(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Dykes
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what measures they are taking to support the contribution of the United Kingdom financial services sector to the economy.
Lord Dykes
My Lords, I very much welcome this debate and thank the Minister for being in attendance to answer the important points that I hope will be aired. Inevitably, I must deliberately leave out some items. There is so much to cover. The Minister and others in the debate will be delighted to learn, I am sure, that I am not going to try to cover everything. It would be a great mistake to do so.
I begin by congratulating the Minister and his colleagues on the agreement on the markets in financial instruments directive that was reached in the EU the day before yesterday. As the FT said yesterday, this was a good day for Britain in Europe,
“protecting the City of London against discrimination—proof that Britain’s interests are best served when the government sits at Europe’s top table rather than outside the room”.
That is an important lesson for the future.
The Parnassian beauty of this debate is that everybody more or less has the same time—nine minutes for every speaker, I think—as a result of our modest but high-quality list, including my old friend from the City, the noble Lord, Lord Flight. We changed the phraseology of the Question because I did not want the old Question concerning the City of London to obscure the obvious reality that there are many financial institutions elsewhere in the UK, from the West End of London to Edinburgh and other great cities. That is a fact of decentralisation, which is also a good thing.
The overall background is also the vital factor of our membership of the European Union, and I am inevitably going to cover some points about Europe. Membership of the EU is crucial for Britain and I think that the madness of leaving is dawning more and more on sensible people, even some of the more old-fashioned of our colleagues represented by an uncomfortably large group of rather right-wing Tory MPs in the other place. The latest House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee report spells it out loud and clear, although it wisely steers clear of the immaturities implicit in hysterical referendumitis. I welcome the elegant but firm rap on the knuckles for inexperienced British Ministers set out in paragraphs 26, 27 and 28 of the committee’s conclusions and recommendations. I also welcome the bulk, but not all, of the evidence given to the committee by Business for New Europe, which sets out a solid enthusiasm for our continuing membership of the EU for practical reasons.
I declare an interest as a former member of the Stock Exchange and of a large institutional stockbroking firm in the City for many years, and other City interests. Those of us who are proud of the good side of the City of London and its immense contribution to Britain over the years, including assisting the general public in myriad ways with practical financial instruments, were heartened by the flattering words in January of the Swedish Minister for Finance, Anders Borg, who said that for Sweden,
“keeping Britain in the EU is a very high priority. We have a big banking sector and a lot of work goes through the City of London. If the UK leaves the EU it could create a lot of problems”.
A balance is also needed between excessive adulation of the City, which is wrong, and unfair criticism. I hope that my own references to this in the debate that I opened in Grand Committee on 22 April on the dangers of UK isolation in Europe, at col. GC 290, in the last but two paragraphs at the end of my speech, caught that balance. We also need to grasp the fact that the other member states have some hesitations on the bad or toxic side of City financial activities, which came to their monstrous conclusion in 2007-08 and onwards.
Indeed, I detect that some of the right-wing comics that masquerade as newspapers in this country are less keen to say that brilliantly talented spivs who are good at fund management speculation and excessive risk-taking using other people’s money here will go abroad if we deny them lavish and unjustified bonuses or force them—horror of horrors—actually to pay conventional UK income taxes. If they insist, say I, let them go abroad.
Coming back to the positive aspects of our financial services sector, we can indeed be proud of what has been achieved here over the years on a secular growth basis. As we know all too vividly, this country usually has a large and uncomfortable physical trade deficit with most other advanced countries in the world with the possible exception, depending on the latest figures, of the United States, which is also a rather inefficient and heavy importer. Just as Germany is immensely proud of its industry—particularly its motor vehicle industry, which is one of the wonders of the world—we admire our own financial services sector for what it achieves in a non-visible surplus for us in direct and indirect investments, insurance, shipping and, of course, banking and fund management forms.
When government is called on to “protect” a valuable sector, I trust it will always be in the sense of upholding the single market rather than seeking artificial propping-up exercises, which would not be justified. Happily, our present coalition Government have always upheld the principles of transparency, free and open markets—with a genuine single market—and robust competition. The Prime Minister has moved away, thankfully, from calls for what seemed to be special unilateral privileges, as in the bizarre antics of December 2011 in Brussels, to asserting rightly the equality of conditions philosophy. I think that will now persist.
At this stage, I would particularly welcome it if my noble friend the Minister could bring us up to date on government thinking on the eurozone’s proposed financial transactions tax and our most recent responses, since it seems to have stalled somewhat as a formal proposal among some inner core member states. Even if talks resumed soon, I doubt whether it could commence before 2015-16 at the earliest. I assume meanwhile that the City of London Corporation is maintaining its strong opposition, although many foreigners are puzzled when, after all, we have a pretty onerous stamp duty system on quoted investments and property purchases in this country.
However, we remain highly integrated with financial markets within other EU members. I believe we account for three-quarters of foreign exchange trading in Europe, some 85% of all hedge fund assets and well over two-thirds of all interest rate derivatives, despite the fallout from the world crisis in the previous decade—a crisis which, we need to remember, started in the USA, apart from the Northern Rock debacle of the previous year. Just as official circles in the UK quite rightly hammer home the primordial need for the single market to develop more deeply in every sphere so that, EU- wide, consumers of goods and services can benefit from equal conditions in the theoretically perfect market set-up, so the other member states are justified in insisting that Britain remains a good member of the club and accepts freely agreed EU-wide legislation for market conformity in all spheres. The general public interest surely demands this in commonsense terms.
The mid-May ECOFIN meeting in Brussels highlighted some of these imperatives for, as usual, a raft of new Commission objectives in draft legislation were discussed to gain some progress in complex fields. I have already mentioned the markets in financial instruments provision; my thanks again to the Minister for what he has achieved there. There is the latest text of the market abuse directive, the mortgage credit directive, directive IV on capital requirements and the legislation drawn up to deal with money laundering. The amended text of the savings tax agreement with third countries and the Council draft for the EU savings directive were also discussed briefly at that meeting. If my noble friend the Minister has time today to refer to some of these, I will be grateful. I will understand if he is unable to cover them all.
In other large areas, does my noble friend have time to refer to the Government’s responses to the need to return RBS and the other taxpayers’ emergency stake in Lloyds Bank Group to the private sector and to shareholders, how the other leading banks are faring in returning to giving adequate support to UK industry and commerce and, if he has time, what position the Government take on the Co-op Bank crisis, which is a sad development? Finally, if he can deal even briefly with official attitudes to the latest developments in the attempts by the LSE and other leading bourses in Europe to achieve synergy and modernisation, I would be most grateful.
Perhaps it would be reasonable at the current state of play to ponder the future in a wider sense. I believe that the impact and success of the British financial services industry will continue, both as a great national asset and as a solid contributor to the overall strength and cohesion of the Union’s single market. What is disturbing, however, is the way in which subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle elements are creeping into this overall scenario which, particularly at times of severe socio-economic austerity in many parts of the EU, are in danger of increasing irredentism and fissiparous pulls among traditionally friendly allies within the 28, weakening the single market philosophy. We need to acknowledge that the others really and profoundly want us to stay as members, but seemingly not at the price of conceding to us anything other than the normative and steady moderations of the Union’s acquis, which for them is constant reform, and most definitely not the old-fashioned notion of reform that has been expressed in some parts of the other place in recent months.
It is never a weakness in framing sensible policies to appraise what the others think of us. They were not impressed at us being the odd man out so often in recent times. They were contemptuous when we failed to join them in the eurozone when it first started, and of course we were slow to offer them real support when their crisis over a smallish number of weak member states began in 2008. That is now water under the bridge and it is time for us to work together. We are taking the lead, I hope, in pursuing the tax evasion problem, particularly with France, Germany, Italy and Spain, which will also oblige us to deal at long last with our many island tax havens from the old Empire.
Finally, I would just add a reminder. Professor Pauline Schnapper, the leader in British studies at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University, reminded us recently that the EU has actually been evolving in a rather British direction over the past 15 years, showing greater pragmatism and empiricism alongside enlargement. That should help us even more to shun isolationism in the coming years. As I believe the euro will remain and in the future will be an even stronger international currency, I hope that one day we will regain our nerve and even join the eurozone.
Lord Flight
My Lords, first, I declare my interests as set out in the register, but which amount to 43 years in the investment management industry. Although I want to talk specifically about the initiatives in this year’s Finance Bill, I should say that when I started my career, I remember someone older than me asking, “Why on earth are you coming into this? London is too big and it only services the UK economy. It has lost all its international business”. He could not have been more wrong. One of the things that I am proud of over my career has been to see London return to being the major financial capital of the world, earning somewhere between £60 billion and £70 billion a year in invisibles that help to pay for so many of those cheap Chinese imports. Although the City is certainly subject to criticism, to regulation, and even to a Government policy that led to the banking crisis, it is an incredibly valuable asset to this country. For those who say that it is too big, I would just point to Hong Kong where the financial services industry is a far larger proportion of the economy, but because it got its financial regulation and economic policy right, it has never been a major problem. Rather than contract the City, let us expand other areas and get its regulation correct.
I want to speak about the initiative in this year’s Finance Bill which will set up the UK investment management strategy, a Treasury paper published back in March. I greatly welcome this. It is there to try to get more foreign fund management businesses to come to this country. That might obviously benefit those who work for them, as well as the lawyers, accountants, regulators and even HMRC because they would provide another source of income. By the way, I think that the total fund management industry represents around 1% of GDP, some £12 billion per annum, so as a sub-section it is pretty significant.
Thirty years ago, when my noble friend Lord Lamont was the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, I tried to persuade him to remove taxation on funds, then unit trusts, and put it firmly on individual investors in order to stop Luxembourg taking masses of new business which could rightly have come to London. The Revenue would not accept the argument, and so Luxembourg emerged with its huge industry of today, but at the time it did not exist. At last HMRC has got the message that this is an industry worth having in this country.
There is a level of serious commitment within the Government’s measures. First, there is the commitment to abolish the stamp duty reserve tax, of which there has been criticism for many years. Secondly, there is a commitment to make sure that the tax status of non UK-domiciled funds will not be affected if they are obliged to appoint a UK AIFM. I look forward to working with TheCityUK and the new Financial Services Trade and Investment Board to come up with an agenda of what I would call constructive proposals which might be politically possible, and I am glad to see that the IMA is coming up with good initiatives aimed at creating greater cost transparency in terms of the amounts charged by various funds.
There are obviously two key factors. One is tax; the other is regulation. The tax regime needs to be attractive for funds. It also needs to be attractive for the staff who might work for them; it needs to be competitive. Regulation needs to be, first and above all, good; and, secondly, it must not be too expensive or over-bureaucratic. Otherwise people will want to go to other places.
On the tax front, I remember some 12 years ago when I was seeking to drum up support for the Conservative Party in the City, one of the major world banks said to me, “We are totally happy as long as income tax remains at 40%, as introduced by Prime Minister Blair, and, secondly, as long as the pension plan arrangements aren’t interfered with”. Well, sadly, both of those have been lost. They were then boasting to me about the numbers of staff they transferred from Paris and Frankfurt to London. Do not forget that individual tax matters as well as the tax on the operations themselves.
I know that the Government are concerned because probably the largest fund management group in London has recently started shipping staff and a lot of its new business off to Luxembourg. I have explored that and it is really not about the taxation of funds; it is about the taxation of individuals. In particular, it is about what I think was a very unwise and aggressive taxation of non-doms relating to their property ownership, which for many will involve a 7% per annum mansion tax. For funds and the fund management business, broadly the tax regime over here is fine; and as corporation tax comes down to 20% for fund managers it becomes an attractive tax regime.
Again there is some very interesting data here in the Government’s paper. The volume of funds managed has risen from £2.7 to £5 trillion in the past six years. Where this paper is slightly mistaken is that while it initially focuses on the volume of funds managed in the UK, which is what matters, it also focuses on the domicile of funds. In fact, managing the funds—irrespective of where they are domiciled—is where employment and revenues come. It is much more important to keep the UK an attractive place to manage funds that are not actually domiciled here. There is a slight error there.
The second mistake is that the paper suggests that the new AIFMD regime may be good for the UK as it will encourage funds to be domiciled here. I think it is serious bad news for the UK and will lead to a significant loss of business. It is very expensive and very hasslesome. Anyone who is managing funds which are not to be marketed to the EEA and EU are going to move elsewhere and, indeed, are starting to move elsewhere—predominantly to Singapore and Hong Kong.
I am no great liker of hedge funds and have never invested a penny in one, but there is a great misconception in Europe that hedge funds caused the financial crisis, whereas it was money being easy for too long, bad regulation and so forth. It was really the banks and not the fund management industry that led to the trouble. In terms of regulations, the FSA as it was had become unnecessarily hostile to the fund management industry. Many reputable businesses said to me that they did not want to raise their criticisms of certain regulatory initiatives because they were frightened of retribution. There was a breakdown in communication. However, in Luxembourg, again, they virtually embrace you with both arms and offer you all manner of inducement and attraction if you will come and bring your business to them. I am pleased that the Treasury is “in discussions” with the FCA on that territory.
London obviously has a huge amount to offer: lots of people with high skills, a wonderful place to live, wonderfully international and so forth. However, I think that there is one danger of undermining all these attractions by an increasing nightmare of regulation. It is not just an AIFMD; the threat of the transaction tax would be a disaster for London and the trickle-down effect means often that it would turn out to be at least 1%. I hope that the Government will go to extreme measures to stop it happening—although I am hopeful that Merkel wants to give it up once the election is over We will now have to put up with EMIR. The Government have done quite well on MiFID II but are still somewhat protectionist towards third country suppliers. We have ESMA wanting to take over regulation in this country. Candidly, I have never known a more exhausting time of masses of excess and useless regulation, particularly the AIFM report. No one will read it—it is so voluminous and completely unnecessary.
