Financial Services Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 24th February 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, before getting to the substance of the debate, I must express some puzzlement; obviously, I have much to learn about this House’s mysterious ways. The specific issue that concerns me is the grouping of amendments. We are sternly told that groupings are not to be changed, but here we have a significant change: what was two groups on Monday is now a single group. The issues are not that disparate, but it makes a big difference to the time we have available.

The main point I wish to make relates particularly to Amendments 10 and 71. The latter was tabled by my noble friend Lord Sikka. If I had been a bit more alert, I would have added my name.

The issue here is to whom the FCA should be accountable, given the well-established phenomenon of regulatory capture, as the previous speaker mentioned. It is worth emphasising the point that regulatory capture is where an industry regulator such as the FCA comes to be dominated by the industry it is charged with regulating. The result is that the agency that is meant to be acting in the public interest instead works in ways that benefit the industry. The important point to understand is that this does not happen because inadequate or ineffective people are running the regulator. It is certainly not about corruption. It is an institutional, not individual, problem.

It is important to understand why it happens. The reasons are manifold but I will emphasise three. First, the regulated industry has a keen and immediate interest in influencing the regulator, whereas the customers are less motivated; they have their lives to live and are engaged only for relatively brief periods anyway. Secondly, we know that industries are prepared to devote substantial resources to influencing the regulator. Thirdly, there is the inevitable commonality of work and social life for the individuals on both sides of the process.

Given that the phenomenon of regulatory capture is acknowledged and widely understood, what do we do about it? The first step is acknowledging the issue and recognising and addressing the challenge. The next step is making the regulator as accountable as possible. There are many ways of doing this, but we can leave those for another day. What we have here are Amendments 10 and 71. Under Amendment 10, the involvement of both Houses in considering draft and final rules would be valuable in itself, given the expertise available. However, it is also valuable because of the additional exposure that it brings to the workings of the regulator, which will have to make its case. In the same way, Amendment 71 would bring greater exposure to the work of the FCA, forcing it to expound on its performance and its objectives in public and in an expert forum.

There is much more to do on making the FCA fully accountable, but these amendments are a start and have my support.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton. He addressed in useful detail the risks of industry capture of regulators, to which the financial sector is particularly prone and which is addressed by Amendment 71 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sikka. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles of Berkhamsted, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, I have attached my name to that amendment. I associate myself particularly with the remarks of the noble Baroness, who stressed that these amendments are about the rights of Parliament and access to data and detailed information—necessary for the kind of expert work at which your Lordships’ House excels.

As the noble Lord, Lord Davies, covered the need for Amendment 71 in some depth and its author—the noble Lord, Lord Sikka—is yet to speak, I will confine myself to general remarks about how all the amendments in this large group reflect the great degree of concern on all sides of the House about, given how the Bill is currently constituted, the lack of parliamentary oversight of the actions of both the regulators and the Treasury. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, explained this point in her highly informative introduction to the group.

This morning, thanks to their kind indulgence, I was able to join Cross-Benchers in a briefing on the Bill, where we heard how the formalisation of the relationship between regulators, Parliament and the Treasury is “on the way”. The future regulatory framework consultation closed on Friday. We heard that the Bill is not the final word on that, and that the responses to the consultation will not be ready in time for the Bill. So, yet again, we hear that democratic controls and the details of government plans will be included in future legislation and regulation. Your Lordships’ House has heard this so often on so many subjects; perhaps we could enlist the Lords spiritual in assisting us in putting it in some kind of musical form. It simply is not good enough.

We know that, despite the long run-in time, the Government were not ready for Brexit at the end of the transition period and that civil servants, through no fault of their own, are trapped in a huge scramble to catch up with the massive backlog of government inaction and indecision—the tsunami to which the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, referred. But what we have here are sensible proposals from experienced, expert Members of your Lordships’ House. I hope that the Government will acknowledge the urgency and importance of ensuring democratic oversight and that they will take at least some of these amendments on board at the next stage of the Bill, particularly, given the arguments already made, Amendment 71. There is no need to wait. Democratic oversight should be a given, not an extra, later addition.

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In the interests of time, I shall not speak to the other amendments to which I have put my name, because many different approaches are encompassed by the group of amendments that we are discussing and I am by no means precious about how we can best approach these issues. However, all have a common purpose: to ensure that we do not miss the opportunity that this Bill gives us to recognise the crucial importance of risk and opportunity inherent in the financial services industry in relation to climate change and to recognise that not just in ministerial speeches but in legislative reality, which leads to real progress. I look forward to the Minister’s response and hope for constructive discussions with him and his team before Report, not on the principle of introducing issues of climate change into the Bill but on the most appropriate ways to do so.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, who is such a champion of climate and other environmental issues in your Lordships’ House. As she said, it is astonishing that the Bill, in the year 2021, presented by the Government with the responsibility of chairing COP 26, who talk so often about being “world-leading” on climate, could have got so far without any mention of the climate emergency.

The noble Baroness and, in introducing the amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Oates, have set out extensively the detail of the range of climate amendments and the need for their incorporation in the Bill, so I shall focus the bulk of my words on Amendment 17 in my name. It is distinct in that, while all the others address the climate emergency, this is the only amendment that also brings in the crucial issue of our nature crisis, and the collapse in biodiversity and bio-abundance that is obviously of concern to the Treasury given its commissioning of the recently-released Dasgupta Review.

I doubt that many noble Lords taking part in the debate on this group need an outline of it, but it is important to highlight that the Dasgupta Review identifies nature as “our most precious asset”. It says that we need vastly more protection for our scant remaining natural world—on this, one of the planet’s most nature-depleted lands—which means making sure that money is not going into destructive actions. That should be of concern to the Financial Conduct Authority. It says too that we should begin to implement large-scale and widespread investments that address biodiversity loss—again, a matter for the Financial Conduct Authority.

While it is great to see in the Dasgupta Review these critical issues to all of our futures expressed in terms that even mainstream economics can understand, being comfortable for those whose philosophy is embedded in growth-orientated, 19th-century politics, it falls down in trying to apply the same unrealistic, abstract mathematical models, driven by financial calculations, to provide tools to guide what to do. We have so little left of biodiversity and bio-abundance, with 50% of our species in decline and 15% at imminent risk of extinction, that we cannot be calculating what we can afford to destroy or write off in this land. We have to preserve everything that is left, while acknowledging that the destruction that we have wrought has given us an insecure, poverty-stricken society that is frighteningly short on resilience, as the Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated and, as we have just seen on the global scale in Texas, precious little ability to endure the climate shocks inevitably coming our way.

I point noble Lords and the Government to the recent, crucial United Nations Environment Programme report, Making Peace with Nature. In his foreword to it, the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, says that

“our war on nature has left the planet broken”.

That is where we are. The often piecemeal response to the climate crisis, biodiversity loss and pollution is

“not going to get us to where we want”,

according to Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme.

