Teresa Pearce – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Teresa Pearce on 2016-01-13.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what his policy is on public sector and charitable provision of consumer debt advice services.

Damian Hinds

The Money Advice Service (MAS) is responsible for the coordination of publicly funded free to client debt advice. MAS is financed by a levy on the financial services industry. MAS is currently consulting on its business plan; it has proposed levying for a constant budget for debt advice for 2016/17 providing around £45 million to its third sector partners for the provision of debt advice.

More broadly the Government is currently reviewing how the public provision of free-to-client, impartial financial guidance, including consumer debt advice services, should be structured to give consumers the information they need to make financial decisions. The Public Financial Guidance consultation closed in December 2015 and the Government will report back by budget.