Contrary to my noble friend Lord Dykes’s extolling of the situation, the main threat to the UK fund-management industry is the regulation coming from the EU. I end by saying that it was a great mistake of the previous Government to surrender sovereignty on financial regulation to the EU. We are inevitably vulnerable because some 70% of all financial transactions for the entire EU are done in London. I do not particularly blame Paris and Germany for thinking that they would like to have a bit of the cake and to encourage measures which might lead to that. As someone in the industry, I see that as the biggest threat.
Baroness Goudie
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, for arranging for this debate. Like the noble Lord, I say that it would be a great mistake for Great Britain to leave Europe. We should not consider this at all. I hope that, in the long term, it will not happen.
On the issue that Europe matters today, we have to move on from the disaster of 2008. We cannot look back at what it was; we can never go back so we have to move on. The key issue is that the prospects for the financial services industry are good. Last year’s Kay review on equality markets and the recent report of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards demonstrate that the UK is leading Europe in the debate on the direction of domestic and international financial reforms. Negative perceptions of the industry remain largely based around the lack of diversity, both in terms of gender and ethnicity, as well as remuneration, on which the Government have published a report of the Commons committee. No doubt we will debate the whole question of diversity, women on boards and equal pay in the next year. I do not need to go down that road today, but economies cannot prosper if half of the population is behind. Research from the World Economic Forum in 2012 said that women now represent 40% of the global market force, which is a little higher in this country, and that more than half of the world’s university students are women—again, it is higher in this country. For a functioning economy, its full potential of women’s skills and talents is very important—including the export and import of those who are educated here and who then go back home. The GDP they bring to those countries is vital for a stable world.
Coming back to this country, across the domestic and international activities, financial and professional services have contributed more than £200 billion to the UK economy since 2012. In aggregate terms, the contribution of the financial services industry represents some 15% of UK GDP. Exports made up a substantial share of the contribution, of up to 40%, of the financial services to the GDP, arising from the sector’s exports and those services provided to overseas clients. We should also be aware that when people require something we sell, like law and education, our financial services are very much sought-after in the Middle East and other countries. That is one of our soft powers that we should be looking to.
The trade surpluses of the financial and professional service sectors are roughly the same as the combined services of all other net industries in the UK. Some of our specific contributions are that our insurance business is the best and largest in Europe. We have 251 or more different banks working in the UK, including those based here. The UK has the second-largest pensions industry in the world, with total investments of £1.9 trillion. That is a huge sum of money; it is inconceivable, but it is vital to Britain. In 2012, the UK private equity and venture capital sectors managed assets of £200 billion.
UK private equity funds invested in more than 800 companies. People talk about hedge funds and different instruments of finance, but they do not realise that without them and that investment, we would not have the companies we have, because no longer do the real banks want to invest. The real problem we are having is for SMEs, 40% of which are now run by women, employing men and women, which are having great difficulties. Although the banks have promised to lend to them, they have not been able to get funding. That is not because they do not have order books or money coming in, it is because they just need that extra couple of hundred thousand pounds to tide them over for a year, but there is no one to talk to, because you do not have banks any more. Metro Bank has started up locally in the high street, but we do not have our usual banks to go to.
I know that this is old-fashioned, but some people need to talk to someone, not a call centre but somebody to talk to. Standard Chartered, for example, which is working in Asia, has people in middle management there to meet you and to offer to look after you. It is the same in Hong Kong and Singapore: if you want to go to the bank, there is someone to meet you who wants to talk to you. Whatever deal we finally do with the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds—we do not know what will happen with one or two others yet; I hope nothing—if they will not open places, which cost money, there should be the availability to talk to somebody, because talking to a call centre or an individual who does not know you or your industry and has never been to your factory is not the same. That is vital to today’s economy. Those of us who live in London or Scotland know that the back-office industry there is huge, but in the middle of the country, there is nothing. There are no banks, there is nowhere for people to go to talk to someone. We must encourage building societies and those other banks to open up, even if they are opening up in a mall, so that there is a place where people can make an appointment to see someone. They do not have to be there permanently, but people need to be able to make an appointment to come from wherever they are working.
For our economy to function, we need to use the full potential of women’s skills—coming back to SMEs—and they need someone to go to talk to. We do not want them going to get the money, not from payday loans, but from other companies which will lend money to SMEs at high interest rates. Those companies are too big to take microfinance. We know that microfinance, because it loans the money from the banks, is charging higher interest.
I hope that the Government will consider those ideas and what we have managed to tackle together since 2008, and move forward. We must move forward to take our place in the world, and enable the potential of people in university and in school and ensure that they are not left on the heap.
