Funeral Plan Industry

Kevan Jones Excerpts

Thursday 26th May 2022 Westminster Hall

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the funeral plan industry.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mrs Cummins. I am grateful to the Chairman of Ways and Means, for her wisdom in selecting this afternoon’s debate; amid the noise and chaos that is the normal week in Parliament, she has provided a space to consider the needs and concerns of decent and often vulnerable people who are trying to do the right thing.

People who buy funeral plans are elderly, and they may be ill—perhaps terminally so. They may have struggled with the cost of a funeral when their spouse died, and they do not want to burden their children with the same anxiety. They may fear the shame of a local authority funeral—a pauper’s burial. These are people who have worked hard and saved hard, and they want some piece of mind at the end of life. They are not people who grab the headlines and demand the limelight or who, when something goes wrong, take to Twitter, call their lawyer or send emails in capital letters to their MP twice a day. They may even be quite reluctant to contact their MP, and if they do, it will be politely understated. For that reason it is all the more important that we are here today to ensure that their voices are heard in this place, and I am very grateful to all Members for attending the debate.

The funeral plan industry sees these people, who I think we can all agree are vulnerable, as a lucrative target market. Until now, it has certainly been a huge growth industry. Today, 1.6 million people hold a funeral plan, with 218,000 people taking out a new plan only last year and with over £4 billion in funds under management held in plans. There is huge trust placed in funeral plan providers by vulnerable people, yet this lucrative industry is unregulated.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Lady share my concerns about some of the practices and sales techniques that are used to get people to sign up to these plans? She has already mentioned that people are vulnerable, but when we read the small print in the glossy brochures that are provided, it is clear that these plans do not actually deliver what has been promised to many people.

[Lucy Allan]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct, and I will come on to some of those high-pressure sales techniques, which I very much hope the new regulatory regime will remove.

The Funeral Planning Authority held itself out as providing some form of oversight, giving itself a veneer of respectability as a quasi-regulator, but it was not, and we have to remember that the industry is entirely unregulated, despite any appearances to the contrary. The Minister rightly took steps some years ago to rectify that omission, and I pay tribute to him for that. Of course, there are good providers, such as Dignity and Co-op Funeralcare, which care about good governance and are working to ensure that this unregulated industry is brought within the perimeter of the Financial Conduct Authority by 29 July. However, that creates challenges for the industry, because some providers have not applied to be regulated and some have not been accepted for regulation, for good reason. There are concerns about where that will leave people who hold plans with those providers. I have had useful meetings with Dignity and the FCA, and I am grateful to them for their work in this area.

Let us make no mistake: as the right hon. Gentleman just alluded to, this is an industry with a record of using high-pressure selling techniques, such as cold calling, telesales and having a sales rep sit in someone’s kitchen until they sign on the dotted line. People sign up for some extraordinary fee arrangements, whereby 25% of the plan could be taken as commission. Then there is the use of intermediaries, such as will writers, to sell a funeral plan as if it were an add-on, when all people really wanted was a will. They are told that their money is held in trust and overseen by independent trustees, and that it will be ringfenced and invested in blue-chip equities, yet there is a complete lack of transparency as to how their money is invested. Then there is the playing on people’s fears, and I am afraid that even the more reputable companies tell people that a funeral plan is an essential part of end-of-life planning.

That brings me to the ironically named Safe Hands Funeral Plans, now in administration. While we can all agree that only a small number of providers pay scant regard to good governance, the industry as a whole has long known about these providers and their practices. I am sad to say that it knew about Safe Hands Funeral Plans and its methods, which were an open secret in the industry. As we move towards regulation, it was only a matter of time before any rogue operators would fail. A number of investigative personal financial journalists have covered this story, and I particularly pay tribute to Jeff Prestbridge for his sterling work in this area. I encourage him and others to keep up the campaign.

When my constituents, Don and Toni Haines, from Ketley in Telford, contacted me about their Safe Hands plan, sold to them by Equity Wills in Market Drayton, Shropshire, it did not take me long to see what had happened to the money supposedly held in trust for the benefit of plan holders. Yes, I am a chartered accountant and I specialised in insolvency, including administrations and liquidations, but even a cursory glance at note 8 on page 6 of the Safe Hands accounts, freely available to anyone online, makes clear that the company is entitled to receive any surplus declared following an actuarial valuation of the Safe Hands Plans Trust—the moneys held in trust for savers could be distributed to a director shareholder.

