Part of Treasury – in the House of Commons at on 19 March 2024.
Nick Smith
Shadow Deputy Leader of the House of Commons
My experience of the FCA and the Safe Hands funeral plan fiasco is that it took six months to reply to my freedom of information request and pleaded commercial confidentiality to key questions, and that, despite being warned, the Treasury failed to support consumers moving from an unregulated sector into regulation. It appears to me that the Treasury missed opportunities to support consumers and is still shuffling its feet. At least 47,000 people are out of pocket to the tune of £60 million. They were trying to protect their loved ones from expensive funerals at the worst of times. Will the Minister consider an independent review of this matter? A constructive response is needed to ensure that Safe Hands victims can have confidence in a system that for too long has let them down.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