Lord Bilimoria
My Lords, in 2011, the financial and insurance services sector contributed more than £125 billion to the GVA of the UK economy. That is more than 9% of our total GVA. London itself accounted for 46% of the total GVA of the finance and insurance sector in 2009. The contribution to jobs approaches 4%. The other point is that trade in financial services contributed huge amount to the trade surplus that the UK has in services. The banking sector alone contributed £21 billion to UK tax receipts in corporation tax, income tax and national insurance. The OBR has shown that in 2007-08, the effective tax burden from corporate and income tax as a share of the GVA was the highest for the financial intermediaries. That is partly because of the relatively high profits that the sector makes compared to its contribution to GVA. Again, according to the OBR, in 2010-11 the financial sector accounted for around 7% of government receipts once the bank payroll tax and bank levy were included.
It is a huge sector. As the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie, said, the financial services sector accounts for 9.6% of GDP, but if you add the professional services—a further 4.9%—it makes up almost 15%. Relative to other countries, the financial services sector is very important for Britain. It is much higher than in the United States, where it is just over 7% of the economy, and it is more than double a percentage of our GDP compared with countries such as Japan, France and Germany.
Of course, we then come on to the question of whether we have a balanced economy. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, for initiating this really important debate at this time. The noble Lord, Lord Flight, mentioned the importance of the City of London. The joke is that the Lord Mayor of London—and the City—makes the money and the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, spends the money. I do not think that this bizarre situation exists anywhere else in the world, where you have power and finance in a square mile of a huge city. Do we have the balance right? Do we have the relationship right? Does it need to change? I am not suggesting for one moment that it needs to, but I would be very interested in the Government’s opinion on this very important relationship.
The noble Lord, Lord Dykes, spoke about the European Union. One of the UK’s great advantages, particularly when it comes to financial services, is that we are not only at the top table of the European Union but we are seen by countries such as India as a gateway to Europe. As a founding chairman of the UK-India Business Council, I know how important this is for Indian companies. It is crucial that we stay at the top table of Europe, although I completely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, that any talk of a tax on financial transactions would be a disaster. We need to keep the balance right and thank God we do not belong to the euro.
Another advantage that London has is AIM. The Alternative Investment Market started in 1995 and is coming up to its 20th anniversary. It is a huge success but to this day, AIM shares are not allowed to be included in ISAs. I declare my interest as the senior independent director of the Booker Group. When I joined the board nearly six years ago we were an AIM company. We then graduated to the main list and are now a FTSE-250 company. I find the situation so difficult to understand. I believe the Chancellor said in the Autumn Statement that this would be looked into and that consultations would start in 2013. They still have not started and AIM shares still cannot be included in ISAs. So we are not really encouraging investment in these shares as much as we could. AIM is a crucial market in encouraging entrepreneurship and growth companies, not just for the UK but I know how attractive an AIM listing is even to companies from India. Perhaps the Minister could talk about the importance of AIM, in particular AIM in ISAs.
When I used to promote Britain when doing business with India, I would always speak with pride of our light-touch regulation and of what Margaret Thatcher did in the 1980s in opening up Britain and the City of London with the big bang, and how this gentlemen’s club and closed shop opened up into being a meritocracy, and the world’s greatest financial institutions flocked to London, and London has flourished. But later, after the financial crisis, my colleagues abroad would say, “Ah, what happened to your light-touch regulation?”. I would speak with pride about the independence of the Monetary Policy Committee, one of the best things that Gordon Brown did when he was Chancellor.
However, in 2007, when this country was hit by the subprime crisis that became the credit crunch, that became the financial crisis, that became the great recession, that turned into the sovereign debt crisis, that turned into the eurozone crisis, we realised the mistakes that we had made. The Treasury, Bank of England and the FSA, which in all the good times leading up to this crisis were a happy merry-go-round, suddenly turned into this great blame-go-round. I remember taking part in the debates on the Bill to nationalise Northern Rock in early 2008. Northern Rock went bust in September 2007 and was nationalised within six months; it cost £26 billion to bail out a company—the biggest bailout of any one company in the history of the world. We are now talking about RBS and Lloyds. It has now taken six years to come up with our new financial supervision regulations which will be much more robust. Perhaps the Minister could talk about that.
We get into problems and are attacked because of our tax system and companies not paying enough tax. Well, the GAAR—the anti-abuse regulations—have been brought in, but will not stop the Starbucks and Googles from what they are doing. This brings me to the point of perception and reality. I chaired a meeting of the Industry and Parliament Trust. Sadly, the public’s trust in business is 16%, and in government it is 17%. Shockingly, in a poll after the Olympics which asked, “Are you proud of Britain?”, the vast majority of the public were. When asked, “Are you proud of British business?”, only 4% were.
