Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will investigate the time it took for the Financial Conduct Authority to take action to prohibit the regulated entities from promoting the sale of “mini bonds”.

This is a matter for the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which is operationally independent from the Government.

In November 2019, the FCA used its temporary product intervention powers to introduce a temporary ban on the mass-marketing of speculative illiquid securities, including speculative mini-bonds, to retail investors. This temporary ban applied from 1 January 2020.

On 18 June 2020, the FCA published proposals to make this temporary ban permanent.