provide for the funeral.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
7745
Session
2023-24
Subjects
Financial services Funerals
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk