Financial Services and Markets Bill

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 10th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I begin the first of the winding-up speeches by saying how much I welcome our three maiden speakers and by remarking on the excellence of their speeches. I look forward to their further contributions.

This a significant Bill. There are aspects of it that I strongly support. I do believe that we should tailor regulation to the UK market, although I am of the community that thinks this refers much more to the efficiency of the way that rules are applied than to the removal of gold-plating. I hope that I do not misspeak for the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, when I say that the absence of profound change would be rather welcomed by most of those I talk to in the financial services industry. I support protection for access to cash, protection against push payment scams, greater scope for credit unions and beginning attempts to regulate crypto assets. In some of these areas, we on these Benches will have amendments to strengthen those changes.

There are missed opportunities. My noble friend Lord Sharkey is leading for us to introduce an effective duty of care, unlike the box-ticking of the consumer duty, and to adjust the regulatory perimeter to properly include small businesses. My noble friend Lady Tyler will lead for us on an objective of financial inclusion, as well as dealing with issues around access to cash and to services. My noble friends Lady Northover and Lady Sheehan are leading on strengthening the net-zero and biodiversity elements of the regulators’ roles. And I think the House is now prepared to understand that my noble friend Lady Bowles is proposing changes to make the regime far more effective at enforcement, including against fraud; to drive regulatory efficiency; and to significantly improve monitoring of systemic risk and financial stability across the financial sector. I suspect that yet more amendments will be coming from her pen.

All of us on these Benches are concerned with accountability. I was going to list everyone who spoke on this issue, but I would have to read out virtually every name engaged in the debate. From my perspective, powers that had democratic oversight in the EU system will be transferred wholesale to regulators with pretty much no engagement with a meaningful democratic process once this Bill is passed. As many have said, the Treasury Select Committee has taken steps to improve its oversight, but it is far too little and I agree with those who say that it is retrospective, which is not what we need. I look to my noble friend Lady Bowles in particular to craft a series of amendments.

In this Second Reading, I want to take a step back and ask to what extent the changes introduced in this Bill, combined with what the Chancellor calls “the Edinburgh reforms”, which are, of course, largely coming through secondary legislation, reintroduce risks to the sector and to financial stability that existed prior to the 2007 crash and set us up for the next major crisis. The financial crash was driven by the deliberate disguise of risky assets and irresponsible management by major banks. Consumers endured abuse from extensive mis-selling and, astonishingly, Libor was corruptly manipulated for at least a decade.

Today, we have a shadow banking system—I have to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and the noble Lord, Lord Butler; I am afraid this glass of water will not turn into wine, as happened for the noble Lord, Lord Balfe—which now almost matches the formal banking system in size and has embedded new levels of risk. I think LDI, is an example and I say to the noble Lord, Lord Altrincham, that it was the leveraging of those instruments using a loophole that caused the problem. Give them an inch and they take 10 miles, and it continues to be true of the sector.

I accept that some change to Solvency II makes sense, but many insurers see its replacement by solvency UK, which will be empowered by this Bill, as the gateway to extensive investment in high-risk illiquid assets, sub-investment grade—I have talked to the industry—without compensating capital requirements. I am very concerned at the weakening of the matching adjustment. I think the Government are mesmerised by the hope that these investments will fund upscaling of new companies, net-zero projects and high-risk infrastructure with somehow no real risk involved. I suspect a lot will go to remuneration and dividends, frankly. I am constantly referred to the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board as evidence that a fund can safely invest in high-risk illiquid assets without being burned. I quote from the S&P Global Ratings Review of the CPP:

“The rating also reflects the agency’s opinion of a moderately high likelihood that the Canadian government would provide extraordinary support in the event of financial distress.”


I wonder how much the UK taxpayer wishes to stand behind our insurance industry—and in many senses it also involves the pension industry—with a moderately high likelihood of extraordinary support in the event of financial distress? Taxpayers cannot keep bailing out the financial sector.

The financial services sector, especially the City, is also aggressively behind the international competitiveness objective in this Bill. Many want it elevated to a primary objective. This was discussed by the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, and the noble Lord, Lord Remnant, in his maiden speech. Actually, I may do injustice to the noble Lord, Lord Remnant, on that. He may have said that he is happy with it as a secondary objective. They believe that the regulators—again, I talk with the industry extensively—will find that this objective combined with the mutual recognition agreements in trade negotiations, which, of course, do not come to Parliament for approval, will force UK regulation to be lowered to match that of trade partners, and I suggest that that is very dangerous.

I quote from Paul Tucker, former deputy governor of the Bank of England, in evidence in November to the Economic Affairs Committee:

“please do not, as the UK Parliament, give the Prudential Regulation Authority a competitiveness objective. Someone would only do that if they really disliked the City of London and wanted to damage the City of London in the long run ... I can summon the ghosts of Eddie George and George Blunden in assuring you that the City does not always know its best interests over the medium to long run.”

We are of course bleeding financial services business to the EU and other global financial centres. Financial services exports to the EU are down more than 6%, and it will get seriously worse when euro clearing leaves in 2025, but regulatory arbitrage is not the answer. I am with those who are convinced that a strong rulebook is essential to the reputation and success of the financial services industry as well as the necessary bulwark against a repeat crisis which would create years of damage to the UK economy and bring many further years of austerity.

But the Chancellor has gone farther. The Edinburgh reforms set up processes to weaken the ring-fencing of core retail banking from investment and international banking. I urge the House to stop this in its tracks. Like the most reverend Primate, I sat on the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards for nearly two years. Few things fuelled irresponsible behaviour more than the banks’ ability to use what they saw as the free and insured money sitting in personal bank accounts to roll on high-risk casino banking. Add to that the lifting of the cap on bankers’ bonuses and we set up actual incentives for another risk and greed-fuelled crisis.

The Edinburgh reforms also set up a process to change the senior managers and certification regime. My dispute with the SMCR is that the FCA has made it into a box-ticking exercise that does not fulfil its primary purpose to act severely against individual senior managers who fail in their duties, either deliberately or through mismanagement and incompetence. My noble friend Lord Sharkey discussed this. Instead of returning that regime to its original purpose, the industry is very confident that the Edinburgh reforms will remove individual responsibility completely. I suggest that Members of the House visit the evidence given to the commission. Virtually every senior manager, including the CEOs, pleaded a mix of incompetence and collective responsibility to explain away the failures in their institution and why they could not be held to account.

This is a Bill we have to get right. Risk applies asymmetrically in the financial services industry. In the 2007-08 crash, almost no senior manager or executive was hurt and, indeed, almost every one of them walked away with years of bonuses based on what were really false profits. The taxpayer and ordinary people, coping with the austerity that followed—never mind the funds that had to go into the banking system—bore the real cost. On the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, we were very afraid that after a few years the lessons of the crash and the abuse would be forgotten and the new safeguards watered down. This is an industry that knows how to promote itself and speaks with a great sense of invincibility. As we work our way through the Bill, we should keep at the front of our minds the concern that those safeguards, which were so necessary, will be pushed to be watered down.