Just considering the remit of our international climate obligations as a central part of the FCA’s responsibilities is not nearly enough, as crucial as that is. Adding our equally binding and important obligations through the Convention on Biological Diversity is a significant improvement, and I give notice to your Lordships’ House that this is an issue that I intend to pursue strongly at the next stage of the Bill. I will listen carefully to today’s debate, and any responses we get from the Government, and consider where best to place this amendment among the range of amendments, although I hope that the Government will pre-empt any need for me to do that.

Yet this is still not nearly enough, as the UNEP is highlighting. We also need to consider pollution as a key concern, and a circular economy, on which the European Union is leading. We need a systems thinking approach—a complete view of how we stop treating this planet as a mine and a dumping ground and treasure its immensely complex systems of life, of which we still have so little understanding. Of course, we also have to consider the billions of people—millions in the UK alone—whose basic needs are not being met while we trash our planet. As a species we are using the resources of 1.6 planets every year; in the UK, our share is three planets.

This morning I was present at a briefing about New Zealand’s modern, 21st-century living standards framework, on which there has been wide public and expert consultation. It provides a guide for Treasury decision-making on all government spending. That is truly world-leading, and I hope that the UK Treasury is looking urgently at developing a similar system. In the meantime, however, the inclusion in this Bill of our climate emergency and nature crisis—the understanding that our financial sector is 100% contained within it—is at least progress.

The other place has before it the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill, which could help to create a framework for such a structure. Given that it is “oven-ready”—to quote a once-familiar phrase—and the continuing delays to the Environment Bill, the Government should be looking at a rapid delivery of whatever emergency steps could be taken—as many as have been taken over Covid.

I revert to the Bill before us. I was told that the 2020 Pension Schemes Bill was the first financial legislation in British history to contain a reference to climate change—no doubt the first to refer to the natural world. Listening closely to the briefing that I referred to earlier, I sense that the Government are at least prepared not to step backwards in this 2021 Bill, and to include some reference to climate change. But if it is to progress it also needs to include biodiversity.

In concluding this section of my comments, I ask the Committee to listen to a short quote:

“Obviously it is right to focus on climate change, obviously it is right to cut CO₂ emissions, but we will not achieve a real balance with our planet unless we protect nature as well”.


That was a quote from Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s speech of 11 January as he announced that £3 billion of UK climate finance was to be spent on supporting nature. I ask the Minister how, given the Prime Minister’s words, he could not have included an amendment such as Amendment 17, in addition to one or more climate change amendments.

Allowing money to pump the systems that are wrecking the natural world is, to put it mildly, not a good idea. It is something that should be considered in every action and every regulation of every government body, particularly the Financial Conduct Authority, given the extreme financialisation of our economy, whereby almost every element is now regarded as a potential profit source. Those profits, which go to the few, must not be at the expense of the living future of all of us.

I turn briefly to the other amendments to which I have attached my name, the first of which is Amendment 23, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Oates, also signed by the noble Baronesses, Lady Kramer and Lady Hayman. This amendment simply ensures that regulation is compliant with the amended Climate Change Act and the Government’s much-trumpeted 2050 net-zero target. That is a bare, indeed inadequate, minimum, because it fails to acknowledge the need for urgent action now to achieve major cuts in emissions in the 2020s. Not waiting but acting now should be at the forefront of every government action.

I backed Amendment 75, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, because of the need for expertise in these issues within the FCA. Its many failings in traditional areas were powerfully outlined earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Sikka. It certainly needs a specialist, expert voice at its heart to address environmental issues.

I also attached my name to Amendment 98, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and also signed by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, which focuses particularly on climate risk. I would suggest that this falls, in the terms of the Paris climate agreement, in the areas of both climate mitigation and adaptation. The need for mitigation is a risk in itself. We heard the astonishing news this week that local government pension funds still hold £10 billion in fossil fuel investments, despite large numbers of local councils having declared climate emergencies. That is astonishing in terms of money being invested in trashing the climate in ways already hitting close to home—flooding, heatwaves and biodiversity damage—but it is also as though the term “carbon bubble” had never been invented. Perhaps we cannot blame local government for the oversight when our current Government have continued to put money into fossil fuel assets and to subsidise the operation of existing ones to the tune of billions. These are issues that certainly need to be considered.

However, there is also adaptation. I do not feel like I need to stress so much—as the Green Party has for years—that the climate emergency is a current reality, not a problem for future generations. I think, finally, the Government and even parts of industry and finance have got that fact. I note that, today, Fitch Ratings warned that the rising cost of natural catastrophes arising from climate change could mean that insurers withdraw from the market, leaving it to Governments to pick up the pieces. Amendment 98 would be a modest step towards ensuring that the FCA has rules fit for operating in such an environment.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, and pay tribute to her green credentials and the work that she and her colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb—both my friends—have done, as have so many others who have contributed to this debate so far today. I look forward to the other contributions.

This group of amendments has much to commend itself, as do many of the individual amendments. It helps to green-proof, if I may say that, the provisions of the Bill. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Howe will tell me if I am wrong when he comes to reply, but I cannot find anything else in the Bill that covers the provisions set out in these amendments. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Oates—I celebrate, again, the fact that we joined the House together; I always look forward to debates in which he and I contribute—and to the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman and Lady Bennett. My slight concern with this group is that while the focus and main thrust of their amendments is on climate change I am slightly confused that they have chosen that form of words—as they also have in other amendments—because so much progress has been made in investment generally. I personally believe that that should extend to banking and financial services as well as other investments, but there is general recognition now of ESG investments. The Wikipedia encyclopaedia tells us that:

“Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance”


are generally recognised as measuring

“the sustainability and societal impact of an investment in a company or business.”

It goes on to say that:

“Threat of climate change and the depletion of resources has grown, so investors may choose to factor sustainability issues into their investment choices.”


We are increasingly seeing a move in general investments towards individual small shareholders buying very small, limited shareholdings in a company precisely for the purpose of raising these issues at the AGM. I think we will see this trend continue. This must extend, as I said earlier, to banking and financial services as well. I believe that there should be a place for ESG provisions and regulation by the FSA in the Bill, and these amendments identify where they should go.

However, I am mindful of the fact that ESG covers all sorts of possibilities, such as climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity, waste management and water management, so I put to the authors and to my noble friend the Minister that ESG provisions would encapsulate this and would perhaps be a neater—and recognised—way of introducing this into the Bill.

In many instances, particularly in all the work that we have done on rural affairs, we rural-proof legislation as it goes through and I am very keen that we green-proof new legislation as it comes online. I therefore welcome the main thrust of these amendments. I repeat to my noble friend the Minister that if this is an omission, these amendments, or something along the lines of ESG terminology, should find a place in the Bill and a role for the regulators specified in it to follow. If these amendments do not fit the Government’s thinking or should we follow more of an ESG terminology, will he consider coming forward with amendments of his own at the next stage?

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

I have received one request to speak after the Minister from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, who I now call.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his comprehensive answer, although I ask again, how can the Government justify having included climate change considerations in the then Pension Schemes Bill last year, but not in this far larger, more significant Bill in 2021?

I want to respond to what the Minister said: that there is no evidence that greener means prudentially safer. I hope I am quoting him accurately. I refer specifically to the fossil fuel companies that the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, mentioned earlier, as well as to mining companies with a substantial role in environmental destruction. As the UNEP report to which I referred earlier said, this is unlikely to continue to be tolerated on the international stage. Surely the Government are aware and are taking account of the Carbon Tracker Initiative, which is responsible for popularising the term carbon bubble, if not for inventing it. The excess of carbon beyond climate limits is termed unburnable carbon, some of which is owned by listed companies. This has the financial implication of potentially creating stranded assets and destroying significant shareholder value.

The Carbon Tracker Initiative says that valuations tend to be based on near-term cash flows, which are less likely to be affected by climate-related factors. However, exposure varies, and some companies will be in a far worse position than others, as the demand for fossil fuels and the ability to burn them reduces. Surely, this is a potential concern and a risk that the greening of companies can tackle.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, I failed to cover the Pension Schemes Act. I apologise to the noble Baroness. The Act provides a power to bring forward regulations, placing various obligations on pension schemes relating to climate change risks. The provisions in the prudential package of the Financial Services Bill do something slightly different. They place a duty on the regulators to have regard to certain matters and to explain how they have been considered, given that the Bill imposes duties on the regulators to make rules relating to Basel and the IFPR. I reassure the noble Baroness that my officials and I have considered these provisions carefully, as we have the other amendments discussed today.

As regards her main question, my point was simple. As yet, there is no international agreement on what the term “green” means. Therefore, we cannot say with certainty that greener means prudentially safer. I do not say that we will never be able to, but it is not possible at present.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, for his clear and incisive introduction to this group, and the identification of the problem of Clause 3, which I am proposing in a probing amendment should not stand part of the Bill. Amendments 24 and 25 seek to improve Clause 3 and appear to do so, but this group is crucial for debating the very issues that the noble Lord has raised. He reflected some of the concerns that I expressed in the first day of the debate: namely, that the language we are hearing from the Government and some Members of this Committee closely resembles that of 2006, most notably in the then Chancellor Gordon Brown’s infamous Mansion House speech.

Clause 3 transfers certain prudential regulation matters into PRA rules. The Treasury may by regulation revoke provisions of capital requirement regulations relating to the matters listed—a list that then amounts to a couple of pages. This Bill is often presented as primarily simply a matter of transferring and translating technical regulations from Basel and the EU into UK statute. Many of us have spent much of the last year in this Room working on just such statutory instruments. However, when considered more deeply, vesting such powers in the Treasury would seem to be a kind of discretionary deregulatory charter. It has been described to me as potentially a clause allowing Singapore-on-Thames to run riot.

I would not care to take an examination on the detail of what Clause 3 does, but I am being advised by someone who could set that exam, and I take great heart from the earlier expression of support from the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, for this probing amendment—for Clause 3 potentially hands quite substantial discretionary powers to the Treasury to get more involved in PRA matters. It could be used to soften up or undermine the PRA. I can already predict some of the answer that I may hear from the Minister, that “Our intentions are good”. But, as we go around this merry-go-round again and again, what matters is what is written on the face of the Bill, not whatever the current Minister or Government’s intention might be.

My question, to which I would appreciate an answer now and perhaps in more detail later, is: does the Bill as currently written—perhaps improved by Amendments 24 and 25, but certainly without them—hand too much discretionary power to the Treasury and should the wording not be tightened to specify more precisely the circumstances in which the Treasury would involve itself in these matters of the PRA?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, intimated when he introduced his amendments, Clause 3 is very important to prudential regulation and the banks and financial institutions concerned. However, we must make progress with this Bill, so I will speak briefly. I look forward to the Minister’s explanation of what is intended here and why, and what the safeguards will be for those entities regulated by the PRA in terms of purpose, consultation, impact, cost benefit and so on. I do not read it in the same way as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle.

I would like to understand the competitive position. My son works in London for a French investment bank regulated primarily in Paris rather than London, under the equivalence arrangements that we have granted. I suspect that the local branch here may be part of a legal entity based in Paris. How would such an EU bank be affected by the proposed changes in Clause 3 and whatever replaces the revoked regulations? Is there a level playing field?

Financial Services Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 22nd February 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Blunkett (Lab) [V]]

I am very pleased indeed to join in this important debate. The noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, set out the situation in the macro field extremely well and I am pleased to support the speeches that have already been made by a number of noble Lords.

I will concentrate on two things. The first is the issue of protection from exploitation with the development of cybercrime. I hope we will be able to come back to this in Committee and on Report with respect to the risks that people are put into because of the lack of care within the whole of the financial services sector. Secondly, very small businesses and partnerships are excluded from redress, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, mentioned. This is also is relevant to Amendment 129, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond.

On the first issue, in relation to cybersecurity, there is a growing trend that those who are affected keep quiet rather than reveal what has happened. This is a real danger. If, as I hope, we come out of the present dip in relation to financial services globally because of Brexit, we will be able to present to the world a marketplace which is both effective and forward looking—and is also secure. A duty of care to both individual customers and to small and medium-sized enterprises is a critical element in taking this Bill forward and strengthening the measures that exist there. I will not egg the measures that I think are necessary this afternoon, because there will an opportunity to come back to them. But I will just say that this is a growing area of real concern. An improved mandate for those operating in the financial services sector from the FCA would be very welcome indeed.

On the issue of small and medium-sized businesses and small partnerships, and the relationship between them and individual consumer, it is little known that access to the Financial Ombudsman is confined to individuals rather than small businesses and partnerships. What was said by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and also the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, was highly relevant here. It backs up the need for clarity in terms of how we deal not only with prevention but with redress.

I give one small example, which I took up the with the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, when he was at the Department of Health. To his credit, he saw the wisdom of trying to bring about change. As the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, has described, it was not received well at the time because of the struggle that was going on post the Brexit referendum and because of the difficulties the Government were facing. We have dealt with banks and financial services, but we need to concern ourselves with insurance as well. Perhaps now is an opportune moment to deal with the situation where an insurance company is taken over and the new provider offers a slightly revised agreement which is sent out without highlighting the key changes that have been made.

For instance, in cover for physical ailments and physical damage because of accident, there is no change, but in terms of absence from work and insurance by a partnership with more than 10 partners insuring together, the mental health clauses are changed to make any payment dependent on having to gain, within 12 weeks, the sign-off of a psychiatrist and a clinical psychologist. Anyone with any knowledge of this area will know that that is an impossible ask. Had it been highlighted to the partnership, it would have been able to look elsewhere for an insurer that was not going to exploit the market as this company did.

The partnership could not go to the ombudsman. It would have been entitled to if each individual partner had insured themselves, but because there were more than 10 of them signed up to the insurance contract, that was not possible. We need to put right nonsense of this kind and ensure that those making enormous amounts of money, which they will continue to do, do not do so at the expense of individuals or small and medium-sized enterprises.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. I very much support his call for a financial sector that is secure, that does not threaten the security of all of us and that does not exploit people who are forced to use its services.

I speak chiefly to Amendment 1 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, also signed by the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, and me. It was ably introduced by the noble Lord. I speak to this amendment because it is a subject close to my heart and one that I referred to at length in my speech at Second Reading. This group fits together nicely when we look also at Amendments 72 and 129, which I also support. We are talking about a huge imbalance of power in the interactions between the financial sector and its customers. As the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, said in his introduction, when talking about this we often focus on banks, but we have seen some truly outrageous behaviour from insurance companies during the Covid-19 pandemic, something that I have referred to previously in the House.

When thinking about this amendment I reflected on being a 19 year-old in Australia, many years ago, buying a studio flat. It was cheaper then to have a mortgage than to pay rent. My father stood as guarantor and met the local bank manager—they knew each other personally. This was before the financial deregulation that allowed the massive boosting of prices, as the excellent 2016 New Economics Foundation report The Financialisaton of UK Homes laid out. That was what made it possible.

However, the banking sector then was no ideal model. It was undoubtedly paternalistic, patriarchal and discriminatory, against people from BAME and certain socioeconomic backgrounds and on the basis of gender. I am not sure whether my father was forced to be guarantor because I was a single female and a strange type of person to be taking out a loan, or just because of my youth, but there was in the local bank manager an individual knowledge and understanding, and the hope that if something went wrong, an individual would know your circumstances and do their best to help you.

That is not the situation that we have now. We have a “computer says no” approach. Anyone with a problem can expect to encounter an endlessly changing rota of call centre staff reading from scripts. We could hope for a locally based institution serving the needs of local communities, something that other parts of the world, such as Germany, still expect from their financial sector. That would be a financial sector that served as a utility, not as a generator of maximum profit. Care would then be built in and we might not need an amendment such as the duty of care amendment, but we have to start from where we are.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, Amendments 2, 6, 7 and 87 seek variously to urge the FCA, the PRA and the Bank of England to take into account the competitiveness of the United Kingdom. This is a dangerous concept that can only harm Britain and our collective national security and well-being. Competition implies people winning and losing, trying to beat down others to push ahead of them, taking risks and cutting corners. We all know where that ended up in 2008.

Instead, we should aim for a more secure financial sector that provides more useful, effective and safe services to individuals and the real economy. That would have a global benefit. If we have a decent financial sector with good standards across the globe, everyone wins. If we treat this as a zero-sum game, we lose and the world loses.

The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, spoke—complained, it would be fair to say—about regulators being, by their nature, risk-averse. Well, I, like many other Britons seeking to avoid a replay of 2008, applaud that existing risk aversion and seek to strengthen, not weaken, it. Competitiveness has been, and continues to be in the calls of many, exactly comparable to downgrading. That includes relaxing capital requirements for financial institutions; reducing enforcement of criminal behaviour by financial actors, creating tax loopholes for billionaires or multinational corporations; and having weak competition policy that allows a small number of firms to dominate markets and exploit British consumers, workers and taxpayers. This all reflects the model of free ports that the Government seem so keen on.

The winners in this race are plutocrats and giant multinationals. This kind of competitiveness is fundamentally anti-democratic and profoundly destabilising in its contributions to inequality. Trickle-down economics have long been discredited; financial services that concentrate money in the hands of the few only harm the rest of us. I note that Amendment 3 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, tries to provide a form of insurance, as she outlined, but the best answer, as the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, said, is not to insert “competitive” into the Bill at all.

The last global financial crisis was substantially the fruit of competitive financial deregulation in Britain and elsewhere, as Britain and other countries increasingly relaxed rules to attract capital, thus allowing financial actors to take highly profitable risks at the great expense of the rest of us. Separately, Britain has abjectly failed to prosecute money laundering via the City of London. Non-enforcement is a deliberate competitive strategy used by many tax havens. This corrupts our institutions and gives potentially hostile secret actors leverage over our economy and politics.

In short, we need an upgraded financial system, with tighter controls and a demand that it meets the needs of individuals and the real economy, as our debate on the first group of amendments focused on. This would support the financial integrity of our systems and benefit the UK economy, particularly our security and ability to meet everyone’s basic needs. A system driven by competitiveness benefits a few at society’s expense—that is, at the expense of small and medium-sized enterprises, even larger enterprises, and the vast majority of individuals.

There is also an important regional aspect to this inequality. A competitive financial system will benefit wealthy parts of London while harming Britain’s struggling regions. A better, upgraded financial system, spread out around the country, with local banks meeting local needs securely and safely, would be a significant improvement indeed.

The idea of competitiveness ensures that costs are spread across the majority of the UK population, with lost tax revenues and financial crises, while the benefits are realised in corporate headquarters mostly in the wealthy parts of London, overseas and, very often, offshore. No strategy that seeks to level up the regions based on a “competitiveness of the financial sector” agenda can possibly succeed.

We will come later to my Amendment 123, which starts from an extensive analysis of the “finance curse” and calls for an impact report on the costs of the financial sector—something I do not believe the Government have any kind of handle on, despite the hard work of a small number of underfunded campaigners and academics. A large body of cross-country evidence from such radical organisations as the IMF and the Bank for International Settlements shows that there is an optimal size for a country’s financial sector, where it provides the services that an economy and population need. Expansion beyond this size causes damage, increases inequality, boosts criminal behaviour and creates many other ills. We need a safe, balanced financial sector that does not suck in skills, resources and capital, taking them away from the businesses that need our essential—and currently often badly served—needs, whether food security or construction, public transport or care.

We are not Tudor buccaneers, whatever some members of our governing party might think. We live in an unstable, insecure world buffeted by environmental, economic and social shocks. We are seeking a new place in the world—we have much talk of global Britain —so it is worth thinking for a second about what the world sees when it looks at the UK financial sector. I looked through a report from the Tax Justice Network in 2019, which noted:

“The UK with its ‘corporate tax haven network’ is by far the world’s greatest enabler of corporate tax avoidance”.


I note figures out just overnight from the Jubilee Debt Campaign, which show that of the debt owed by 73 countries eligible for debt relief under the G20 initiative, 30% is owed to private lenders in the UK. If we want a respected, admired place in the world—something that could be only to our benefit—then an outsized financial sector, one “competing hard”, will cost us dear.

I will speak briefly to Amendment 102 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, which importantly promotes transparency about how the Government seek to direct our international oversight and financial governance. I also express very strong support for Amendment 121 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles of Berkhamsted, which refers to country-by-country reporting. We know that giant multinational companies shuffle money around like a fast-moving, shady casino dealer, making their profits in one place but seeking to shift them to places competing—we are back to that word again—on the basis of minimal regulation and taxation. Who then pays for the schools and hospitals their customers need? Who pays for the maintenance of roads, the police, the courts? They take their profits and run, and the rest of us pay.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Henig) (Lab)]

The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, has scratched from this group so I now call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

I have received one additional request to speak after the Minister, and I call the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord the Deputy Leader for his full response in our previous discussion, but there was one figure that he raised in that response that I wanted to ask him about the source of and justification for. That was the claim that the financial sector contributed £76 billion in tax receipts. I am basing this question on work done by a fellow Member of your Lordships’ House, the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, who may not be joining us until later—so I wanted to raise this point now. I understand from his work that this figure comes from a report prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers and includes £42 billion borne by customers in the form of VAT and paid by employees in the form of income tax and national insurance contributions. The remaining £33 billion is an estimate, and the report says that PwC

“has not verified, validated or audited the data and cannot therefore give any undertaking as to the accuracy”.

Could the Minister tell us what further justification the Government have for that figure?

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, this is clearly a detailed and analytical question, which is probably not appropriate for Grand Committee. I would be happy to write to the noble Baroness, giving her chapter and verse as far as I am able to do.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

I call the next speaker, the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. Baroness Bennett? We appear to have lost the noble Baroness, so if—

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

Apologies, my Lords, but I have sorted the problem out now. I speak briefly in support of Amendments 5, 73 and 95, in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Bowles, Lady Altmann and Lady Kramer. Although not a generalisation that is 100% true, the gender division of the people on various sides speaking on the Bill is interesting. It made me reflect back to the financial crash of 2007-08 and the role that the extreme gender imbalance in the financial sector was seen to have played within it.

When I thought to look at these issues about exploitation, unconscionable conduct, and legal protection against mis-selling, I went to the website moneysavingexpert.com. In a previous contribution, I referred to the role of such commentators who, using the power of public opinion, often seem to be a stronger check on the behaviour of the financial sector than the Government. But, of course, they are able to work only after the fact. Just looking down the list, we are talking about payment protection insurance, mis-sold ID fraud insurance, the mis-selling of package bank accounts and excessive charges on bank accounts—and that is just talking about individual consumers. A similar list would come up for small business. It is a long tale of woe that has caused a great deal of suffering and harm to individuals and small businesses, the operators of which have often put their whole heart and soul into the business.

What we seem to have now is a strategy of shutting the stable door sometime after the horse has bolted, and after a long delay for debate and inquiry. All three of these amendments are a very strong bolt that we should be sliding home now to protect consumers and small businesses from the overweening, immense power of the financial sector.

[Baroness Kramer (LD) [V]]

My goodness, this has moved fast. My Lords, let me start by addressing Amendment 95, because it is in my name. It would give SMEs the right to sue in respect of all regulated financial services, not just banking. It would—and this is an important example—entitle them to sue for breaches of the rules relating to insurance, otherwise known as COBS, in respect of business interruption insurance policies.

Another big practical implication relates to the cross-selling of regulated products or services as part of the add-ons to a loan. In the swaps mis-selling scandal—I believe my noble friend Lord Sharkey mentioned this in his earlier list, when talking about a duty of care—over 40,000 swaps were sold to SMEs. The banks had broken the regulatory requirements in over 90% of cases. It is almost impossible to imagine that having happened if the banks’ legal departments knew that the banks would be sued by their customers as a result.

None of the SMEs that have taken swaps cases all the way to court have won. Judges have repeatedly said that, had the customer been able to sue for breach of the COBS rules, that would have made all the difference. The evidence is there in Green & Rowley v RBS, Crestsign Ltd v NatWest, London Executive Aviation Ltd v RBS, and Fine Care Homes Ltd v NatWest. Those cases and the other swap cases that failed at trial show that—even where a judge is convinced that the customer did not understand the product they were buying and even where the bank salesperson knew that the customer was relying on them to explain the product—the common law fails to provide the customer with a remedy. I realise that the swaps scandal is, hopefully, in the past but, without the amendment proposed, there is nothing to stop banks from perpetrating similar behaviour in future.

My amendment addresses only part of the issue of the limitations of the regulatory perimeter, which both my noble friend Lady Bowles and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, have discussed, and it is why I support Amendments 5 and 73 in the name of my noble friend. I find it ridiculous that the regulatory perimeter treats small businesses as, in effect, akin to multinationals in their capacity to understand financial products and fight on an equal footing with big institutions.

My noble friend Lady Bowles has cited the case of RBS GRG. For those not familiar with this case, GRG was the turnaround unit of RBS. A number of firms were persuaded to allow themselves to go into the turnaround unit even though they were both viable and paying their loans on time; but RBS believed that under the terms of their loan agreement they were at risk because the value of their assets had declined, which created a covenant default. In a remarkable number of cases, those companies that were viable and paying on time were made bankrupt, their assets were stripped after having been assessed at very low market values and—surprise, surprise—the bank was able some time later to sell those assets for a much higher value, thereby generating profits. It was indeed not just a turnaround unit but a profit centre.

After great pressure from Vince Cable, the FCA initiated an investigation. It asked a group called Promontory to produce a two-stage report: one to look at the case and the other to make recommendations. However, after the first phase of the report was complete, the FCA explained that it could not publish it as it contained commercially sensitive information, and it therefore produced a summary. Miraculously, the original report made its way into the hands of the Treasury Select Committee. This, to me, is almost the worst part of the story: the summary that had been provided by the FCA and the report itself did not match. There was essentially a whitewash of the conclusions of Promontory. The FCA may have disagreed with the report that it received, but that would have been a very different declaration.

We have talked before about the senior management and certification regime; the FCA could have used that regime to try to deal with senior management who had been involved in this entire process, but it chose not to. That, I am afraid, is the history of the use of the senior management and certification regime. However, my noble friend Lady Bowles could equally well have cited the HBOS Reading fraud perpetrated between 2003 and 2007, which I mentioned earlier. Six bankers ended up in jail for that fraud, but we are now in 2021 and fair compensation has not yet been paid to the victims. This is now a Lloyds problem and has been for some time.

We have been through multiple reviews and are now awaiting the work of yet another review of compensation, the Foskett panel, which hopefully will make sure the compensation is appropriate—but, as I said, it is 2021. There have been issues; for example, a whistleblower who examined who knew what and when has been compensated twice by Lloyds for retaliation against her. There is currently a review by Dame Linda Dobbs into who in senior management knew or ought to have known what was going on.

Covid-19

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con) [V]]

I assure my noble friend that much work is going on in our scientific community to analyse the new variants. As she will know, the UK has one of the most extensive genomic sequencing capabilities in the world. We have offered a new variant assessment platform to work with the WHO to offer our expertise in genomic sequencing to other countries. Indeed, we have sequenced over half of all viral Covid genomes that have been submitted to the global database. I assure her that we are at the forefront of work on these variants.