The surplus declared on the Safe Hands Plans Trust as at May 2020 was £2.4 million. In 2019 the surplus was £10.9 million. It is clear that moneys supposedly ringfenced for plan holders were distributed to director shareholders as a dividend. Did Equity Wills of Market Drayton tell Mr and Mrs Haines that this would happen if they bought a Safe Hands plan? Did Equity Wills check the Safe Hands accounting policies themselves before pocketing their commission? They did not even tell Mr and Mrs Haines they were buying a Safe Hands plan, so my constituents could not even check for themselves.

Digging a bit deeper into the accounts, which of course make full use of the small company exemption to file only limited information, we see that a loan of £3.5 million appears to form part of the assets of the trust, which are ringfenced for plan holders. This loan was advanced to a director of Safe Hands—a Mr Malcolm David Milson, and his wife. By 2020, he was no longer a director shareholder and the advances made to him were not recovered. In anyone’s book, this is clearly financial misconduct. The administrators believe that, out of a portfolio valued at at least £60 million, they can realise between only £10 million and £16 million, leaving plan holders with a return of between 10p and 20p in the pound—and we should not forget that that is after they have paid their 25% commission.

Let us call this what it is: theft. Anyone associated with this company should be disqualified as a director, along with anyone who signed off the accounts or certified the surplus. There is a duty of care to the vulnerable. As much as I admire what Dignity is trying to do, in the material that it circulated to Members it has not fully recognised or accepted that these people are vulnerable. It is important that that is acknowledged, and I am sure the Minister will do that in his response.

I am not somebody who uses exaggerated language, because it often diminishes the power of an argument, but what has been happening here is clear: it is what any accountant will call teeming and lading—in other words a Ponzi scheme. As long as the provider keeps selling to new customers to pay the maturing plans of existing customers, there is no problem, but if the music stops—as it did in this case when the provider was prevented from selling any new plans by the FCA as it moved to regulate the industry—the house of cards collapses, leaving vulnerable savers in this instance with 10p to 20p in the pound.

My fear is that Safe Hands plan holders will not be the only casualties. In fairness to Dignity, it has so far underwritten the plans that are now maturing and is working with the FCA to see how it can take plan holders on as clients. However, there is a big concern that its long -term proposal would require plans that are fully paid—we should not forget that most plans are fully paid—to make further payments to Dignity on the basis that people would at least be better off doing that than just having the 10p to 20p in the pound that the administrator would pay. That is not good enough.

The industry knows that nobody needs a funeral plan. Let us not pretend otherwise. A person can tell their children what they want when they die and put their monthly contribution into an ISA or bank account. Why risk it with a funeral plan? Why pay exceptional commissions? If their estate is valued at less than a few thousand pounds, the cost of the funeral gets the first call on the deceased’s assets. If there are no assets at all, the local authority picks up the cost.

I am very concerned that some industry lobbyists are seeking to water down the FCA regulatory proposals and are lobbying MPs to that end, and I urge the Minister and the FCA to stand firm. These are vulnerable savers and they must have the gold standard of protection. Watering down the proposed new regulatory regime for the industry would make it easier to become regulated. I understand that we do not want to exclude providers from regulation altogether, but it would be counterproductive. We have been there with the FPA, which, as we have seen, has provided no regulation whatever, just the veneer of regulation or some form of respectability.

Funeral plans are savings and investment products targeted at vulnerable people, and those savers should have at least the same level of protection as anyone else buying a savings financial product. There is a duty of care to protect the vulnerable from exploitation and mistreatment—I am sure the FCA and the Minister will agree.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does the hon. Lady agree not only that it needs to be clear what people are purchasing, but that if the people selling the plans are receiving commission —in some of the examples I have come across, the third party selling them has been on commission—that should be clearly stated, too?

[Lucy Allan]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The lack of transparency is a significant feature of where this industry has gone astray.

Protecting funeral plan holders from some of their loss, which is what is suggested, is not good enough, and nor should the industry expect taxpayers to bail it out. This is a problem of the industry’s making, and it needs to work together to find a solution. If the industry cuts plan holders adrift, it will have sullied its own reputation, creating longer-term consequences for itself.

This is also about accountability. The auditors, the actuaries, the trustees, the directors and the fund managers cannot just walk away from these vulnerable customers. Why should plan holders with fully paid plans have to pay more to save their funeral plan? It is no good saying that a Safe Hands customer’s loss would be less if they paid to switch to a Dignity plan than what would otherwise crystalise from a distribution from the administrator. That is no comfort to anyone. I welcome the steps that Dignity has taken to date, but it must consider whether it, with other reputable members of the industry, can go further.