Earlier this week, I spoke at Oxford University for the reputation executive leadership programme at the Centre for Corporate Reputation in the Saïd Business School. It is clear there that the finance sector, and bankers in particular, have a terrible reputation at the moment. There is a lack of trust. On brands, which I spoke about, the financial sector, London and the City are a brand. What is a brand? I know about brands from my own business, Cobra Beer. A brand is what a brand does. The Harvard Business Review recently published a survey of 25,000 companies over 40 years. It identified the companies that were successful over a sustained period and called them miracle makers. They followed three principles: first, they followed “better before price”; secondly, “revenue before costs”; and thirdly, only those first two principles mattered. “Better before price” is all about quality. The City has fantastic quality, our financial sector has amazing quality and our professional services have the best of the best in the world.
“Revenue before costs” is about whether we are growing enough. Are the Government committed to growing the financial sector? I hope that with the arrival of the new Governor of the Bank of England—a Canadian, of which I am proud; it shows our openness as a country and an economy—not only will we target inflation but GDP growth. Will the Minister confirm that? It would promote growth in our financial sector.
I conclude that, while we may not have an empire any more, one of the legacies of the biggest empire that the world has ever known is the City of London and our great financial sector. It is one of the jewels in the Crown of our great country.
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, it may well be one of the jewels in the Crown, but it is somewhat tarnished. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, on raising this issue at this time, which is of the most profound significance for the nation—wider, I think, than the agenda that he addressed. I agree with him about aspects of looking at the financial transaction tax. I have great reservations about that being proposed in Europe. If there is a possibility of such a tax, endorsed by the Americans, which would help to ensure that the finance capital, the City of London, and other centres across the world repaid the colossal debt they owe to wider society as a result of their mismanagement of the financial sector, that is only right and proper.
It is inconceivable that we return to the age of light regulation. Light regulation brought this country to its knees. We have more than 2 million people unemployed; we have 1 million young people unable to obtain jobs. We have a colossal problem with the cutbacks in public services, which are felt as a massive cost for all but particularly those who are very dependent on them for benefits and support. What is more, what does it amount to that each and every man, woman and child in this country has paid out £19,000 to the financial sector to create the bailouts to get out of the colossal mess that we are in?
Of course, I have no doubt that comments will be made about “the Government of light regulation”. The Conservative Party points the finger and says that Labour was in power at the time, as indeed we were, and was guilty of not having taken sufficient note of the impending crisis, but the Conservative Party was carrying down exactly the norms of light regulation that have been expressed today. What the country is demanding, however, is answerability. Of course we must create a base on which the financial services flourish, but it is demanding that they flourish within a framework where we never again see a crisis like the one we have had these past four years. Why not? Because we may well be in the greatest depression for a century and it may take us more than a decade to recover from it.
Already, current living standards are considerably below what they were in 2007. That is the price which the nation is paying and it ill behoves those who argue that the financial services need to be respected—of course they do. How could you do anything else with a sector of the economy which, as noble Lords have identified, amounts to such importance in it? The noble Lords, Lord Bilimoria, Lord Dykes and Lord Flight, all identified the importance of the City to the economy. Nobody is underestimating how significant that is, because we all know the figures.
However, the Prime Minister said that we must rebalance the economy. What does he mean by that? He must, at the very least, mean two things: first, that overdependence on the financial services industry makes the economy vulnerable, as it certainly did in 2007; secondly, that the vast majority of employment in the financial sector is within 20 miles of this Building. It is in London or the south-eastern counties, and if you talk about rebalancing the economy you have to look at areas where people are grossly underemployed at present and where capital is at low levels, such as the north of England, the north-west and elsewhere. A balanced economy will require those issues to be addressed. That is why it is necessary for the Government to spell out the position that they are going to adopt. They will have that opportunity on numerous imminent occasions.
It is important that the Government address themselves to the fundamental problems of our economy at present. I give them all credit for the way in which they have addressed the banking issue. I am not enamoured of the stance on banking but I congratulate the Government on recognising that we had to have banking legislation to clear up the mess of the past. Where I and my party have our reservations, which will be voiced as we consider the banking Bill, is that the question of sanctions seems to be rather marginal. For instance, the Government do not seem to think that there is much more to do than the Vickers fencing-off of the position of the banks, rather than the direct separation that may be necessary. After all, we have one instance before us at present in the Royal Bank of Scotland. What are the Government going to do about that? Should they not, at the very least, consider whether there should be a separation between the retail and investment arms of RBS as a solution to that position? Would that not also indicate that the legislation ought to consider that dimension?