The one thing that I hope will give her some comfort is that all the current evidence continues to show that both vaccines we are currently using remain effective against both UK and South African variants. Moderna has said that it expects its vaccine to protect against the South African variant as well. It has also said that the reduction in antibody levels suggests that immunity could wane more rapidly, so Moderna is having a further look at its vaccine. That shows how much work is going on, both within the companies developing vaccines and more broadly, to make sure we stay ahead of these new variants.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

I will follow on from the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Newby. Perhaps the greatest area of government failure, although there is tragically lots of competition, is the failure to provide sufficient support to the infected and exposed who cannot self-isolate. Given that the Government are finally looking to set up quarantine hotels for overseas arrivals, will they consider a similar programme for those such as families forced into over- crowded accommodation by the bedroom tax, who cannot self-isolate in their current accommodation?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con) [V]]

I am not aware of any plans in that area, but I am happy to pass on the comments made by the noble Baroness about other things we might look at to the relevant departments.

Covid-19 Update

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 7th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I think all the devolved Administrations are working closely with central government. As I mentioned in response to a previous question, we are allocating vaccine doses based on the business-as-usual Barnett formula, and more than 1.3 million people across the UK have already received the first dose of the vaccine. Of course, we will continue to work closely together because we want to ensure that the programme is rolled out across all four nations so we can all benefit from it.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Baroness may well be aware that in Brighton and Hove the council made the decision to close nurseries under its control, except to vulnerable children and those of key workers. Councillor Hannah Clare of Brighton and Hove Council has written to the Education Department to say that it believes that the same data and science that led to school closures applies also to the early years sector. I note that the Early Years Alliance says that many nurseries are closing voluntarily to protect the staff, the families and their communities. Will the noble Baroness tell us how the science differs between primary schools and nurseries, and whether the Government will provide financial support to nurseries making this decision in the interests of their communities?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

What I can say to the noble Baroness is that within schools, vulnerable children and those of key workers can still attend, and we intend that early years settings remain open.

Covid-19

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right: ensuring that we protect jobs and support those in work has been central to our work so far. As I mentioned in a previous answer, we have put in place an unprecedented package of support for businesses, including grants, loans and the furlough scheme. We will continue to support business to make sure that we have a thriving economy once we come out of this crisis.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and the right reverent Prelate the Bishop of Rochester have all effectively set out the scientific and medical problems with the rule of six and the lack of clarity or logic in the rules announced. Will the Government consider, instead, having rules that will be enforced and guidance for the public, with a clear division between the two? Confusion between the two has been a significant source of problems. Rather than, for example, threatening to roll out the Army for two groups of neighbours numbering seven who are standing at a distance and briefly exchanging greetings in the park, will they acknowledge that it is the vulnerable and communities already suffering discrimination who are most likely to be affected by such enforcement action?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I have made it clear that the military will not be rolling out but may be called upon to help with certain back-office duties, so I do not accept that characterisation by the noble Baroness. Of course, she and others have correctly talked about the need for clear messaging and guidance, which is, and will continue to be, at the forefront of our minds.

Civil Procedure (Amendment No. 4) (Coronavirus) Rules 2020

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I apologise for my wi-fi glitch and thank the House for allowing me back in.

It would have been my pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, and I share her concerns, particularly about discretion for judges. Today’s debate is about emergency evictions, and my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb has addressed the details of that. I am going to look at the broader picture.

We have a profoundly insecure housing model. As in so many other areas, Covid-19 has only exposed pre-existing weaknesses in our society. Houses have been treated primarily as financial assets rather than secure, genuinely affordable places for people to live. Just as in the UK in the depths of the Second World War, there was deep, effective planning for the NHS and the welfare state, we need to be thinking now about a different housing policy future.

In 1979, heading on for half the British population lived in council housing; they were secure. Then right to buy arrived. Now, nearly half the homes purchased under that and not replaced are owned by private landlords, massively subsidised by housing benefit and tax breaks. Money that might have gone into productive economic investments has gone instead into lifting prices. In private rental accommodation of 4.6 million households, one in 10 of which are insecure in the age of Covid, a significant number of tenants are over 50, as the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, noted.

Insecurity is not the only problem; we know there is a huge problem with quality—draughty, cold, badly maintained housing stock. That poor quality sadly extends to homes being sold now to people who are stretching every financial sinew, with prices supported by Help to Buy, also known as “help to profit” for a few large corporations. In 2019, the National Audit Office noted that many buyers would immediately lurch into negative equity—something now of even greater concern.

It is tempting to think now that we should just patch the worst problems, but we also need to see the Government putting serious work into a different housing model.

Covid-19 Update

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am happy to reiterate that, subject to public health advice, it is indeed our aspiration to reopen gyms and leisure facilities by mid-July.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, the noble Baroness referred to using local action committees as the way in which local lockdowns will be achieved. I refer to my interest in the register with the Local Government Association and to the words of Ian Hudspeth, who speaks for it on health matters. He and other local authorities have been begging for information on getting direct, real-time data about diagnoses of Covid-19, so that they can see and manage what is happening in their local areas. Can she say when or if that real-time information, down to the detail of at least street and postcode or small local areas, will be given to local authorities and those local action committees?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

What I can say is that we have made £300 million available to local authorities to work with test and trace to develop the local outbreak control plans. Those plans will identify and contain potential outbreaks in places such as workplaces, ensure that testing capacity is effectively deployed, and help the most vulnerable in self-isolation.

Covid-19: Strategy

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 12th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, this Statement launched the Government’s document, Our Plan to Rebuild. It says:

“Anyone with symptoms should isolate immediately, alongside their households, and apply for a test. If a negative test is returned, then isolation is no longer required.”


But the NHS is widely reported as estimating a false negative rate of 30% for swab tests. On 1 May, Pulse Today reported that the advice from NHS England is for GPs and other staff who have tested negative not to return to work if they still have symptoms. Can the noble Baroness the Minister explain the dangerous, and potentially deadly, apparent gap between those two sets of advice?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

If people have symptoms, they should of course self-isolate, along with their household. As we have said all along, it is extremely important that people look after themselves, follow the advice and self-isolate if they think they have any symptoms. We are moving forward from the lockdown in an extremely cautious manner, and it is absolutely imperative that everybody puts their health, and the health of everyone around them, first.

Business of the House

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I endorse the comments of my noble friend Lord Oates, with two supplementary points, the first of which the Leader may think has a degree of self-pleading because I live in Scotland.

If this House is to function properly, there must be not only active Members who can physically participate, but Members from all four nations of the union. As with many people who have to work across the union, there will be Members of Parliament, in this place and in the other place, who by necessity have to travel across the United Kingdom to carry out the democratic functions, and rightly so, but it is harder for them. I hope that the Government will consider not excluding Members who cannot physically be here of cannot be here by virtue of geography. Thankfully I do not fall into the category of being over 70. Nevertheless, the point about geography is important.

