Financial Services Bill
Baroness Noakes Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Lord McFall of Alcluith
My Lords, I agree with my noble friend on this issue. Anyone with experience of the Court of the Bank of England would say that its impact has been less than useful over past years. Given the powers that we have given to this Governor for an eight-year period, it is important that the sentiments expressed in the other place as regards accountability are satisfied, because, paradoxically, if that is not the case, it will make the role of the Governor even more political and members of the court will come under pressure.
I had personal knowledge of this during the height of the financial crisis. My concern at that time was to ensure both the political and the financial stability of the situation. It is therefore important that that is adhered to. There needs to be, as the Treasury Committee said, proper records of the court’s proceedings. If transparency is not available, the accountability element will not be pursued. The Government are making a big mistake by establishing what is, in effect—although some people may disagree—a multinational corporation with one person at its head, with little corporate governance best practice.
There needs to be a stage at which the Government can listen to Parliament on this, make the Bank truly accountable to Parliament and ensure the best outcome for the country. We have the Financial Policy Committee and the Prudential Regulation Authority, but there is no doubt that there will be conflicts of interest there. There will be one individual responsible, while the Government and Parliament are spectators and bit players. That should not be the case, and the Government really need to think very clearly and seriously about this issue.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, as a former member of the court, I feel slightly under attack this afternoon, but I was long gone before the financial crisis. In the context of the previous amendment, my noble friend Lord Flight pointed out that the important way to express accountability is on an ongoing basis, not at the point of appointment. The most important thing, going forward, is whether or not the new oversight committee will do its job and who will make sure that it is held to account. It seems to me that it should be the Treasury Select Committee in another place and it is not something for which we need to legislate. The Treasury Select Committee is well apprised of the need to ensure that there are proper accountability mechanisms to act as a counterweight against significant additional powers for the Governor of the Bank of England; and that there are proper checks and balances within the Bank of England and then from the Bank to Parliament.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McFall of Alcluith, and to my noble friend Lady Noakes. My noble friend was an estimable member of the court and I am sure that she brought great distinction to its deliberations. As she reminds the House by referring to the oversight committee, the noble Lord, Lord McFall is right to say that the court has not always necessarily done everything that Members of Parliament would have wished in recent years. Critically, that is why the oversight committee that we are introducing changes the way that the court and particularly non-executives on the court will operate. I am grateful to be reminded of this critical background to our discussion. The other background point to make is that the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, has made a number of references in this and earlier debates about politicisation and transferring powers from elected politicians to the Bank. This is a red herring. I am sure that I should not say it is nonsense, but I simply do not accept this background analysis.
Powers are not somehow being moved from elected politicians to the Bank. The Bank is being granted a range of powers which are regulatory in nature. Financial regulation has been undertaken by independent regulators for over a decade in the UK and before that, of course, large swathes of it were not in any way carried out by elected politicians or even properly constituted regulators. They were done in a self-regulatory way. So this idea that somehow we are transferring stuff from politicians to the Bank, as if some heinous crime was being committed and that we need lots of belts and braces, is the wrong background.
Let me specifically address the amendments here and the role of Parliament in key appointments. As we have heard, they are different in some respects from the previous amendment about appointing the Governor. The appointments of non-executive directors of the court are not currently subject to a pre-commencement hearing by the Treasury Select Committee. As with the Governor, the appointments of non-executive directors are made by Her Majesty and governed by the OCPA code. As I explained earlier, this stipulates certain practices in terms of a robust and fair appointment process, with appointments made principally on merit. Members of the court are accountable to Parliament and it is right that the Treasury Select Committee can and does invite them to give evidence at the appropriate juncture. However, the non-executive directors are not policymakers. Their role is to oversee the running of the Bank and it would be highly unusual to make such appointments subject to the consent of the Treasury Select Committee. The Government therefore believe that the current appointments process for non-executive directors of the court remains the right one. Similarly, the appointment of external FPC members will be subject to a robust process that seeks qualified and experienced candidates. External members of the FPC will be subject to pre-commencement hearings—as was the case with the appointees to the interim FPC. The FPC will be accountable for its actions to the Bank’s oversight committee and directly to the Treasury Select Committee, which we expect to take regular evidence from the external members of the FPC, as it does already from the MPC and the interim FPC.
As with the roles of governor and external members of the MPC, the market-sensitive nature of these roles means that the combination of pre-commencement hearings and Treasury Select Committee scrutiny in-post offers an appropriate balance in terms of parliamentary scrutiny. Again, the Government welcome the ongoing role played by the Treasury Select Committee. I hope that I have provided sufficient reassurance for the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Eatwell
Then I am sure that the noble Lord, having given the amendment such mature consideration, will be able to accept it.
I hope that, at the very least, the Government will agree to take this proposal away and think about it. After all, if we are going to have an oversight committee it should oversee; otherwise perhaps the Government should simply change the committee’s name. I beg to move.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I am a bit puzzled by these amendments and I should say that while the Minister’s officials may have had them since last Friday, those of us who are trying to take part in this Report stage saw them only first thing this morning, which comes of when the party opposite chose to table its amendments.
The noble Lord says that there is no oversight in the new section dealing with the oversight committee. If I were to define oversight I would say it is about reviewing and monitoring; that is the very nature of what is involved. The noble Lord suggests it means some real-time involvement by the non-executives in what happens on a daily basis within the Bank. That simply cannot be—it seems to me the noble Lord misunderstands the role of non-executive directors.
This group of amendments also contains the concept of the non-executive directors, via the oversight committee, approving the strategy. The oversight committee is a sub-committee of the Court of Directors and is not there to approve what the court should be doing. This is correctly formulated in that it is the court that is preparing the strategy. The oversight committee has no role in relation to that except by virtue of the membership of the individual non-executive directors who are also members of court. I really do not understand this sequence of amendments.
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, I am afraid it is me again. These amendments refer to the decision to publish performance reviews. Let me remind the House that the performance reviews referred to in the particular clauses which are to be here amended are reviews that the oversight committee has commissioned or conducted. The amendment removes the Bank’s veto over the oversight committee: a veto which the Bill gives to the Bank—otherwise known as the governor—over the publication of such reviews.
Again, the Bank has form in this respect. As Members of your Lordships’ House will be aware, the Bank of England is the only major public institution directly involved in the financial crisis that has not seen fit to conduct and publish a full assessment of its own activities, procedures and policies during the crisis and to own up to the contribution it made to the crisis. The Financial Services Authority has done that as has the Treasury. The Bank has not seen fit to do that. The three reviews published last week have been very carefully circumscribed in their terms of reference to prevent proper consideration of the Bank’s record. You only have to read the Bank’s tepid response to the reviews—it did not refer at all to the comments on the Bank’s excessively hierarchical structure—to realise there is still a deep-seated cultural failing in this respect in the Bank. Where other organisations review what they have done, think through and learn from their experiences, the Bank seems to be unwilling to do this.
In these circumstances, it would be quite wrong to give the Bank a veto over the publication of the oversight committee’s reports. If this serious committee of non-executives—a majority of the court—put together a report and decide that it should be published, then why should there be a veto over them? The oversight committee is quite capable of taking the advice of the Bank, the governor or whoever on whether the publication is against the public interest. If the Government really want effective performance reviews and not whitewash I am sure they will support these amendments.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I share many of the frustrations that the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, has exposed in relation to the reviews that were commissioned, late and inadequate, and I completely accept that the Bank’s response did not seem fulsome. However, I think we have to give the new Government’s arrangements within the Bank a chance. While the Bill says that the Bank will decide about publication, that should be the Court of Directors and, as we know, the Court of Directors has a majority of non-executives. I hope that they will be invigorated by the new context provided by the separate oversight committee. If we keep trying to make functions of the Bank be carried out by the oversight committee we will undermine the court. We need to ensure that the court is strengthened and takes its responsibilities seriously. I also sincerely hope that the Treasury Select Committee in the other place becomes more active in seeking to engage with the non-executives via the oversight committee on how things work in practice.
Lord Barnett
My Lords, I agree with my noble friend very strongly indeed. He has made a very strong point. I should declare an interest, I suppose. Until very recently I was probably the oldest living non-executive chairman of a plc. I hope I was a very active chairman. However, I know through many experiences of my own that some non-executive directors do not play a very constructive part, they just take their money and go and do very little—so there are two different kinds of non-executive directors.
I hope my noble friend manages to persuade somebody to change the name from the oversight committee. It is, as my noble friend Lord Peston said, a very strange name to have in the Bill, but it is not the only strange thing in the Bill. I hope the officials who advise the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, will perhaps come up with a new name but on the whole I would like to commend the officials, particularly those headed by Mr Whiting. He has been extremely diligent in the job he has done on all sides of this Bill, sending things and meeting people. He has been excellent.