I know that the Minister wants to do the right thing, and I know that the industry understands that if it wants to survive this financial shock—this battering to its reputation—it too will go the extra mile to do the right thing. The voices of people who work hard, save hard and trust others to do what they say they will do with their money are being heard today by the Minister loud and clear.

I hope the FCA will have no truck whatever with the view that these vulnerable saving plan holders should be treated less favourably than other plan holders. There must in all circumstances be a duty to protect vulnerable customers, a requirement to hold capital to be able to honour the guarantees that are given, and an industry compensation scheme for the plan holders who will be excluded from the financial services compensation scheme. This is an important point. Anyone who will lose out prior to 29 July will not be protected by the financial services compensation scheme. Those people must have a scheme that protects them from losses, and that must be a funeral plan industry scheme. I do not think it should be topped up by the Government. The industry got into this mess, and it needs to work together to get out of it.

I know that, sadly, this matter will not be at the top of the Treasury’s in-tray, at what is a challenging and difficult time for all Treasury officials. The Minister is one of my favourite Ministers, and I urge him to make sure that the little people do not end up at the bottom of the pile, and to consider that how we treat the vulnerable says much about our financial services industry as a whole—and, indeed, about our society.

We want to build a reputation for probity and integrity in the financial services sector. There are vulnerable people whose vulnerabilities have been exploited. We cannot just hope that they will not know that they lost the money; that, if they do know, they will not have the capacity to fight for themselves; or that they might die, leaving local authorities to step in. If we do that, we will damage not only the funeral plan industry, but the financial services industry. There are MPs across the House who will not let that happen—I am one of them. These individuals are the people we are all here to represent. I hope that the Minister will allow us all to be part of the solution.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Cummins. I thank the hon. Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) for securing this debate.

As the hon. Lady said, this debate concerns some of the most vulnerable people in our society. Do I agree with what she said about whether we need funeral plans? No, we do not need funeral plans. However, there is a reason for them. There are generations of people—certainly in the community I grew up in—who feel a certain shame about leaving nothing for their funeral. As people become ill or grow old, it preys on their mind. They want to avoid the stigma that there used to be of the parish, as it used to be, or the local authority having to pay, and they do not want to be a burden on the loved ones they leave behind.

What is sickening about this scandal—and it is a scandal—is that these individuals have been taken advantage of by a company that knew what it was doing. Like the hon. Member for Telford, I have been contacted by a number of people about Safe Hands Funeral Plans. Having looked at it in detail, it is clear to me that it knew what it was doing. Frankly, it was a scam. Why would someone invest unless they thought that their assets would grow over time and that their investment was guaranteed? But it took profits out, and the only way to plug that hole, as the hon. Lady said, was by recruiting more individuals.

Having spoken to people, I have learned of the scandalous hard sell used to very vulnerable people. It is no good criticising those people and saying that they should have asked questions. A lot of them do not have extensive experience of the financial sector. They might have a bank account; they might save for a pension or have a small pension. What they have not done is look at investments and other areas. They have been taken advantage of.

I agree with the hon. Lady that those individuals did what they thought was the right thing to do, and they should be commended for that. However, they have been left in a position where they are potentially receiving only 10% to 20% of the money they paid in. An Adjournment debate was granted on Safe Hands Funeral Plans on 12 May, but there have since been some updates. When the average funeral costs more than £4,000, and people paid in that money, that return will not go any way to covering the cost of a funeral. Are these people in a position to replace that loss by taking another plan out or saving in another way? No, they are not. The company should be called out, which is what the hon. Lady has done, for the way it has acted.

I heard from one of my constituents, who said:

“I am a 70-year-old pensioner, and a few years ago my wife persuaded me to take out a funeral plan in order that close family relatives were not burdened in any way upon end of life. My plan was fully paid up.”

Another said:

“We bought 2 funeral plans several years ago from Safe Hands Funeral Plans. We have just received a letter from the Administrator saying they have stopped trading and it seems our funeral arrangements are now at great risk. We were assured our money was safe and money was held in a trust so there was no risk. We are 75 years old and did the right thing we thought.”

They were lied to. I will come on to regulation in a moment, but could the Minister look at whether criminality has taken place in what Safe Hands has said and done? My constituents were assured that their money was safely put away. It clearly was not if directors were taking money out of the system.

Like the hon. Member for Telford, I think that the Minister tries very hard in a very difficult Department. I have had dealings with him on numerous Committees. He likes to do the right thing within the constraints of the system of that body we call the Treasury. I welcome the moves that have been taken in the Financial Conduct Authority’s new regulations, but there are outstanding issues that he needs to pin down.