Secondly, on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, the Government will inevitably table a great many statutory instruments during this period, which we will have to consider after the piece. That is not desirable. It may be necessary in some regards, but it is not desirable. Will the Government be much more flexible over access to Ministers and in the provision of written material to Front-Benchers through the usual channels, so that lines are communication are much freer than they normally are? I know that Ministers in this House are frequently available and receptive but there is an extra burden on the Government at this time because, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and other noble Lords have said, governing an emergency by executive authority alone is not the British way. If we are to carry on, we will do so through our democratic institutions.

Finally, on technology, I hope that the Government will speak to the other democratic institutions, not only here, with the House of Commons and our Parliamentary Digital Service, but to local authorities and our cities, which are undergoing similar challenges, the European Parliament, which has instituted new regulations for voting electronically, and others, so that democratic institutions across the United Kingdom can carry on functioning as best as they can.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I endorse the remarks of the noble Lords, Lord Adonis and Lord Oates. As I referred to in an earlier debate, the coronavirus has existed as an organism—as a species—for three months. When we talk about coming back in about a month’s time, we are talking about 25% of the entire existence of this virus. Of course, it will be the worst 25%. We face massive challenges. We have essentially thrown out the rulebook in many areas in the past couple of days. It is extremely disappointing —an understatement—that we will not be here to ask questions to address this directly. I understand the remarks about access for Front-Benchers but those of us with smaller representation also have important questions to ask.

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, I stand in support of the recommendations made by the Leader of the House. We cannot underestimate the public health challenge that we face. I am in day-to-day contact with, among others, very senior nurses, including Ruth May at NHS England. It is our duty to reduce the spread of the virus by taking this time out. For example, I live 260 miles away. I would come back next week if we were sitting, of course, but I would probably stay in London for another weekend rather than return. We need to demonstrate that we will hold the Government to account. The Bill, which we should finalise this afternoon, will enable us to do that. I also believe that there is absolutely no reason why Parliament could not be recalled before 21 April if it were appropriate to do so.

Coronavirus Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 25th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett]

I add my support by saying that those words from the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, were very wise. On the people that we have addressed so far and who have been talked about publicly, I reinforce that it is quite right that we should seek, in whatever way we can, to provide the support that has just been described. However, there is a group that falls between those who have already been assisted in support to companies and the purely self-employed: the worker working for themselves in our economy.

There is a group of entrepreneurs, many of them with start-ups and some with continuing businesses, who cannot access what is on offer to those in slightly different circumstances because of this. If they are using serviced premises—I will give an example in this House in a second—and therefore do not pay business rates, they are not entitled to the help that is already been granted on business rates or the grants that have been put in place, all of which are extremely welcome. In addition to what we describe as the self-employed there is therefore a group of people with very small microbusinesses.

The hairdresser’s in the Palace of Westminster—I make no declaration other than that I use it—is not unique but is a good example of someone running a small business which employs people but which cannot draw down on the help currently available for the reasons I have just described. It does not pay business rates in this building, and those with serviced premises that they rent do not pay them either. I hope that the noble Earl will be able to take back to his colleagues that there is this little additional gap that we should not have to come back to and say, “We forgot about those.” I am sure that is not the case but I just want to reinforce it.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I support the amendment and I stress, as others have, the extreme urgency in this. The noble Viscount, Lord Colville, told us a very moving story about a situation involving an older worker, but I invite the Committee to think about the situation of many young people, who are disproportionately represented in the gig economy in these sorts of roles.

In London and many other cities, young people live in shared households. There may be four, five or six people, each with one bedroom, probably not even with a living room, because what was once a living room is now a bedroom. What happens in that household when most people cannot pay the rent? What strains will there be in that household as people struggle to get by, with the most basic cooking facilities and the smallest amount of space? One can imagine the difficulties such people will be in. They need to be rescued, to know that they have security now, and that will give stability and certainty.

As many other noble Lords have stressed, this would ensure that that person would not have to continue to operate as a courier for food travelling around the country—I am trying not to mention a brand name—or as a care worker or in any other of the roles they might be fulfilling. This is in the interests of everybody’s health, but also in the interests of people who do not have, as some in this situation will, the bank of mum and dad to rely on. It is those young people who do not have the bank of mum and dad that we really have to help.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

Government figures say that there have been 477,000 new universal credit claims in the past nine days, and social media is full of accounts of some 30,000 or 40,000 people being in the queue just to apply. What steps will be taken to ensure that everyone can get access to the provisions to which the Minister has referred?

[Earl Howe]

I am aware that self-employed claimants will not be required to attend a jobcentre; universal credit can be claimed online or via the telephone. Self-employed people who are unable to work because they are directly affected by Covid-19 or are self-isolating will also be eligible for contributory employment and support allowance. As announced in the Budget, this is now payable from the first day of sickness rather than the eighth. I recognise that we are likely to see a wave of applications and that the system can cope with only a certain number at a time, but I am aware that the system has been geared up to expect that wave. I can only assure the noble Baroness that the officials and civil servants involved in this process are as keen as anyone else not to let anyone in need go without.

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Moved by

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

6: After Clause 84, insert the following new Clause—
“Temporary modification of abortion legislation
Schedule (Abortion provision) contains temporary modifications of the Abortion Act 1967, and related provision.”

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

My Lords, first, I want to follow up on a point I made yesterday and compliment the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, and through him the Government. I asked about MOTs; this morning, there was an announcement of a six-month extension, so thank you.

We have already heard some accounts of the terribly difficult situations that people around the country are in. I will begin with another, that of a woman in Lincolnshire with an autoimmune disease. Under the Government’s recommendations, for her health and well-being and to protect our NHS resources, she should remain at home and self-isolate for 12 weeks. However, she needs an abortion. She also has at home a two year-old with a heart condition—another reason why she should not leave the house—but she must leave the house and go to a clinic or approved place to take the first of the pills for an early medical abortion under our current law. I am sure that every Member of your Lordships’ House will agree that this is a terrible situation. It is also an utterly medically unnecessary situation.

Taking the pill at a clinic is not a medical necessity; the provision is in the 1967 Abortion Act—an Act that was passed 25 years before medical abortions were even introduced. In the next 13 weeks, based on the average figures, 44,000 women will have to travel to a clinic—to an approved place—to take that pill, which is utterly medically unnecessary. In countries such as the United States, Australia and Canada, it is possible for women to take both the pills necessary for an early medical abortion at home.

This amendment provides for—and I stress this—temporary modifications to the Abortion Act 1967. It provides for a woman to take both those pills at home, as happens in the countries I mentioned, and it removes the two-doctor rule whereby two doctors have to sign off on an abortion. Only a small number of doctors and health professionals provide these services. We have discussed time and again in your Lordships’ House just how much pressure our medical professionals and NHS services are under and how precious a resource those doctors are, most of whom do other services as well.