I wish I could say the same about the Minister. I like him personally but I cannot say the same about his response to the amendments. My noble friend has made a very important point that an important committee here—whatever we call it, it is now called the oversight committee—can be overruled by the governor. I find that quite unacceptable. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, shaking his head means he cannot overrule it. I would be glad to hear that, but that is what it seems to be saying. I would like to hear how he puts that given the wording of the Bill, but for the moment I strongly support my noble friend Lord Eatwell.
Baroness Noakes
Baroness Noakes
In moving this amendment, I will also speak to Amendment 5 in this group. In so doing, I hope to give the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, a break from his obsession with the difference between the court and the Bank.
The amendments concern membership of the Financial Policy Committee. In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord McFall of Alcluith, and I tabled an amendment that reflected the conclusion of the Treasury Select Committee in another place that there should be a majority of external members on the FPC to mitigate against groupthink. The Joint Committee that examined the Bill had reached a similar conclusion.
The Bill prescribes 12 members of the FPC in total. There should be six from the Bank, the chief executive of the FCA, four external members and a representative from the Treasury. I will ignore the Treasury in my remarks because the Treasury person cannot vote and his views can be ignored quite a lot of the time according to Schedule 1. I will talk about the 11 active and voting members.
The Government like to portray this composition of the FPC as a 6:5 split, putting the chief executive of the FCA in the external-to-the-Bank category, with six internal to the Bank and five outside. But the chief executive of the FCA, while he is external to the Bank, is not a completely independent member because of the many and varied associations and interactions between the FCA and the PRA which are envisaged in this Bill. While the chief executive of the FCA will have independent responsibilities in relation to the FCA, he will inevitably be susceptible to the kind of groupthink that the Treasury Select Committee warned against. The de facto ratio in the Bill is 7:4, because seven members have custodianship of the financial system as part of their day jobs and only four would be independent of that. I do not believe that that ratio is a healthy one.
In Committee, my noble friend the Minister argued against having external members in the majority because it would interfere with the holding of the Bank of England to account in some way. I think that that is a highly arguable position but my noble friend will be relieved that I am not going to argue with it this evening. Instead, I propose with Amendment 4 a more modest rebalancing of the FPC and I am delighted that my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft and the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, have added their names to this amendment.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this important debate and I thank the Minister for his welcome remarks. I believe the technical response in this situation is “bingo”. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
My Lords, I will add a rather mundane legal point. I do not believe that the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Peston, would achieve anything, even if it were accepted. Subsection (1), whose two limbs cover the matters to which the Financial Policy Committee must have regard, is quite clear about the stability objective. However, in a situation where the Government had no objective for growth, it would not bite, even if you took the words “subject to that” out of the clause. That is, as I said, a very mundane lawyer’s point.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I recall that when the previous Government set up the Monetary Policy Committee, they formulated its secondary policy objective in precisely this form, “Subject to that”. Can the Benches opposite explain when they had a damascene conversion on this topic?
Baroness Noakes
“(1A) If the Treasury considers it appropriate to proceed with the making of an order under section 9L, the Treasury may lay before Parliament—
(a) a draft order, and(b) an explanatory document.(1B) The explanatory document laid under subsection (1A) must—
(a) introduce and give reasons for the order,(b) explain why the Treasury considers that the order serves the purpose in section 9L, and(c) be accompanied by a copy of any representations received from the FPC or the Governor of the Bank.(1C) Subject as follows, if after the expiry of the 40-day period the draft order laid under subsection (1A) is approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament, the Minister may make an order in the terms of the draft order.
(1D) The procedure in subsections (1E) to (1H) shall apply to the draft order instead of the procedure in subsection (1C) if—
(a) either House of Parliament so resolves within the 30-day period, or(b) a committee of either House charged with reporting on the draft order so recommends within the 30-day period and the House to which the recommendation is made does not by resolution reject the recommendation within the period.(1E) The Minister must have regard to—
(a) any representations,(b) any resolution of either House of Parliament, and(c) any recommendation of a committee of either House of Parliament charged with reporting on the draft order, made during the 60-day period with regard to the draft order. (1F) If after the expiry of the 60-day period the draft order is approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament, the Minister may make an order in the terms of the draft order.
(1G) If after the expiry of the 60-day period the Minister wishes to proceed with the draft order but with the material changes, the Minister may lay before Parliament—
(a) a revised draft order, and(b) a statement giving a summary of the changes proposed. (1H) If the revised draft order is approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament, the Minister may make an order in the terms of the revised draft order.
(1J) For the purposes of this section, an order is made in the terms of a draft order or revised draft order if it contains no material changes to its provisions.
(1K) In this section, references to the “30-day”, “40-day” and “60-day” period in relation to any draft order are to the periods of 30, 40 and 60 days beginning with the day on which the draft order was laid before Parliament.”
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, this has taken me a little by surprise—I thought I had another few minutes’ rest before we got to my amendment.
Amendment 7 deals with the parliamentary procedure for approving the Treasury’s direction to the FPC setting out the macroprudential measures that the FPC can impose on the PRA and the FCA. Under proposed new Section 9N of FiSMA, as inserted by Clause 4 of the Bill, the procedure is to be the draft affirmative one. My amendment seeks to convert that into a super-affirmative procedure.
The draft affirmative procedure requires parliamentary approval of the draft of an order before the final order is actually made. It gives slightly more opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny than an ordinary affirmative order, but the end result of the parliamentary procedure is binary—it is either approved or not. Such an order is not amendable and the only option available to either House would be to reject the whole order. The political composition of the other place effectively means that an order is always passed, whether draft or not. It does not matter whether the debate is in a Committee Room or, as has been suggested by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the Floor of the House. The end result is the same. In this House, technically we can reject an order but by convention we do not do so. It has happened only very rarely and is rightly regarded as a nuclear option.
Like the Joint Committee that scrutinised the draft Bill, the Treasury Select Committee in another place concluded that the content of an order setting out macroprudential measures deserves an enhanced level of parliamentary scrutiny. The Treasury Select Committee believes that the situation satisfies the Erskine May formula that talks of the super-affirmative procedure being used where,
“an exceptionally high degree of scrutiny is thought appropriate”.
The super-affirmative procedure in my amendment would require the Treasury to set out, in some detail, why the order is to be made. It would allow either House of Parliament to make recommendations on the draft order, which the Government would have to have regard to before returning with the final version of the order. Neither House would have any power of amendment but would have the power to recommend amendments, which the Government would have to consider.
It was suggested in Committee that macroprudential measures are very technical and not amenable to amendments—the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, made this point. That may or may not be correct, depending on the particular measure. It is certainly true that the wider economic impact of the use of macroprudential tools is a proper subject for parliamentary debate, and either House may well want to say to the Government that their chosen tools are perhaps too wide or not wide enough. In contentious cases, Parliament may well say that the tools should be sunsetted or should be subject to additional reporting to Parliament on the impacts of the measures over time. Many important things could come out of a proper parliamentary debate that may or may not represent suggestions for amendment.
I have no particular concerns about the initial macroprudential toolkit. The FPC has been open about what it wants and why, and the Government are consulting transparently on their draft order. However, the initial tools are probably the easy ones because they largely align with international developments, and my amendment is directed at the development of the measures over time. For example, the FPC deliberately held back from asking for loan-to-value or loan-to-income powers, recognising that these should be decided by Parliament and that a full public debate would be necessary before such measures were introduced. If enforced, loan-to-income or loan-to-value rules could have a massive impact on the availability of mortgage credit and therefore raise wider societal issues as well as financial stability ones. Without the backstop of the super-affirmative procedure it is far from clear how Parliament could ensure that its—or anyone else’s—voice would be heard.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, of course, this is another issue that was discussed at some length in Committee. The Government recognise the importance of proper public and parliamentary scrutiny and accountability for macroprudential tools. That is why the Bill requires that macroprudential orders be subject to the affirmative procedure.
The Government have given a number of undertakings to further demonstrate our commitment to ensure transparency and effective scrutiny of macroprudential orders. In another place the previous Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Mark Hoban, clearly stated the importance that the Treasury places on taking a consultative approach to policy-making, and that he expected this to apply to macroprudential tools. In addition, my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said that he would be happy for debates on tools to take place on the Floor of the House, subject to arrangement through the usual channels.
The Government have also committed to consult on their proposals for the FPC’s initial toolkit. I note that my noble friend has no complaint on that score. Nevertheless it is important to recognise that the consultation document containing the Government’s proposals, a draft order and an impact assessment on those proposals was published on 18 September. The consultation will run for a full 12 weeks. In Committee a number of noble Lords highlighted the 90-minute restriction on debates and the inability for orders to be amended. However, I believe that consultation and the statement made by the Chancellor address these concerns effectively. I encourage noble Lords to read the consultation and respond if they feel able to improve the drafting of the order. I also hope that the relevant parliamentary committees will make their views on the Government’s proposals known.
Importantly, the Government’s stance on the parliamentary control of these macroprudential orders has been endorsed by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. Maybe I did not notice it, but I do not think that my noble friend referred to the DPRRC. I know that she regards the committee, in her words, as an early warning system of problems for Parliament to address. In this instance, it has considered our proposed procedure and determined that there is not a problem to address.