I come briefly to the question of the financial transaction tax, which the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, raised. I agreed with his sentiments that there is much merit in it. The merit in it is quite straightforward: it potentially raises vastly more than stamp duty raises at present. It is also necessary that the financial services sector meets the obligations in terms of proper payment, particularly against a background where the country is scandalised that at the peak of the crisis, absolutely unjustifiable bonuses were being paid out to leading figures, and where not just incompetence but the depth to which finance had descended in terms of morality was being revealed. You cannot look at the LIBOR issue and the immorality of the terrible risk-taking with other people’s money without recognising the old adage of, “My word is my bond”. The morality of the City needs to be restored because what has been going on is untenable.
The financial transaction tax is an important concept. I recognise that Britain certainly could not go forward with it if the United States remained hostile to the position. We could not have New York not being a part of it. However, if the American Administration began to see the merits of the tax, and the European countries—11 at the moment and more to be added to the list—lend their support to the concept, it would be appalling if the British Government did not recognise those merits as well. That is not to endorse what is before the Government at present, and I acknowledge entirely their resistance to what is now on the table. However, I would argue that it is the concept that ought to be worked on, thought through and improved.
The Committee will be aware of the fact that I am grateful for this opportunity. It has come a little prematurely because I had expected it to be in response to a Statement in the House, which unfortunately we did not get yesterday. After all, the Commission on Banking Standards has pointed to a significant way forward. We are all desperately eager to get the Government’s definitive response to the crucial issues raised by the commission. We did not have a chance to consider a Statement yesterday, and I do not think that we will get to the banking Bill in real terms for some time. I am therefore grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, for giving us a chance at least to make some contribution today.
The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Deighton)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Dykes for giving us an opportunity to discuss this important question. I think that some very interesting issues were raised. I am not sure that there is much disagreement over principle; on practice and implementation, there may be some more. Everyone gave their own measure of how important the financial services sector is to the UK economy, and the obvious implication of that is that we need to nourish and protect it, and to use it as an engine for our future growth; I think that everybody accepts that. My own numbers demonstrate that the financial services sector represents 10% of our gross domestic product, 12% of our tax revenue and half of our trade surplus, and employs over 1 million people—two-thirds of whom are outside London. It was very helpful to hear reference being made to the broader industries involved, such as the pensions industry. I was at a meeting recently with the Indian finance Minister, who asked us to help train India’s whole actuaries sector, such is the respect with which our pensions industry is regarded.
I am also very persuaded by the soft power arguments in support of our law and education expertise. Every time I travel with the aim of trying to bring money into the UK or help UK businesses overseas, there is a British law firm that is regarded as the leading light in virtually every territory. It is an extraordinarily good example of soft power. It is a similar case with our education system. The countries in which we are most effective are those where the current ruling elite were educated in the United Kingdom. What worries me is that when I look at the next generation, a smaller proportion have been educated here. However, it is a very powerful base from which to develop relationships that help us to win business.
As well as being a major employer, the role of the banking sector in particular as a provider of credit and financial services to businesses and consumers is critical. What we are really talking about in most of this discussion is how we can build a safe and secure system, repair the damage that was caused during the crisis, and put it on a sound footing in order to deal with all the issues.
I was slightly worried that the tone of the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Davies, meant that he was looking for a fight around regulation. I am not a fan of light regulation like my noble friend Lord Flight. I am a fan of very good regulation and this Government have been the leader in devising the architecture and the systems that are now being put in place to make this system better. We are absolutely in agreement. It is good regulation we want, not lots of bureaucracy, and that is a critical distinction to make. We all accept that the financial crisis was in part caused—certainly exacerbated—by certain practices within the banks and we have to get that corrected to ensure that it does not happen again and we do not leave taxpayers with the bill.
This is probably a good time to follow up on what my right honourable friend the Chancellor talked about in the Mansion House speech last night: the plan going forward for RBS and Lloyds in particular. There are three key objectives in the plan to restore them to good health: first, that they can play a strong role in their support of the economy; secondly, that any transactions that result in the sale of shares represent excellent value for money for the taxpayer; and, thirdly, that we will do whatever we can in restructuring and working with the banks to return them to private ownership. As the Chancellor announced, Lloyds is a lot closer so it is being prepared for a sale of shares to institutions; RBS is still some time away. With regard to the noble Lord’s suggestions, one of the restructuring options being looked at is the so-called good bank/bad bank split, which is pretty consistent with dividing it into a retail and wholesale bank. Certainly something that will be evaluated quite carefully is whether that is the better structural option.
My noble friend Lord Dykes referred to the Co-operative Bank and the surprising speed with which that problem was revealed. The bank is working very well with the regulators to ensure that its capital position is being addressed. It is being addressed without recourse to the public purse, which is a good step forward in terms of how these resolution processes take place. However, the Government continue to support mutual structures, building societies, et cetera, so that really is an important part of competition in the banking sector.
