§ Mr. Gordon MarsdenTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many complaints have been received about the mis-selling of endowment mortgages by(a) the Financial Services Authority and (b) the Financial Ombudsman (i) in the UK and (ii) in the Blackpool South constituency in each of the last five years for which figures are available. [58830]
§ Ruth Kelly(a) The Financial Services Authority does not deal with complaints but can answer general queries about financial products and services, including about endowment mortgages and who to contact if consumers have a complaint about one. Since August 2000 the FSA has had a total of 25,309 enquiries about endowments in general. Separate figures for the Blackpool South constituency are not available.
667W (b) The Personal Investment Authority Ombudsman Bureau dealt with endowment mortgage complaints until 1 December 2001 when it was succeeded by the Financial Ombudsman Service. (i) The total number of endowment mortgage complaints received by these bodies was:
Year 1997–1998 2,751 PIAOB 1998–1999 2,856 PIAOB 1999–2000 3,135 PIAOB 2000–2001 9,067 PIAOB 2001–2002 14,595 PIAOB/FOS (ii) Separate figures for the Blackpool South constituency (postcodes FY4, FY3 and FY1) are only available for the year 2001–2002, when 20 complaints were received.