As I suspect my noble friend knows, the DPRRC has stated:
“The importance of the power is recognised by the application of the draft affirmative procedure or, in urgent cases, the 28-day ‘made affirmative’ procedure … The Joint Committee on the Draft Bill and the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee have recommended an enhanced affirmative procedure for the non-urgent orders, based on that in the Public Bodies Act 2011. But the affirmative procedure provided for in the Bill should be a sufficient safeguard against inappropriate use of these powers”.
It is also important to remember that orders made under new Section 9K will not always be major pieces of legislation. It could be the case that minor technical amendments need to be made to the tools over time. Under such circumstances, requiring the super-affirmative procedure would be a disproportionate use of parliamentary resources. I note that my noble friend has made some adjustments to the super-affirmative procedure that would make it less onerous, and she has addressed those at some length in her remarks. I still feel that her proposal would require a disproportionate amount of parliamentary time and resource.
The bare minimum amount of time to pass an order under these proposals is 40 days, which can be increased to 60 days by resolution of either House or by recommendation of a committee of either House. The time taken to make an order where the consultation process shows that substantial changes are required is even greater. Even once the 60-day period has elapsed, this amendment would require the Treasury to obtain prior approval to the amended instrument before it could be made. This would introduce a significant amount of uncertainty around the time it would take to amend the FPC’s macroprudential toolkit.
I have stated many times that the Government place great importance on public and parliamentary scrutiny of the macroprudential tools. Given the steps already in the Bill and the commitments made by this Government, I ask my noble friend to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I am disappointed with my noble friend’s response on this. He has repeated that in the other place there can be a debate on the Floor of the House, but the location of a debate on a statutory instrument is completely irrelevant. The outcome is exactly the same. He has rested on the full process for the early order but, as I said, those ones, with a high degree of international agreement on what the early phase of macroprudential tools should be, were easy to do. That is not really an issue. My noble friend rightly raises the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, for which I have the highest respect. I have equally the highest respect for the Joint Committee which scrutinised the draft Bill, and high regard in particular for the Treasury Select Committee in another place, which has been tireless in its scrutiny of this legislation. I have two committees to play one.
The best parliamentary procedure would in this instance be the super-affirmative. I can only say that I am extremely disappointed with my Government for hiding behind the easiest option of parliamentary procedure, but I will accede to my noble friend’s request and beg leave to withdraw.
Financial Services Bill
Baroness Noakes Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Baroness Noakes
“(4) If subsections (2) or (3) apply, the Treasury must arrange for an enquiry to be held under section 65 unless the Treasury consider that it is not in the public interest that there should be an independent inquiry into the events and the circumstances surrounding them.”
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I shall also speak to Amendments 190B and 192ZA in this group. These amendments, and others in the group, concern the inquiry and investigation provisions of Part 5. I should say at the outset that I regard the provisions of Part 5 as crucial to the Bill. The earlier parts of the Bill created new regulations with very significant powers, and it is entirely likely that the new regulators will make mistakes in the use of those new powers and that things will go wrong, so we need strong provisions in the Bill—
Lord Newby
My Lords, I remind your Lordships that if you are leaving the Chamber, please do so as quietly as possible.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I was saying that Part 5 of this Bill is crucial because it sets up the provisions that will deal with things when they go wrong—if the regulators make mistakes or if things do not turn out well. Part 5 ensures that there are proper investigations and proper reporting of those investigations. I remind the Committee that there have been problems in this area in the very recent past. It took the heroic efforts of the Treasury Select Committee in another place to get the FSA’s report on the failure of RBS into the public domain. We still have nothing on HBOS. The FSA’s reports on both RBS and Northern Rock were internal reports, and therefore non-independent. The Bank of England, which will be the new home for the PRA, is not itself a beacon of good practice when it comes to reviews of its own performance. So we need to be sure that we get this part of the Bill absolutely right.
I welcome the new duties in Clauses 69 and 70 on the FCA and the PRA to investigate and report on possible regulatory failures. I similarly welcome the powers in Clause 73 which allow the Treasury to direct the regulators to carry out investigations in certain circumstances. However, internal investigations will often not be good enough, which is why in principle the powers in Clause 64 are very welcome. These allow the Treasury to arrange independent inquiries where there have been certain events which, to paraphrase, threatened the stability of the financial system or risked or caused significant damage to the interests of consumers or businesses.
The first amendment that I tabled to Clause 64 was Amendment 192ZA, which is one of our familiar and much-loved may/must amendments. I could see no circumstance in which the Treasury, having satisfied itself that a public inquiry is in the public interest, should have any optionality about whether to set up an independent inquiry. Amendment 192ZA would change that “may” into a “must” so that, if the public interest test is met, the Treasury must set up an independent inquiry. Having looked at this a second time, however, I tabled Amendment 190AA, which would replace subsection (4) and turn it round. Under my proposed new subsection (4) the Treasury must arrange an inquiry unless it believes that the inquiry is not in the public interest. I believe that this more naturally represents the thought process that would go on in the Treasury; that is, the Treasury would order an inquiry unless there was a sound reason for not doing so. For good measure I have also tabled in this group Amendment 192ZA, which is another may/must amendment, this time to Clause 73, which allows but does not require the Treasury to direct the FCA or the PRA to carry out an internal investigation. My amendment would require a direction.
I am aware that the wording and structure of Clause 64 follow that of Section 14 of FiSMA. However, I do not believe that that is necessarily conclusive. The new duties set out in Clauses 69 and 70 in respect of regulatory failure positively require the PRA and the FCA to organise investigations in specified circumstances. The only let-out is if the Treasury directs them that they are not required to carry out investigations. Can the Minister explain why “must” is the correct formulation for the PRA and the FCA, but not the correct formulation for the Treasury?
I hope that the Minister will explain the relationship between Clause 64 and Section 14 of FiSMA. It seems to me that Section 14 becomes redundant when this Bill is made law, but I could not find any provision for its repeal. So I ask my noble friend whether it is to remain in force, and if so, for what purpose?
Lastly, I ask the Minister to explain in what circumstances the Government would intend to use the independent inquiry route in Clause 64, as opposed to the self-investigation route in Clauses 69, 70 and 73. I tried to research how often Section 14 of FiSMA has been used but drew a blank; in fact, I am not sure that it has ever been used. I hope that the Minister will be able to explain in what circumstances the Government would want to use the independent inquiry route, rather than relying on self-investigation. For example, given the circumstances surrounding the financial crisis, would they have thought it appropriate to have ordered an independent inquiry—that is, one not left simply to the regulator concerned—or do the Government believe that self-inquiry is the appropriate route? If there is no independent inquiry for something as grave as the financial crisis that we have recently experienced, what is Clause 64 for? I look forward to hearing my noble friend’s response. I beg to move.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I do not want to get the Committee too excited about this matter because, as any noble Lord, including the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, will know, it is very rare for a piece of considered legislation, particularly coming from the Treasury, to get any of these matters wrong in the drafting. I really do not want to raise false expectations.
All I would say is that the exercise is carrying on and that the matter raised by my noble friend Lady Noakes is certainly one of the may/must instances that merits serious consideration. When there is any more news to report to Peers who are interested in this Bill, we have plenty of ways of communicating it. If there is anything to say, the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, will be among the first to hear.
The group of amendments on which the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, spoke rather modestly towards the end of this discussion nevertheless are ones which we need to take seriously. Amendment 192ZZA would provide that if the Treasury issues a direction to the FCA not to proceed with an investigation into possible regulatory failure, that direction must be laid before Parliament. Amendment 192ZZB makes similar provision for such investigations by the PRA.
Amendment 192C would provide that where the Treasury issues a direction specifying the parameters of an investigation into regulatory failure by the PRA or FCA, or suspending or halting such an investigation, that direction must be laid before Parliament.
The Bill is drafted to give the Treasury some discretion here and, all things being equal, we had wished to preserve this. However, in this instance I am somewhat persuaded by the case that noble Lords have made. The Government are very much committed to greater openness and transparency in our regulatory architecture. With that in mind, I am happy to confirm that I will be taking on board the insightful comments of this Committee and will return to this issue on Report, placing the Treasury under a duty to disclose any directions issued under Clause 74, unless doing so would not be in the public interest.
I know that the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, is looking a bit surprised by this turn of events. On previous occasions he has compared himself and his batting average to the late, great Sir Donald Bradman and I really did not want to disappoint this Committee by seeing his batting average going down too far. I do not think that the noble Lord does himself justice: he is a great strike bowler when it comes to this type of thing. By my reckoning, the noble Lord’s success rate is now back up to around 20%. I have no idea how one translates that into a conventional bowling average but I think that it is pretty good. I note that his fellow Lancastrian, Jimmy Anderson, is on 30.41 for his test average. I think we can say that the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, is close to that. However, I am left with the question as to why the noble Lord is not being promoted to the strike bowler role. He comes on as the first change bowler day after day; we want to see him, like Jimmy Anderson, as the strike bowler from hereon.