Nobody should be able to sell a funeral plan without being regulated in any way—that should be a given. As the hon. Member for Telford has said, numerous companies clearly are not going to meet the test because they were never set up to do so, and she has referred to Ponzi schemes. We need a scoping exercise to see what level of scandal this is going to be. It is not going to be on the same level as the Horizon scandal involving postmasters and postmistresses—the hon. Lady and I also got involved in that. It could, however, be huge if companies go unregulated because they do not pass the test, with some ending up insolvent.

The FSCS is vetting funeral plan providers to see if they are fit and proper. Of the 75 funeral companies on its radar, only 32 have been authorised, while 20 indicated that they either do not intend to apply or have yet to seek authorisation, and 13 other providers, including Safe Hands, have withdrawn their applications. If we are not careful, those 13 cases could lead to more scandals similar to Safe Hands. There are also others. If companies are not in the scheme, they should cease trading or not be allowed to sell these plans; otherwise, vulnerable people will be taken advantage of.

We can do all the advertising and awareness raising we want, but the hon. Lady is right to say that this is not a generation of people who are on the internet. They are recommended these things through what they consider to be trusted third parties, and no matter what kind of information campaign we undertake, it is not going to get through to them. The way to stop the problem is to take the rogues out of this industry altogether through regulation.

Before I sit down, I would like the Minister to address the regulation information available on the FCA website. It states only that companies that do not sign up to new regulation

“might not be authorised by 29 July 2022 and will need to stop selling and carrying out funeral plans in the UK by that date.”

Can we have an assurance that any company that fails to sign up will not be able to provide funeral services after that date?

I would like to finish on the issue of Safe Hands. There needs to be a day of reckoning for the directors of that company. They knew exactly what they were doing. I think there is a case to look at whether criminality took place. As the hon. Member for Telford said, there is no way that the business model stacked up, even if looked at with a cursory glance.

I welcome what the Government have done so far, but will the Minister make sure that the regulation is watertight? His Department also needs to look at the extent to which other companies are going to fall over, because Safe Hands is potentially the first of quite a few. Also, what information can the FCA put out? I accept that this is a very difficult audience to get through to, but questions should be asked when people are signing up to these things. There are alternative ways of saving for their funerals. These types of plans might seem attractive to people when they are given a glossy brochure and sales patter, but sadly they will leave too many people who have worked hard and tried to do the right thing in a very precarious position. In addition to not having the comfort of having paid for their funeral, they may well now be out of pocket by several thousand pounds.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Glen]

Going forward, people either are regulated—those who are going on the journey into regulation by the end of July go under FCA regulation, and it will be keeping an eye on their selling practices—or become an appointed representative of a bigger, regulated firm, which keeps an eye on them, and then the FCA keeps an eye on it. Many firms, most firms—I think it is in the order of 67 firms—are going through the journey into regulation. There will be smaller firms that decide not to go on that regulatory journey, and either they will become authorised under the appointed representative regime or they will wind down, and return the funds to their customers.

Those are the two options. The FCA is working with the industry to smooth that journey. The House passed a statutory instrument to ease that process of transition. But those are the options available. Of course, we are midway through that journey, but what this afternoon’s debate has shown is the imperative of the industry working to sort out some of the issues that have been laid bare by the Safe Hands experience. I think Safe Hands is an exception, but it is a pretty awful experience for those customers. My belief is that this process of regulation will give clarity to the situation, going forward, in terms of who is regulated, how they are regulated and what being under regulation, either as an appointed representative or directly from the FCA, means. The FCA will be responsible for communicating that.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I thank the Minister for his explanation. My fear and, I think, that of the hon. Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) is that there may well be other companies like Safe Hands out there that will not go down either of those routes, so I am interested to know what the timescale will be on that. In relation to Safe Hands, he talked about the administrators. What powers does the FCA have if it finds, in those smaller companies, clear scams? I would use the word “scams”, because that is what I think Safe Hands clearly was. What powers does the FCA have then to force the closure of those schemes?

[John Glen]

As I said, it is difficult to be precise in all circumstances because every situation is different. The purpose of giving the FCA that authority is that it has the powers to fine, regulate and insist on certain levels of transparency. Ultimately, if firms that go into regulation do not align with those expectations, the FCA has the power to wind down those firms—in extremis. At this point we are at the start of the journey. The conversations I have had with Dignity—

[Mr Jones]

Will the Minister give way?

