My Lords, perhaps I may raise a couple of points with the noble Earl, Lord Howe, on this. First, to reinforce the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Best, about the cost falling on local authorities in providing facilitation to independent, regulated financial advice, there is a much more general point about the capacity of local authorities to implement the measures in this Bill. The Bill leaves us, albeit with many amendments, with an underlying concern about whether local authorities will have the wherewithal to implement a raft of new responsibilities over the next few years.
Secondly when the noble Earl argued against similar amendments on Report, he spoke of the concerns of local authorities that they might be held liable if they referred a person who comes under the Act to a financial adviser who subsequently gave poor financial advice. We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Best, that the LGA supports the general thrust of my noble friend’s amendment. Can the noble Earl confirm, first, that a regulated financial adviser will be subject to FCA requirements and come under its disciplinary and regulatory codes? Secondly, can he reassure local authorities that they can offer names of regulated financial advisers in the way that I understand a
number of local authorities do at the moment without fear of subsequent action being taken against them? I was puzzled by the argument put forward on Report and it would be good to have this cleared up at this stage.