I hope I have reassured the Committee that we share its desire to see accountability and transparency in the system, and that my noble friend will be prepared to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, despite having spent a couple of years in the Treasury in the dim and distant past, I could never do cricketing talk so I shall not try to follow my noble friend the Minister. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, is thrilled with his success in this opening group of amendments. I am very grateful for the support of noble Lords opposite for my amendments and I was pleased to hear what my noble friend had to say. I look forward, as do we all, to the outcome of the may/must investigations which are clearly occupying the great brains that live in the Treasury night and day. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Financial Services Bill
Baroness Noakes Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Noakes
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, Amendment 190ZE is in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord McFall of Alcluith. This represents the last of the amendments in our joint names which respond to the first report of this Session by the Treasury Select Committee in another place.
Clause 57 provides a welcome power of direction that enables the Treasury to direct the Bank of England when public funds are at risk. The Treasury Select Committee initially recommended that such a power be created when the Bank notified the Treasury that there was a material risk to public funds. The committee regarded such a power of direction as a necessary corollary of the leading role of the Chancellor in any financial crisis. Unfortunately, the Bank of England sought to water this down to a power of direction operating only in relation to certain instruments of crisis management. Even more unfortunately, the Government have sided with the Bank and have restricted the power of direction to the three areas listed in Clause 57(2).
The Treasury Select Committee remains unhappy with this and believes that if the legislation is to stand the test of time, it should not be restricted to the specific tools listed in subsection (2) but should be capable of being exercised in relation to tools not currently considered appropriate; for example, those tools that would be available to the Financial Policy Committee or other tools that have not yet been developed. The Treasury Select Committee believes that this power should be broader and future-proofed.
Amendment 190ZE seeks to achieve this by saying that the direction can relate to any of the powers or functions of the Bank of England, leaving the three specified tools as a non-exclusive list of such powers.
I am told that the House could not hear me in my previous position so I have moved.
Baroness Noakes
This is a probing amendment for today, not least because I think that it is too wide. For example, it would allow the Treasury to direct the Bank in relation to monetary policy functions, which would not be appropriate. Section 4 of the Bank of England Act 1946, which took the Bank into public ownership, has a general power of direction, which puts monetary policy out of scope. I believe that any Clause 57 power should similarly be constrained but I cannot see that there needs to be any further restriction on the Treasury’s power of direction when public money is at stake.
When my noble friend the Minister replies, can he also explain the relationship between the 1946 Act’s power of direction and the new powers of direction in Clause 57? The 1946 version is very broad and, monetary policy apart, seems to cover everything that is in Clause 57, and more. I do not believe that the 1946 Act power is being repealed or otherwise amended in this Bill, so I am puzzled as to the relationship.
I am aware that general powers of direction have rarely been used in practice, because their force lies mainly in the threat of their use rather than their actual deployment, but I hope that my noble friend the Minister can say what effect Clause 57 has on the existing power of direction. I beg to move.
Lord Peston
My Lords, this is a most interesting amendment, which enables us to clarify one or two aspects of the Bill. I literally did not hear the first part of what the noble Baroness was saying, so I was not joking when I suggested that she started again and she may well need to repeat what she said at the beginning.
This amendment brings into focus the relative power of the Bank of England in the areas that the Treasury is concerned with. This has worried quite a few of us throughout the proceedings on the Bill. To put it too simply, the question that emerges is: who really is in charge of the stabilisation process? Before I press that a little bit further, I take it that when in this part of the Bill we are talking about stabilisation powers, we are restricting ourselves to stabilisation powers within the financial services sector and not discussing a subject to which I have devoted most of my academic life; namely, powers to stabilise the whole economy—or, if people had followed my advice, probably destabilise the whole economy. We are not discussing the general question of the theory of economic stabilisation here. We are discussing just stabilisation.
Can the Minister throw some light on the simple question here? Who really is in charge? The noble Baroness includes in her amendment “not limited to”. However, unless this was part of what I did not hear, I do not think she said what else she had in mind that might then arise if it was not limited to these things. It may well be that she did say it and I missed or it may well be that she would like to say it now.
Baroness Noakes
It might help those Members of the Committee who did not hear my opening remarks if I say that my amendment is designed to ensure that the power of direction can be used for all of the functions of the Bank of England not simply those listed in Clause 57(2). I also said that it probably ought to exclude the functions related to monetary policy.
Lord Tunnicliffe
I spent some years sitting on the Benches opposite facing the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and it comes as a refreshing new experience to find myself so frequently in agreement with her on this Bill. I am sure that will distress her as much as it is distressing me. Unfortunately, her caveating remarks are every bit as important as the lead remarks recommending the amendment.
We would not be able to support the amendment as drafted because, as she rightly points out, it could involve a direction to the MPC. This part of the Bill is a limiting list. The noble Baroness may want to consider either extending the list—we would look at that with great interest—or reversing it and extending the powers to the whole of the activity as her present amendment does and then caveating it with a number of areas where this power could not be used. This is a very useful amendment to develop the debate. I look forward to the Minister’s reply and thank the noble Baroness for proposing it.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate. I thank my noble friend for his response. I take the point on general powers of direction. They have not been used since these have been written into statute. They existed in all the nationalised industry legislation, which gives rise to the question as to why they are there, but I am sure Ministers feel more comfortable that they have this nuclear option should nuclear war ever need to break out.
The Treasury Select Committee would still say that it thinks that the power is too narrow. If there were a crisis where it is clear that he should be in charge, the Chancellor should not be restricted in what he can direct the Bank to do. For example, he may feel the need to direct the Bank on the use of macroprudential tools. These are in the hands of the Financial Policy Committee. If the Bank were slow in using them and where it took a particular view on something on which the Chancellor took another, public money would be at risk. The Chancellor ought to be able to get his way on things. On that basis the Government have drafted too narrow a power, but I shall not pursue it any further. It is the Government’s choice, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Financial Services Bill
Baroness Noakes Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Noakes
“Omit paragraph 5.”
Baroness Noakes
Like the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, I, too, am fighting one of the battles left over from the Financial Services Act of 2010. As the Committee will find out, mine is a very much more modest affair.
I shall move Amendment 190, which is a probing amendment to Schedule 15 to this Bill. This schedule makes a number of amendments to the law governing the consumer financial education body which likes to go by the name of Money Advice Service. This body was created by the 2010 Act. As noble Lords who were involved in that Bill will be aware, it received little detailed scrutiny in your Lordships’ House and was eventually passed into law, as the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said, under the wash-up procedure and the Bill ended up in somewhat truncated form. The provisions relating to Money Advice Service received no scrutiny whatever in your Lordships’ House. My noble friends and I had tabled 40 amendments at the time, all of which went undebated. I said when we did the final wash-up procedure that I hoped that if we formed the Government after the general election, we would revisit these remaining unsatisfactory aspects of Money Advice Service. Of course, other more pressing issues faced the Government in 2010 and going back over legislation creating minor public bodies was clearly never going to be a priority. However, as we have the opportunity of this Bill before us, I have decided to raise just one of the 40 issues that I wished to explore in April 2010.
Lord Newby
My Lords, I hope that I can reassure my noble friend. As she says, this amendment removes the provision that specifically aims to allow organisations that wish to act on Money Advice Service’s behalf to do so, even if there is otherwise a limitation on their ability to do this. This is to enable bodies such as charities, credit unions or friendly societies to work with MAS without constraints imposed by, for example, tightly specified charitable objectives. This provision, as my noble friend pointed out, was inserted into FiSMA by the Financial Services Act 2010. I vaguely remember her tabling amendments on that point when the Bill that became that Act was being considered by this House but, as she said, there was insufficient time to debate them during the wash-up.
I think that I can put my noble friend’s mind at rest relatively straightforwardly: there is a direct precedent for what is being proposed here in relation to the National Lottery. National Lottery distributors encountered similar difficulties working with particular bodies whose constitution was narrowly drawn. Accordingly, amendment was made to the National Lottery Act 1993, in Section 25A, to permit charities and similar bodies to act on behalf of the distributor. A similar provision was included in paragraph 7 of Schedule 3 to the Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Act 2008. An example of the circumstances in which such a power might be used is where a charity’s objects may be wholly in sympathy with Money Advice Service’s objectives, but when read narrowly the objects are narrower than a particular project on which Money Advice Service wishes to work with the body. This provision lifts that constraint and, given the active interest of a large number of charities in the financial capability agenda, I hope that the noble Baroness would not wish such organisations to be prevented from working with Money Advice Service in future. Having received this explanation, I hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, that explanation has left me as concerned as I was to begin with. While his examples seek some sort of plausible minor extension of a body’s activities, paragraph 5 is not confined to minor changes to a body’s constitution and it is not confined even to charities whose objectives are related to those of Money Advice Service. It is very broad indeed and would apply under a very much broader basis, including to a large number of bodies set up by statute. I shall consider carefully what my noble friend has said and look at the precedents that he has offered as justification for this, but I have to say that I am not entirely happy with his explanation. I beg leave to withdraw.