We have had quite a discussion about rebalancing, which is a very popular word that is applied to almost every aspect of our lives these days. In terms of making the banking sector less crucial to the UK economy, I am much more interested in growing other industries than in shrinking the banking sector just for the sake of it. It would be sensible to shrink it if it was too engaged in risky businesses, but I do not think our objective should be simply to reduce the scale of the banking business. The focus needs to be on ensuring that we have a healthy business. As was pointed out, Hong Kong has a bigger relative financial sector than we do. The focus needs to be on our broader economic strategy to help support other businesses, particularly those that can bring jobs and growth to the economy outside the south-east of England, where the financial services jobs are predominantly based.
One of the proactive things that we are trying to do as a Government to ensure that the financial services sector is protected is to ensure that the way in which we regulate and tax the market and all the infrastructure services we provide to the City of London continue to allow it to be the most effective, successful, dynamic financial sector in the world. That should be our objective. That is how we bring business in. That is why banks and other institutions want to come here. We should also support very clearly our own institutions as they develop their interests overseas; we have talked about insurance companies, for example, and how effective and successful they can be overseas. We have to get our financial regulation right. Finally, we have to incentivise banks to lend to the real economy, and other markets and forms of disintermediation have to work so that we can get key parts of the economy financed. I take on board the noble Lord’s comments about AIM. I accept that ISAs cannot be included for the time being. We will follow up with noble Lords when those proposals become clearer later in the year.
I note that the Government announced the creation of the Financial Services Trade and Investment Board—really as a promotion body to help push the City forward. Historically, we have generally left the City to its own devices because we thought it was so successful, but this is a body with some very good people from the Government involved to work through what we can do to support the industry and to make it successful around the world. My experience of working quite intensively with both the lord mayor and the mayor has been that this works quite well in tandem. We also, of course, have the Treasury as a third strand of the Government promoting the City. It had been suggested to me in the past that we should share the role by having both a day mayor and a night mayor—noble Lords can choose which one they would like to put in which category.
The board is up and running and it is doing very well. The kinds of things that are on its agenda are, for example, helping us to be the leading centre for the internationalisation of the renminbi and, talking of India, to help us to be well positioned as the rupee is eventually internationalised so that we can capture that business. My noble friend Lord Flight gave a very eloquent exposition of the UK investment management strategy, demonstrating that, in general, it is a good thing. We need, however, to be careful about how it is regulated—again, we are back to good regulation. The abolition of stamp duty reserve tax, which was a big step forward, was really aimed at making our industry the best one in the world. As an example of what followed, we have seen Santander choosing London as the base for its world-wide asset management business, which is a great step forward. In March, we also established an Islamic task force to try to establish the UK as the preferred choice for the Muslim world to invest in and do business with. These are the kind of new initiatives.
We have talked a lot about the EU and the interesting challenge around being the major financial centre in Europe but not a euro country, and some of the issues and challenges which that throws up. The general sense I got from this debate—which I certainly share—is that noble Lords do not read very much in the papers about when the UK has pushed legislation so that it actually gets the right outcome, not just for this country’s interests but in the market’s interest—and MiFID was a wonderful example of that. Of course, the EU-US free trade agreement should be another example; financial services will be a very big part of that.
We talked a little bit about tax. I agree that the GAAR—the anti-avoidance measure—may be limited. As we saw in Northern Ireland, however, with the G8 meeting, the only real way to address these tax issues is through international collaboration. I am delighted that our Government are taking a lead on tax and transparency and really setting the pace to help to improve those things. We have talked enough about Vickers and what is coming there.
On the comments on diversity, I could not agree more that there would be nothing healthier for some of these financial institutions than to have a broader and more diverse group of people working in them, particularly at the senior level. My own example is that I joined a US investment bank when I left university because I did not feel comfortable in a merchant bank because I had not been to public school. I can only imagine how a woman feels on the trading floor of a US investment bank, because it is a distinct male environment. It would benefit from that diversity. I am an absolute supporter of that. All my experience in professional life has demonstrated the enormous power that comes from that diversity.
I should address the financial transaction tax. The noble Lord is absolutely right. If applied equally around the world, it is certainly a runner, but the way that it is structured now it just will not work. I think that our case is being very effective in persuading countries who were on the fence to see that perhaps it may not be in the market’s interest.
In closing, we have heard how important the sector is, how we are reforming it, how we are making sure that it addresses the problems of the real economy, but also what an important sector it is for the future of this country. I appreciate the comments of noble Lords in what was a very useful and interesting debate.