The amendment calls for allowing nurses and midwives, who are already professionally qualified and who do much of the work now, to certify these abortions to allow them to go ahead. One nurse, midwife or doctor would then report back to the Chief Medical Officer as usual. There are some points to stress about the general provisions of the Bill that perhaps we have not talked about very much. The Bill, and this amendment, would give the Government the power to switch provisions on and off as they wish. They can also do so regionally—again, we have not talked about this very much—or the nations can do so according to the needs of place and time. If, for example, there was a real problem with provision in the south-west, the Government could take a small-scale decision for a particular place and time to make sure that abortions are available for the people who need them.

The argument for having this provision—as with many such provisions—is that it is about protecting everybody. If 44,000 women have to make extra journeys, it means more chances for the coronavirus to spread. We would be playing into the virus’s hands. We have all heard, seen and have been using the slogan “Stay at home. Save lives”; this provision allows that to happen. We would be protecting our precious medical professionals. The people who are increasingly operating remotely need to be able to operate through telemedicine remotely. We would be protecting NHS resources, which we know there is already enormous pressure on. If people are not able to secure an early medical abortion, they will seek surgical abortions, which will put much more pressure—absolutely unnecessary pressure—on the NHS.

I ask the Minister to accept and incorporate this amendment into the Bill. Doing that will not force the Government to do anything; it simply creates the possibility for the Government to act. As the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, who is not in his place, said, we will not be here for a very long time to make other legal changes. We would expect that to be the time of maximum pressure from the virus, so please can this temporary change be put in place to deal with this crisis?

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, I have attached my name to this amendment, which has support on Benches across the House. In moving this amendment, the noble Baroness described exactly what this is: a power that the Government could and should take unto themselves in order to use it if necessary. Why do we think it might be necessary? “We” includes the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Royal College of Midwives and the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare—all the providers and people within the health service who know this piece of work better than anybody else. Why do we need it? As of this morning, 25% of BPAS clinics are closed because they do not have the staff to open. That means things are becoming much more difficult for women. Yesterday, women in York needed to travel two miles to secure an earlier medical abortion. As of today, they will have to travel 40 miles.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bethell]

The noble Baroness’s concerns are noted.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

My Lords, before I get to the procedural part I will refer the Minister to some of his own words. He referred to the Government’s desire to ensure that everyone should have safe, high-quality medical care. In this area in particular, given that the option has been given to provide alternatives, that is something that the Government will be judged against, and I hope that he will be able to live up to his promise. However, it is with a heavy heart that I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 6 withdrawn.

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[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, I think the House might be keen for the noble Lord to conclude his remarks so that we can proceed at pace with this emergency legislation and hear other noble Lords’ contributions.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

My Lords, the Green group supports all the amendments in this group. I have two brief points to make.

Collectively, these amendments make this whole profoundly undemocratic, rushed but essential process that we have undertaken a little more democratic. Statistics show that in epidemics, death rates are lower in democracies than they are in autocracies. Those figures have been worked out over a range of epidemics. Democracy is an effective medicine. Your Lordships’ House has heard me comment often on what I see as the weaknesses of our democracy, both here and in the other place, but this is the best thing we have got. Let us not handicap it further: let us adopt these amendments and acknowledge that they bring the opportunity for more scrutiny and better decision-making through the involvement of more people.

I want to address particularly Amendment 7, about three-month reviews, and the timeframe for this. It was actually about three months ago, it is believed, that the coronavirus crossed the species barrier. This whole thing biologically started three months ago, somewhere in China—probably Wuhan. Two months ago, diplomats were just being flown out of Wuhan. Think about how fast things have moved. Just last night, we had a report from Oxford University—an epidemiological study that basically blew through and potentially redrew our entire understanding of what is happening right now.

Where we will be in three months’ time is utterly unknowable and may be massively different from where we are today. We need a proper, full debate in three months’ time. With regard to the other amendment and the ability of the other place to amend this legislation, we need a debate there so that it can put in and take out parts of it if they are not working. We cannot leave this for six months. That is more than double the time this entire situation has existed from its first biological moment. Six months is too long.

[Lord Tyrie]

I agree with those remarks too. Is it your Lordships’ will that I make my second point, or have people heard enough from me? I will do my best to be as brief as I can.

I said that there was one crucial piece of work to be done on wider health economics. A second piece of work that needs to be undertaken derives directly from the Imperial paper; we know that this is a very dangerous disease for the elderly but that it appears to have a very low casualty rate among young people without underlying respiratory conditions. There is no immediate prospect of effective treatment—reinforcing by implication the unsustainability of the lockdown—and no early prospect of a vaccine. It seems to me that it must be worth considering any means we can to get towards more normal economic life, and therefore not needing these amendments, by permitting young people, who are sharply less vulnerable to severe outcomes, to return to their workplaces.

Those who did this—it would have to be on a voluntary basis—would need to accept that a very high proportion of them might become infected and therefore have herd immunity develop among them. In an indefinite lockdown, massive direct financial support for the elderly would need to be maintained.

Understandably, the Government have not had time to assemble or publish elementary data for such an approach, but I do not think it would be appropriate to maintain this legislation without these sunset clauses or demonstrating an attempt to develop such approaches. The weakness of the data, in any case, is not an argument against developing such policies, any more than it is an argument against the suppression policy. Much of the data on which the current policy is based is very uncertain.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Scriven]

My Lords, I am a signatory to this amendment. I shall say two things: first, it is pleasing that the powers within the Bill talk about applying them under human rights legislation; secondly, I am glad those rights are included, because giving two and a half hours of parliamentary scrutiny to a Bill with such wide powers, even though it is emergency legislation, is not the way to make good legislation.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

My Lords, I am very pleased to speak after the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy; I second what she said about the prisons and would add immigration detention centres to that. People who have been accused of no crime should not be being held in dangerous conditions that threaten their lives. Particularly with this amendment, we have been focusing a lot on the level of fear. We have heard a great deal of powerful testimony about how fearful many people are—people with disabilities, people who are already ill and sick, and people who are old and frail. Regarding the kinds of reassurances that have been asked for: people may not know the fine details of the rights legislation, but a simple reassurance from the Government that they will comply with something that guarantees people’s rights will be terribly important.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

My Lords, I am sorry to rise again and beg the indulgence of the Committee. One of the categories of people that I am concerned about are non-documented—essentially, illegal—immigrants. The idea that they might have Covid-19 but not seek medical help because they are fearful of what might happen with regard to their immigration status should be a matter of concern to us. I hope that the Government will make a statement to say that nobody will face detriment to their position by seeking help, and that deportation will not meet them at the end of recovery. Something like that has to be said, or we will see the virus spreading through this category of people.