Financial Services Bill
Baroness Noakes Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I apologise to the Committee for not having formally given notice that I wish to speak on Clause 6 standing part of the Bill. I discovered my omission only at the weekend, but I have ascertained that it is in order for me to speak at this point and I have informed the Minister’s officials, so the Minister should be forearmed. I apologise also to my noble friend Lord Stewartby—had he seen that I wished to debate whether Clause 6 should stand part of the Bill, he might not have digressed earlier into the issues I wish to raise. I also apologise if there is a little repetition of what my noble friend said earlier in what I am about to say.
I want to talk about the timetable for the transfer of credit regulation activities from the OFT to the FCA which is effected by Clause 6. The issue is not the fact of the transfer—about which I do not think there is any serious concern—but the timing of the changes. I should say that these issues have been raised by the Finance and Leasing Association and I am grateful for its briefing. As I understand it, the Government wish to go live with the FCA taking responsibility with effect from April 2014. They wish at that date to transfer as much as possible of the Consumer Credit Act and the OFT’s related guidance into a new rulebook issued by the FCA under FiSMA, as amended by the Bill. This is causing problems to the industry because the new rulebook will not be consulted on until the second half of 2013, with the final rules available only in March 2014. That simply gives the industry too little time to gear up for going live one month later. This is partly a question of time—the industry obviously has to make sure that its processes, its systems and, of course, its staff are prepared for any changes that come out of a new rulebook. I am sure that the Minister will agree that while a lot of preparation can happen during a consultation period, companies cannot deliver final changes until they are clear about what the final changes will be—if, indeed, there are any. One month, as I have said, seems excessively and unreasonably tight.
In addition, the conversion of the existing rules and guidance might not be as simple as it seems on the surface. Consumer protection under FiSMA and the Consumer Credit Act start from slightly different positions. A lot of FiSMA is about protecting depositors and investors from losing their money when the organisations to which they have entrusted their funds get into difficulty. The Consumer Credit Act places a different kind of risk on the lender—it is starting from a different end of the process. The Consumer Credit Act guidance has been built up over a very considerable period of time—more than 30 years. The concerns are about the sheer time that it would take to convert a pre-existing regime into a new one.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I do not like to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Davies, but this is not the first time that recruitment consultants have been debated in your Lordships’ House. I recall more than one occasion when we had a discussion of the role of recruitment consultants in the levels of pay within the financial sector and more generally, but before the noble Lord joined your Lordships’ House. It is a subject which has previously arisen and I am sure that if the noble Lord searches Hansard he will find earlier debates.
Lord Davies of Stamford
My Lords, I daresay I stand corrected. I am delighted to hear that I was wrong in that respect.
Baroness Noakes
More broadly, I think everybody accepts that executive pay has some problems attached to it. I do not wish to dismiss the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, out of hand, although it will not surprise him to find that I do not support his amendments. I do not support them because they come close to interfering in the corporate governance model, which broadly serves the UK extremely well. The corporate governance model has boards which are responsible for making decisions, and these boards have committees of boards, including remuneration committees, which are responsible to those boards. To insert somebody who is not a board member outwith the context of having employee representatives on the board starts to change that dynamic. Similarly, if you have remuneration consultants who should be reporting independently to the remuneration committee being appointed by the shareholders, it is difficult to see what the relationship then is to the board and the board’s committees. There are a lot of problems in the solutions that have come up.
Remuneration is under huge scrutiny. There have been proposals from BIS in the last few years, and the regulatory ratchet has been increased with greater intensity. The involvement of the FSA, for example, in banking and other financial institution regulations, is not minor, and equally with regulators in other parts of the world. So we may have a problem which almost certainly will not be addressed by the amendments before us and which already has a lot of moving parts.
Lord Davies of Stamford
I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way a second time. I wanted to rise to agree with her. She is absolutely right. You should never put on a remuneration committee someone who is not a member of the board. The remuneration committee must be a sub-committee of the board, and it was in the context of employee representatives being fully members of the board in every possible sense, that I put forward my suggestion.
Baroness Noakes
I am pleased to see that we are in agreement. Finally, I was concerned whether or not the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, thought that his amendment meant that all listed companies would be dealt with by the PRA and the FCA, because I do not think they have powers to deal with other than those bodies that are within the regulatory net, so it would only cover a relatively small proportion of his target.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, my noble friend has made the first point that I would make. The noble Lords, Lord Davies of Oldham and Lord Davies of Stamford, talked as if we were debating provisions that related to all listed companies, but my noble friend is completely right that this section does not apply to great global companies such as Vinci and others. Although it relates to an important group of companies, it is related essentially to authorised persons.
The Bill allows regulators to make rules regarding the role of employees in relation to remuneration committees and, in theory, the requirement that remuneration consultants be appointed by shareholders if they think that such rules would advance their objectives. However, I accept that, in practice, it is uncertain that that test would be met, particularly in the latter instance. In any case, other appropriate processes are already in place to consider these questions in the context of wider corporate governance reform—which, again, is precisely the point that my noble friend makes. This is a wider series of issues.
It is important to be reminded that, in January this year, the Department for Business published its response to its consultation on executive remuneration, which considered among others, the possibility of giving employees a say on remuneration. Although I do not want to be drawn into a wider debate—we should focus on financial services—the consultation responses nevertheless illuminate what would be appropriate or, as I would say, inappropriate for financial services businesses alone.
The Government’s view is that, while there will be qualified and enthusiastic employees willing to take on such a role, there are strong arguments against this proposal, including—on this I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford—that members of the remuneration committee need to be full board members if they are to understand the overall financial strategy and the wider business and economic context which impact on remuneration policy; that introducing external representatives on a single committee risks obscuring directors’ collective responsibility, as well as potentially creating additional tensions, which might reduce the effectiveness of the UK unitary board model; and that the level of responsibility of employee representatives and the possible conflicts of interest they might face would need to be resolved.
As a result of the BIS consultation on executive pay, the Government have decided to proceed with some key reforms, such as the introduction of a binding shareholder vote on remuneration, but the case for requiring companies to include employees on remuneration committees has not been made, and the Government are certainly not going to make or accept it in the narrower context that we are discussing today.
Financial Services Bill
Baroness Noakes Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Noakes
“(7) The Bank must consult with the Markets Practitioner Panel on the regulation of clearing and settlement infrastructure when the FCA agrees that proposed changes will have an impact on the regulation of trading infrastructure.
(8) The Markets Practitioner Panel will be able to request information from the Bank via the FCA to enable them to provide appropriate advice to the FCA.”
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, with the leave of the Committee and at the request of my noble friend Lord Northbrook, I rise to move Amendment 127ZA and also speak to Amendment 128AAA in his name. My noble friend is unable to be with us to speak to these amendments due to other commitments.
The new regulators will have many new powers to add to the formidable armoury of powers already held by the FSA. Consultation with practitioners in the industry about the practical aspects of policy, rules and practice is crucial. Amendment 127ZA concerns consultations carried out by the Bank of England in relation to the clearing and settlement systems that it will regulate in future, together with the role of the FCA in that. In general, the consultation arrangements in the Bill for the market areas covered by the FCA are welcomed by practitioners. In particular, the Bill, which mandates several panels to be used for consultation, includes a specific markets panel. However, there is concern in relation to the clearing and settlements systems, which are to be regulated by the Bank of England rather than the FCA. I understand the reasons that led to that decision, but it results in some fragmentation of regulation. Clearing and settlements systems will now be separate from the rest of markets regulation and practitioners are concerned that, in the absence of provisions in this Bill for consulting practitioners about clearing and settlement aspects, there could be problems.
Amendment 127ZA sets up a consultation requirement in this respect by requiring the Bank of England to consult the markets practitioner panel, which is set up under new Section 1P as part of the FCA’s consultation mechanisms. This amendment also allows the panel to request information from the Bank via the FCA in order that the panel can then advise the FCA on any related issues—for example, regulatory changes made by the Bank in relation to clearing and settlement systems, which may well have an impact on trading infrastructure, which the FCA itself will be regulating.
I thank the Minister’s officials for explaining to me how the Bank’s new powers will work legislatively and how the consultation provisions fit in. As I understand it, there will be a statutory requirement for the Bank to consult generally on the exercise of its new regulatory powers in relation to recognised clearing houses, but the consultation with practitioner panels or the FCA is not mandated. The Bill is silent in relation to settlement systems, and we have to wait to see what the eventual regulations will say.
Will the Minister explain how the Government intend consultation to work for settlement systems? Can he also say how the Government see proper co-ordination between the FCA and the Bank of England in this area? Is there, for example, any intention to involve the markets panel—and if not, why not? In respect of clearing houses, can the Minister explain why the requirements in respect of consultation by the Bank for clearing houses in Schedule 7, which applies the general PRA requirements for consultation on rules, specifically remove the requirement for the PRA to consult the FCA and has no requirement to consult panels?
