Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what plans the Government has to improve access to financial education.

Government policy on financial education and capability focuses on ensuring that people have the confidence and skills they need to successfully engage with their finances. To this end the Government established the Money Advice Service (MAS), which provides free-to-use financial guidance and coordinates the UK’s Financial Capability Strategy. This is a 10-year strategy which aims to gather evidence and support financial education and capability initiatives that are proven to work.

Moving forward, the Government has legislated to merge the functions of MAS with those of The Pensions Advisory Service (TPAS) and Pension Wise, to create a Single Financial Guidance Body, which will simplify the existing public financial guidance landscape. The Government’s commitment to improve people’s financial capability and the provision of financial education is reflected in the new body’s strategic function to develop and coordinate a national strategy which will build on and further progress MAS’s work on financial capability.

It is also particularly important that children and young people receive financial education to help them shape their financial habits later in life. This is why financial literacy was made statutory within the national curriculum in England in 2014, as part of the curriculum for citizenship education for 11-16 year olds.