Wealth & assets Submission Treasury Select Committee evidence 3 January 2006 This briefing presents the Foundation’s evidence to the Treasury Select Committee inquiry into financial inclusion. The focus of this submission is on the vital and challenging issue of access to financial advice, particularly for basic rate taxpayers on less than average income. They have both the most to gain from getting financial decisions right and the least access to help in doing so. They are excluded from advice because they tend not to be economically attractive to target with products, and advice comes bundled with products. Today, some one in three of the UK workforce – more than eight million basic rate taxpayers – live in an advice “exclusion zone”, with little or no access to financial advice.
