Clause 5
12:45 pm
Stephen Ladyman (South Thanet, Labour)
I beg to move amendment 19, in clause 5, page 3, line 36, at end add—
‘(3) Approved account providers must be persons who are regulated by the Financial Services Authority under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.
(4) Regulations may limit approved account providers to persons from any or all of the following—
(a) Banks;
(b) Building Societies;
(c) Friendly Societies;
(d) Credit Unions;
(e) Industrial and Provident Societies;
(f) Post Office Ltd.’.
I tabled this probing amendment to ask a number of questions of the Economic Secretary. The first part of it will give him the opportunity to confirm that every body providing one of these accounts will be an organisation regulated by the Financial Services Authority, which will thus mean that the people holding these accounts—if they have been wrongly advised about taking them up or using the money in them when they mature—would have access to the Financial Ombudsman Service to have their complaint investigated. That is more than an academic point because industrial and provident societies are not regulated by the FSA, so people invest in an industrial and provident society—as some people might wish to do—do not have access to the ombudsman. I am not suggesting that many IPSs are knocking down the door of the Government to set up these accounts, but they might want to in the future.