Amendment 128AAA in this group tackles a rather broader issue. Under new Section 1R, the FCA must consider representations made to it by the panels and must publish responses to representations. The corresponding FiSMA requirements were for the FSA to respond in writing with reasons for disagreeing with a panel’s recommendations but this has been omitted from the Bill. The amendment of my noble friend Lord Northbrook reinstates that requirement.
Everybody understands that the FCA will not accept every single recommendation or view put to it, but it is not acceptable that the FCA can merely ignore any recommendations put to it by the panels and merely publish a response “from time to time”, which is all that new Section 1R requires. The FCA ought to be open to the possibility of dialogue with the panels. It is entirely possible, for example, that the FCA could misinterpret a comment or recommendation made to it. The Bill might make the FCA near-omnipotent, but it should not be predicated on the FCA being near-omniscient.
Both these amendments have been suggested by the existing financial services practitioner panel, which has done good work since the FSA was set up. It knows what it is talking about and if it is concerned, I believe that the Committee should be too. I do not claim that the drafting of my noble friend’s amendments is perfect but they are probing amendments. I beg to move.
Viscount Trenchard
My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Northbrook and moved by my noble friend Lady Noakes. While I understand very well the reasoning behind splitting regulators into a multitude of new regulators, it nevertheless remains very necessary to make sure that regulation is well co-ordinated, not duplicated, and made as understandable as possible to practitioners and consumers alike. It is very sensible indeed that the regulation of trading infrastructure also be brought within the sphere of influence of the FCA. The requirement that,
“The bank must consult with the Markets Practitioner Panel on the regulation of clearing and settlement infrastructure”—
deals with that. I agree with my noble friend that the drafting is not yet perfect. In particular, I find somewhat confusing the second paragraph, which states:
“The Markets Practitioner Panel will be able to request information from the Bank via the FCA to enable them to provide appropriate advice to the FCA”.
However, in principle, this is a move in the right direction and I strongly support it.
One of the problems with regulation is that regulators, even if they have practical experience of banking, insurance or other financial services, very rapidly become out of date because markets change so rapidly. There are many very competent former bankers working for the FSA who are out of date with the way markets actually operate today. Therefore, I think it very necessary to have a practitioner panel for the PRA as well as for the FCA. However, that is the subject of a subsequent amendment.
Amendment 128AAA also deserves support for putting the requirement back on the FCA to give a statement in writing of its reasons if it disagrees with a view expressed by the practitioner panel. That is very sensible.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, to manage expectations before the break I attempted to say that I was not going to be as accommodating all through the day. In qualitative terms I will be as accommodating, but I can only work with the material that is in front of us. In this case, it is possibly a matter of explanation and reassurance. I hope that some, if not all, of the matters here are going to be covered satisfactorily.
Amendment 127ZA to which my noble friend Lady Noakes spoke would mandate some quite complicated arrangements for the Bank of England to consult the markets practitioner panel of the FCA, in certain cases. I do not make a comment about the drafting, but the general arrangements here would be quite complicated. In addition, the markets practitioner panel would also have the ability to request information from the Bank, but only via the FCA and only for the purpose of assisting the FCA. I had not been quite sure what the amendment was trying to achieve, but I now understand from my noble friend that it is a matter of strengthening the co-ordination between the Bank and the FCA in relation to market infrastructure, as well as strengthening the consultation arrangements in relation to infrastructure matters. I understand why this is important, but will attempt to explain why I believe it to be unnecessary.
There is of course nothing to stop the Bank of England consulting the markets practitioner panel or any other panel, or their members or anyone else. It is worth remembering that. It is also important to bear in mind—it may be more important in this case—that the Bank of England will be regulating only a very small number of institutions in this highly specialist area. That really is the key point. I suggest that there is not a lot to be gained by trying to institutionalise consultation arrangements in this way because of the small number of specialist players.
The Bank will indeed be able to consult each of the entities that it regulates individually, should it wish to do so. That is of course an inconceivable position for most of the other subsectors of financial services, where a panel arrangement is therefore necessary to corral views efficiently. I am not sure what a requirement to consult the markets practitioner panel would necessarily add here. More generally, the Bill already introduces a requirement for the Bank and the FCA to have a memorandum of understanding relating to infrastructure regulation, while there is of course nothing to stop the Bank and the FCA working together in any way that they want, subject to the framework of the Bill.
I think that panels are not required in this area. I hesitate a bit because my noble friend Lady Noakes may come back at me on the settlement question. I accept that on that aspect I should possibly take a bit more time to reflect on my noble friend’s views, just to make sure that all angles have been covered in what I have said and in what has been indicated by the Bank and the FCA, so far as it is relevant to them. However, specifically on settlements, I appreciate that I might reflect a little further.
I turn to Amendments 128AAA, 128AB and 130ZB, the first two of which require the FCA to provide a statement in writing to any panels it establishes where it disagrees with any of the representations. Amendment 130ZB would make a similar provision for the PRA. I note that these amendments replicate the existing provisions in FiSMA. It may help if I explain the thinking behind why the Government consider it right to depart from the existing approach in FiSMA. It is because the Bill imposes a general duty on the regulators to publish responses to the representations they have received, which is wider than the current requirement in FiSMA. The regulators must respond to all representations, rather than simply those with which they may disagree. That was a conscious change because it did not seem right that the only responses the regulators should have to give to the panels are where they disagree with them.
We do not want to promote an antagonistic relationship between the regulators and any of the panels that they may establish. We have also required the regulators to publish their responses to help inform public understanding and enhance accountability. I reassure the Committee that this duty will, in practice, require the regulators to give their reasons for rejecting or departing in any significant way from a recommendation of one of their panels. With those explanations, I hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Trenchard and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, for their contributions to the short debate and I thank my noble friend the Minister for his response. I note that he will look again at the settlement system, which raises slightly different issues because of the different way that it is dealt with legislatively. I doubtless await a letter from him during the summer, which I shall look forward to.
The Minister said that there was nothing to stop the Bank of England from consulting anybody—it may be that he was playing that for laughs. The real purpose of tabling this amendment was because there is no specific mention of panels, and there is a concern that the Bank of England will not use its general obligation to consult the right people. The right people are not necessarily just the people they are regulating but also those who are impacted by regulation, such as the people you would find on something like the markets panel. That is also why I tried to press my noble friend the Minister on why the Bank did not have to consult the FCA when dealing with regulatory matters in this area. I put it to my noble friend that he has not quite addressed those issues. I hope that he will think further on this before we get to Report, and I will certainly reflect on what he has said.
In respect of the second amendment in this group relating to explanations in writing, the Bill states:
“The FCA must from time to time publish in such manner as it thinks fit responses to the representations”.
This does not convey the sense of what the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, referred to, which is dialogue. At the moment the panels operate in a much more collaborative mode, feeding through ideas as well as making formal representations, and they are being seen here, I think, as just another consultee to be dealt with along with responses from any other consultee. The sense that the practitioners have is that the quality of relationships will deteriorate going forward, and that is a matter of concern.
These amendments were tabled by my noble friend, as I said, following the comments made by the financial services. I know that my noble friend will want to talk to them before we return to this Bill at Report. I thank my noble friend the Minister for his reply today but I do not think that I can regard the issues as settled. However, I am prepared to withdraw the amendment today.
Baroness Noakes
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 130A in this group. These amendments deal with value-for-money studies for the FCA and the PRA respectively. I am delighted to see that the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, share my enthusiasm for value-for-money studies for the FCA and I hope to persuade them that they should be enthusiastic about value-for-money studies for the PRA as well.
Amendment 128B amends new Section 1S of FiSMA, inserted by Clause 5 of the Bill. The new section states:
“The Treasury may appoint an independent person to conduct a review of the economy, efficiency and effectiveness with which the FCA has used its resources in discharging its functions”.
My amendment would change that “may” to “must”. Amendment 130A does exactly the same thing to the equivalent new Section 2M for the PRA. These are probing amendments. As a veteran of may/must debates, I am well aware that the Government will argue for flexibility to respond to circumstances and not be tied to any particular course of action, so my noble friend need not spend a long time reading out all of those comments from his notes.
My purpose in tabling these amendments is to ask the Government to state how they intend to use the powers. There is a similar power in FiSMA in respect of value-for-money reviews of the FSA, but the only time that I can recall it being used was when the C and AG was asked to carry out a review around 2007. I believe that my honourable friend Mr Mark Hoban last year described Section 12 of FiSMA as being “underused”. Because the existing power was used so sparingly, the simply rollover of the FiSMA formulation into this Bill is surprising.
My amendments say that the Government “must” set up independent reviews, but I accept the criticism of the Minister’s officials that I have not rounded that off by saying how often such reviews should be conducted. My own view is that they do not need to be conducted absolutely every year but they do need to happen reasonably often—for example, every three years. I hope that the Minister will set out how the Government intend to use the powers to subject the FSA and the PRA to VFM reviews.
