Financial Services and Markets Bill

Debate between Baroness Altmann and Lord Bridges of Headley

Report stage
Tuesday 13th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly and I apologise for being late.

The Governor of the Bank of England was just in front of the Economic Affairs Committee and our final question was on CBDCs. He gave an answer that I thought was lukewarm at best in his support for them, which was very interesting in and of itself. Before going any further, I remind the House of my interest as an adviser to Banco Santander.

The last time I debated a CBDC, I think there were five of us in the Chamber. Just as I was summing up my speech, suddenly the Chamber filled up, and I thought: “My God! Everyone is suddenly interested in my thoughts on CBDCs”. Only then did I realise that there was just about to be a debate on Brexit for the 231st time, and my views on CBDCs were completely and utterly irrelevant.

As my noble friend has just so eloquently summarised, this is an issue that we really need to focus on a lot more in Parliament as a whole. You may be a fan of CBDCs—here I am looking at my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, who I think is more persuaded by the merits of them and may see them as the best thing since sliced bread, or perhaps in this case one should say decimalisation—or, like me and my noble friend Lord Forsyth, you may be of a more conservative disposition and need to be convinced of the need for change. Whichever view you have, as my noble friend has just said, it is imperative that Parliament has the chance to debate, scrutinise and vote on primary legislation before a CBDC is introduced.

My noble friend has summarised many of the most important points, including privacy, financial stability and the impact of bank disintermediation. There is also the entire issue of how a CBDC might affect the operational independence of the bank, as my noble friend pointed out. One estimate is that a CBDC could—I stress “could”—increase its balance sheet by £400 billion, and it would obviously give the bank entirely new tools in monetary policy.

Then there is the entire issue of cost. I have to say that the words “IT infrastructure project” are possibly the most expensive three words that you can put together. I am very concerned about how much this will cost. No one seems to be able to say how much it will cost or who will pay.

Then there are issues of cybersecurity. The Bank states that new infrastructure needed to support a digital pound would make

“an attractive target for hackers and fraudsters who wish to steal funds”

and

“may become a target for hostile attacks with the aim of disrupting the system and, potentially, the wider economy”.

According to GCHQ, while a digital currency presents “a great opportunity”, it goes on to say:

“If wrongly implemented, it gives a hostile state the ability to surveil transactions”.


Those are just some of the enormous issues that a CBDC raises, and why we must have primary legislation to be able to scrutinise and vote on all this. I am very grateful to my noble friend the Minister, her colleague the City Minister, Mr Griffith, and the Chancellor for focusing on this.

I should actually say that the Chancellor may be forgiven: I am christened James George, so he might have just been signing this late at night, even though I have known him for 20 years. I will put that to one side. I got a very nice letter from the Chancellor, as did Harriett Baldwin. The problem is that, although it is signed by Jeremy Hunt, I feel that it is almost signed by Lewis Carroll because it gives you the feeling that it comes from Alice in Wonderland at a certain point.

If I may, I will detain your Lordships by reading two paragraphs:

“The Government and the Bank of England are at an early stage of policy development and have not made a decision on whether or not to introduce the digital pound”—


that we all know. It goes on:

“As a result, we do not yet know whether a digital pound will require primary legislation”.


When you read that back a few times, it begs a question, and I would be grateful if my noble friend the Minister, when she sums up, could answer it. Could a digital pound be introduced without primary legislation? This seems to suggest that potentially you could have one and it would not require primary legislation.

Be that as it may, the letter then goes on to say:

“However, in recognition of the potential significance of a digital pound, and the views of Parliamentarians, the Government commits to introducing primary legislation before launching a digital pound”.


So even though one might not need primary legislation, the Government are committing that there would be primary legislation.

Obviously, that is a great step forward. My problem is that it is still is not watertight. Much as I would like to say that my noble friend, Mr Griffith and the Chancellor are going to be there for years to come, I somehow do not know whether that is going to be the case. That is why I very much echo what my noble friend has said, and would like the Minister to go as far as possible in saying why it is not the case that they are not willing to put this into primary legislation. Moreover, I would be very interested to know the view of the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats on this, and whether they too would say that they will commit not to introduce a CBDC without primary legislation.

I end by echoing my noble friend. The introduction of a digital pound—a “Britcoin”, as you might call it —would be an enormous undertaking. We cannot and we must not leave it to be passed by statutory instrument one wet Wednesday afternoon in the Moses Room. That would be an absolute disaster. It needs to be debated on the Floors of both Houses and voted on.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I too apologise to the House for being late.

I have added my name to my noble friend’s amendment. I urge my noble friend the Minister and the House to think very carefully about what possible advantages there could be relative to the disadvantages of having a central bank digital currency. We have seen so many people lose so much money, and so many money launderers, thieves and so on make so much money from digital currencies. This may be one of the biggest scams of the century.

It is very difficult to see why we need digital currencies at all. The risks for money laundering and economic crime, the lack of transparency and security for anyone putting money in, and the opportunity that this would offer to rogue states and actors to try to undermine our entire financial system require significant warning. The possibility that this could be introduced without primary legislation seems to me to be unconscionable and a dereliction of our duty to make sure that we are looking after the currency of this country.