[John Glen]

I will certainly give way to the right hon. Gentleman in a moment. Dignity has set up processes to ensure that they continue to comply with those regulations. Those firms that do not choose to be regulated, or do not choose to go under the appointed representative regime, will be obligated to wind down those plans and return those funds. Forgive me; I cannot give absolute clarity on the detail of that process, but I am happy to engage with the right hon. Member for North Durham beyond this Chamber to give him more clarity.

[Mr Jones]

I appreciate that the Minister has been very helpful with what he has described. However, my fear is that some of those small companies may keep trading and taking money off people when we know that they are not being regulated. Are we going to get to a date beyond which, to sell a funeral plan, a company has to either be covered by the FCA or go down the route just described? That will then give assurance to customers that at least there is some protection. I am not going to ask the Minister what that date is, but we do need some indication.

[John Glen]

My understanding is that the intention is for that process to commence at the end of July. In terms of the transition and the guidance to customers, I would need to refer to the FCA on that. I shall write to the FCA and make that letter available to the House of Commons, so that people can be clear about what the situation is.

Among the questions that the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead asked me was one about the Government’s actions to this point. We have taken action and we did legislate to bring providers and intermediaries within the regulatory remit of the FCA. That means that from 29 July, funeral plan providers will be subject to robust and enforceable standards on the sale of their plans. In future, consumers will have greater clarity and understanding of what is covered by their funeral plans, and will not be exposed to misleading or high-pressure sales tactics—an issue raised by the right hon. Member for North Durham. For the first time, funeral plan customers will also be able to take advantage of a redress scheme provided by the Financial Ombudsman Service, and benefit from the protection of the financial services compensation scheme. That reflects the point about this being a financial services product, raised by the hon. Member for Gordon. Indeed, we have seen a massive growth in that over the period between 2016 to 2019—a growth of, I think, 175%.

That is why we are doing it. We want to ensure that there is proper regulation that is meaningful and give consumers real assurance around what protections exist. It is also about proportionate regulation. Across my brief as Economic Secretary, I want to be able to boost competition and protect consumers. That is exactly as it should be. That is what drives me in the other areas of regulation that I am looking at, such as buy now, pay later. At the same time, the Government very much recognise the impact of the change that regulation represents for providers. That is why we introduced a transition period before the new rules came into effect—to give businesses the chance to prepare and adapt.

A key priority has been to minimise any disruption to customers resulting from the transition to regulation. The FCA has therefore said that providers who decide not to obtain authorisation, or cannot obtain it, should either wind down before the regulation comes into force or transfer their plans to a provider that will operate under the new rules. The Government recently laid a supplementary statutory instrument to make such transfers easier. That is in line with my responses to earlier interventions—I am glad my speech is in line with my head.

We are aware, of course, that when we bring a sector into regulation for the first time, some providers may be unable to meet the authorisation threshold. That point has been raised with me in representations from my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) and representatives of the industry. The inability to meet those new standards due to issues with conduct, business models or trust arrangements does not mean that the regulation is at fault. Rather, the regulation is acting as a cleansing agent, weeding out unsustainable practices and preventing future consumer detriment.

Some Members have asked whether the Government are likely to compensate Safe Hands’s customers. I do not think it would be appropriate for us to set the precedent or expectation that the Government will use taxpayers’ money to compensate consumers for the misconduct of unregulated firms. The Government’s role is instead to ensure that appropriate regulation is in place to guard against such failures. However, the action of Dignity to take a lead as one of the biggest industry players, to make provision for an initial six months and develop a transition option for those who unfortunately are victims of the Safe Hands situation, is very welcome, and I call on others in the industry to follow Dignity’s example. We do not anticipate that there is something else on the scale of Safe Hands out there; we can never be sure—I do not have a crystal ball. Nevertheless, it is incumbent on the industry to continue to work with the regulator to find enduring solutions for as many people as possible.

There is no doubt in my mind that, by acting to protect consumers through a robust regulatory framework, we are doing the right thing. There was a consensus across the House: it was not just this Government, but Members from the Scottish National party and the official Opposition, who called for this action three or four years ago. A well-regulated market will also promote effective competition and do the right thing by consumers over the long term. As I have said, Safe Hands customers have been assured that they will be covered for at least another six months, and I implore others in the industry—other market participants—to take further action to protect consumers of firms that will not become authorised. Taking such action is good for consumers, but also for the reputation of the funeral plans sector. To that end, the Government and the FCA will continue to work closely with each other and the sector to ensure that the shift to regulation is as smooth as possible. That is what funeral customers deserve, and it is what they have a right to expect.

I will reflect on this debate, and if there are any matters that I feel I have not adequately dealt with, I will write to Members and publish a copy of that letter for the House to see.