My noble friend will be aware that the FSA was much criticised by large swathes of the regulated community for lack of economy, efficiency and effectiveness. The FSA raises its moneys through fees, and the only thing that appeared certain was that fees would go up, often by significant amounts. Consultation on its key proposals did little to silence its critics. Subjecting the FSA to an independent VFM review was seen as important as there are no natural downward pressures on the FSA’s costs. It obviously has no marketing wish to compete and it is not accountable to the Treasury for its use of resources. This is a recipe for inefficiency, and it is important that the successor bodies to the FSA are genuinely put under pressures to deliver regulation at a cost that is proportionate to the benefits.
The FSA’s current budget is going up very considerably and people understand in part why that is, although not all sections of the regulated community understand why their particular share of the costs is going up. Generally people accept that the costs of regulation will rise, but I hope that the Government will agree that lack of efficiency or effectiveness must not be allowed to shelter behind the banner of tougher regulation and that the successor bodies to the FSA must routinely be exposed to an examination of how well they spend their money.
I would also like to use this amendment to ask how the Minister explains the relationship between the reviews that can be set up under the new Sections 1S and 2M and the annual audits of the new bodies. Under Schedule 3, the Comptroller and Auditor-General will carry out the annual audits of the bodies, which is fine, but will the C and AG be entitled and expected to carry out regular value for money reviews of the FCA and the PRA? Will value for money reviews therefore happen when the C and AG wants it to happen or only if the Treasury uses its powers under this Bill? I hope that my noble friend will be able to respond positively to the thrust behind these amendments.
Lord Sassoon
First, I am not sure why the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, talks about advisers to government departments. Here, we are talking about finding firms to carry out value-for-money reviews of the FCA, and independence from the FCA would seem to be the overriding concern. We are not talking about the Bank of England itself or some part of the Bank of England’s wider group doing the review. As I am sure the noble Lord knows, with all the increasingly tough professional codes that exist, the definition of independence is becoming ever tougher. Therefore, although the noble Lord and all of us might like to go back to a sort of common-sense, gentlemanly world that once existed, I absolutely stand by what I said. The amendment—whose effect incidentally goes wider than the noble Lord indicated in speaking to it—would capture a range of firms just because of the way that professional independence has come to be defined these days. Therefore, I stand by my analysis of the amendment.
Amendment 130AA would require that when the Treasury orders a review of the economy and efficiency of the PRA, it informs the Treasury Select Committee of the nature of, and arrangements for, the review. I understand that the amendment is driving at the importance of accountability to Parliament. The Government agree that that is important, which is why there is already a large amount on this subject in the Bill, including the provision for NAO audit, which we have discussed.
Requiring the Treasury to inform the Treasury Select Committee of the nature of, and arrangements for, the review at such an early stage might have some benefits of the sort that the noble Lord identified but I fear that it is more likely to be seen as an invitation for the Treasury Select Committee to comment on or even attempt to change the remit of these important reviews. I suggest to this Committee—I would not suggest anything to the Treasury Select Committee—that adding another political hurdle could slow up the process of producing these reviews. It may even make it less likely that they will be commissioned in the first place if there has to be a negotiation of the sort that I fear.
I hope that those explanations are sufficient for my noble friend to be able to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I am grateful for the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, to this debate and for my noble friend’s reply. Perhaps I may comment on Amendment 128BB in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, concerning independence. I think that my noble friend has stretched even the most stringent modern interpretation of independence way too far. On his interpretation, the NAO might not be independent of the FCA and therefore might not be able to carry out any further reviews of the FCA. I hope that my noble friend will reflect on the need for independence. We have to remember that when the Bank of England, rather belatedly, appointed people to carry out reviews of itself recently, independence was not exactly plain in the appointments that were made.
I thank my noble friend for his responses on value for money. It is slightly odd that the Government intend to use the NAO to carry out value-for-money studies, but they have set up the NAO to be appointed the auditors, so it might carry out value-for-money studies. I am still left with the feeling that the carryover of the ability to appoint somebody to do a review is just repeated legislation which might lay fallow, as the FiSMA legislation largely lay fallow. However, I thank my noble friend for his response and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Noakes
“1SA Report to Treasury Select Committee
(1) The FCA must conduct reviews of its own policy and performance if requested by the Treasury Committee of the House of Commons.
(2) On completion of a review, the FCA must make a written report to the Treasury Select Committee setting out the result of the review.”
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, in moving Amendment 128BC I shall speak also to Amendment 143B in this group. These amendments are in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McFall, and myself and are part of the suite of amendments we have tabled to ensure that the views of the Treasury Select Committee in another place are given a proper hearing and receive a proper government response.
Amendment 128BC introduces a new Section 1SA which requires the FCA to review its own policy and performance, if requested by the Treasury Select Committee, and to send a written report of the review to the TSC. We have just debated the Government’s powers to initiate value-for-money reviews of the FCA. This amendment goes further and allows Parliament, through the TSC, to require reviews.
The cause célèbre which underpins this amendment is the FCA’s review of the failure at RBS and its own role in that. I should remind the Committee that I am a director of RBS, but, thankfully, I was not involved at all during the period covered by the report. It took huge pressure from the Treasury Select Committee to get that report into the public domain.
The Government’s response has been that such reviews and their publication are a matter for the Executive, rather than Parliament. However, the problem that the Government have is that it did not work in the case of the RBS report, which leaves Parliament without any direct means of dealing with any similar cases in future. It is not always self-evident that the Government of the day have the same interest in transparency and accountability as Parliament, especially when the Government have themselves been so closely involved in a particular event or series of events.
Amendment 143B features another aspect of the role of the Treasury Select Committee—this time in relation to the appointment of the chief executive of the FCA. Under the new Schedule 1ZA of FiSMA the chief executive is to be appointed by the Treasury and the amendment would add the words,
“following consideration by the Treasury Select Committee of the House of Commons”.
On our first Committee day, which I was unable to attend, there was much discussion of the role of the Treasury Select Committee in relation to the appointment of the Governor of the Bank of England. The Government’s position appears to be that the Treasury Select Committee is to have no role whatever in the appointment but that it may hold pre-commencement hearings. My noble friend Lord McFall—sorry, he is not my noble friend; it feels like he is my noble friend but he is actually the noble Lord, Lord McFall—asked the Government to think again about that.
The reasons usually trotted out by the Government are unproven assertions. In particular, the role of the governor is said to be so market sensitive that it has to take place without any parliamentary involvement. I am not sure that there has been any empirical evidence to back that up, but it is much more extraordinary that the Government are citing market sensitivity for the appointment of the chief executive of the FCA. The Treasury Select Committee does not accept this assertion, and it calls into question exactly how the Government think that markets work in practice.
The age of parliamentary examination of candidates for major public offices is already upon us. In general, they go well; but there have already been reports of cases from committees in another place which have not gone well. In at least one pre-appointment hearing the candidate withdrew because the hearing did not go well. Provided that this can be handled with dignity, it seems to me that this is a sensible part of a parliamentary democracy. However, post-appointment and pre-commencement hearings raise quite different issues. I recall a distinctly lukewarm if not completely damning report by the Treasury Select Committee in respect of one of the MPC appointees. It did not invalidate the appointment but it got off to a difficult start and certainly undermined the credibility of the individual involved.
If the Government stick with post-appointment hearings only for posts such as chief executive of the FSA, it is only a matter of time before the Treasury Select Committee, or a similar committee, reaches a different conclusion from the Government and makes its views plain, as indeed it should do. Where does that leave the position of an appointed but disapproved of chief executive of the FCA?
The Government need to think this through again. If, as I suspect, the evidence which stacks up shows that the case for market sensitivity is not convincing, it would be wise to ensure that Parliament’s view is taken fully into account before executive decision-making. I beg to move.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, I rise to give particular support to the second amendment to which the noble Baroness has spoken. I shall not repeat the very strong arguments that she made about the need for this to be pre rather than post-appointment. I would just add a few comments about the importance of the role of the chief executive of the FCA to consumers—as may be a bit expected of me now. After all, consumers are the people on whose savings, or need to borrow, this industry depends.
The Financial Conduct Authority has been called the consumer champion, albeit the word “consumer” no longer appears in the title. That is how, I am delighted to say, the newly appointed chair described it to me. I know that that is what consumers will want it to be. We need this new architecture to have the confidence of the public—some of whom undoubtedly hold financial products at the moment, while some may have done so in the past, and some might do so in the future. Without the confidence that this sector will behave and conduct itself in their interests—with integrity, professionalism and high standards of behaviour—what chance is there that those individuals will save for their homes or pensions, or that small businesses will borrow to produce growth and jobs?
The people who can hold the FCA to account and to scrutiny on behalf of all those millions of small savers, borrowers and those with simply a bank account are, of course, our Members of Parliament. They should, therefore, through their Treasury Select Committee, hold a pre-appointment hearing of the chief executive. This will establish in successful candidates’ minds that they are responsible to the people for the performance of their organisations. Chief executives will know that they will return to the Treasury Select Committee from time to time to account for their record and explain their decisions. That will be a healthy relationship. It does not give the Treasury Select Committee a veto, but it makes clear that the candidate needs to establish the confidence of that committee before taking up the post, and that before appointment she or he has the capability and the vision to stand in the shoes of clients and safeguard their interests. That is not too much to ask.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, for her response to Amendment 143B, and I thank the Minister for his reply.
In connection with the reviews, my noble friend relied heavily on the provisions which are in the Bill—which we will come to later—in respect of regulatory failure leading to reviews, as if that was the beginning and end of it. My amendment and the amendment suggested to us by the Treasury Select Committee itself—or by the clerks to the committee—provide that the FCA must conduct reviews of its own policy and performance. That is to say, it is much broader. It does not wait until things have gone very badly wrong before asking the FSA to carry out a review. I am not sure that the Minister’s response has dealt with that point. It seems that he is still keeping all the power to the Executive, except when there is clear and manifest regulatory failure, when all the pressures would build up and the Treasury Select Committee might be required again to argue its corner, as it had to do in the case of the RBS report.
On the pre-commencement as opposed to the pre-appointment hearings in respect of the chief executive, I hear what my noble friend says in respect of chief executive appointments, and I would like to reflect on that. However, I think that he was making up policy on the hoof in relation to other public appointments. It is a relatively recent phenomenon that public appointments have been subject to pre-appointment hearings, and it is my impression that they have been expanding, not declining, in scope in recent years. It may be that my noble friend is indicating that the Government are now trying to significantly row back on what was regarded as an important expansion of the ability of Parliament to be involved in these important decisions and to hold the Executive to account.
I would like to think more carefully about what my noble friend has said in response to that, and possibly discuss it further before coming back at Report. However, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Noakes
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I feel a bit like a number 11 bus—it does not come along for a long time and all of a sudden four come along at once. In moving Amendment 128BF, I shall also speak to Amendment 128BG in this group. Both amendments stand in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord McFall, and deal with a further issue that the Treasury Select Committee in another place believes was not dealt with properly before the Bill left the other place.
Amendment 128BF amends the PRA’s general objectives in subsection (2) of new Section 2B. The objective currently says that it is for promoting the safety and soundness of PRA-authorised persons. The amendment would mean that it would promote competition among PRA-authorised persons.
Amendment 128BG is similar, but adds a subsection to new Section 2B requiring the PRA to discharge its functions in a way that promotes effective competition in the interests of consumers. But that has to be compatible with its general and insurance objectives.
The Treasury Select Committee was concerned that the PRA’s low tolerance of failure, as expressed in particular by its former chief executive, would entrench the market position of larger market players. The committee noted that competitive markets needed what it called the freedom to exit as well as freedom to enter, although I doubt that a failing bank would regard its impending implosion as a freedom. The theory is that a market that artificially restricts exit will almost inevitably inhibit entry as well.
The Government have said that no firm is too important to fail and they point quite rightly to the fact that the legislation is predicated on allowing failure. I fully accept that. I also accept that the FSA has been clear that it does not regard the job of the prudential regulator to prevent failure at all costs. But—and this is a big but—it is also clear that the new regime will be failure averse. New rules on regulatory capital, liquidity and leverage are designed to make banks safer and the implementation of the Vickers proposals in the way recently announced by the Government will do the same. Bail-in capital will also tend to work in that direction. The resolution plans that banks are working on are themselves in effect partly about preserving the status quo. Ownership may change, but large chunks of banks will remain in the market.
We all want financial stability, but a consequence of that is that the default assumption will be that bank failure is a last resort. Even then, resolution will preserve much of what has failed. All that the amendments do is to correct that balance. Without upsetting the core prudential objectives, the PRA has to have regard to the desirability of effective competition.
While supporting the thrust of the amendments, I do not wholly support their wording and I believe that “promoting competition” may go a little too far. I do not really like Amendment 128BG to the extent that it refers to competition in the interests only of consumers, because competition benefits not only the consumers but the wider economy by creating efficient businesses that can compete internationally to the benefit of everyone, not just the people who use their particular services. For that reason, I also support my noble friend Lord Hodgson’s Amendment 129ZA in this group, which is rather more rounded and balanced approach to ensuring that the PRA does not forget the wider environment of the business that it will be regulating. I beg to move.
Lord Sassoon
The fact that it has already started on the work which will lead to the document in the autumn and which goes to the most expensive element of getting authorised—namely, the amount of capital required—is a fundamentally important and good start. I do not pretend that that completes the business, but it tackles first the most expensive element: the cost of putting that capital aside. This is a start. It is not before time, but it is happening as we speak.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I start by apologising to the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, for having appropriated her amendment incorrectly in my opening remarks. I do not quite know when I made the mistake, but I made it quite early and perpetuated it. I latterly discovered that I did not quite like the drafting, and so was slightly disobliging about the amendment of the noble Baroness, which I thought was my own. With apologies to the whole Committee and particularly to the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, I did not intend to add my name to her amendment. I would not have signed up to the precise wording but, as has come out in this debate, I think we are all speaking from the same territory.
That apart, I believe that there has been quite a lot of agreement among those who have spoken that the Government have not quite got this right. I am concerned that the Government keep saying that they will not repeat the mistake of giving conflicting objectives, which is alleged to have been one of the causes of the problems of the FSA, so this body has to have a single focus. However, I cannot see that a single focus is going to be good for the financial services industry or for the consumer, particularly where competition is just not in its lexicon. If it is not good for them I cannot see how it is good for the UK, so it seems to me to be bad policy.
The amendments that we have put forward today, in varying ways, have been trying to make it a slightly better policy by giving the PRA a broader remit. My noble friend the Minister said that he had undertaken to come back at Report to give a wider economic context, as he had already undertaken to do on the FCA. With respect, that does not meet the points that have come out from the debate today. I believe that there was quite a lot of agreement between my noble friends Lord Flight, Lord Trenchard and Lord Hodgson and I on the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Hodgson. When my noble friend the Minister thinks carefully about what to come back on Report with, I hope that he will look again at this issue. Expecting the FCA’s objectives to bear all the burden of reflecting competition in the way that the PRA operates is just bonkers. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Sharkey
My Lords, I rise briefly to support Amendment 144K, in the name of my noble friend Lord Flight, and even more briefly to support Amendment 144L, in my name, which covers some of the same ground but is more focused on the need for the PRA board to have non-executive members with relevant experience and expertise in the insurance sector. I am sure that neither of these amendments should be at all controversial. It would be very hard to argue that the PRA non-executive members need not have among them people of experience and expertise across the regulated sectors, but I think that it would be wrong to argue that this provision is not needed in the Bill. There is no reason for this to be left simply to the discretion of the Bank and the PRA and every reason why they should have an obligation to act in the way that both amendments suggest.
Amendment 144L in my name focuses on insurance because I am concerned that the PRA—as a subsidiary of the Bank, and with a special financial stability purpose and a number of Bank officials on the board—will be much more explicitly focused on the banks. It is also true, I think, that the Bank of England has no history of regulating insurance. The FSA currently does this, in succession, I think, to the DTI. In order to make sure that the PRA also effectively and properly focuses on the insurance sector it seems right that it should have, among its non-executive members, people with the appropriate experience and expertise in that sector. That is what my amendment and the amendment of my noble friend propose.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I support Amendments 144K and 144L, which are driving in the same direction, particularly in relation to insurance. Insurance companies have been the orphans: they have been tossed around Whitehall with the DTI and the Treasury; then they went to the FSA, where they were not the most important part of the FSA’s responsibilities; and now they know that they are being taken, rather grudgingly, into the Bank of England. They are worried that the particular features of their industry will not be given due weight, so the appearance of somebody with the requisite experience at board level is a minimum requirement. Because of the degree of concern in the industry, I do not think that it is enough simply to say, “Well, the Bank will do the right thing”—as I am sure the Minister is going to tell us in a minute. It is right that the Bill should reflect the concerns that exist in the industry.
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, it is for the Minister to respond to those arguments for the specific interests regarding representation on the PRA, and I will be very interested in his response. The concern of the opposition amendments in this group is of a rather more general nature with regard to governance, which, as the principal rule by which it is all going to operate, is of the greatest significance.
Amendment 139B would ensure that each regulator must act in a way which follows principles of good governance, including having regard to the UK corporate governance code. I hope that the Minister will find no difficulty at all in accepting that broad principle on which the regulator should operate. Our two other amendments, Amendments 144M and 146A, are rather more specific.
Amendment 144M extends the principles to which the Bank must have regard when making public appointments to the PRA. The Bill states that it must have regard to general principles. We want them spelt out more specifically; that is why we have proposed the insertion of the words, “merit, fairness and openness”, in front of “good practice”, to give specific illustration of what we mean by good practice in this area.
Amendment 146A is a minor addition but an important public safeguard with regard to remuneration. No one in this House can ignore that remuneration at any level in financial services is an issue of great public concern and therefore will certainly be of concern with regard to the governing body of the PRA. At present, the PRA must pay its members,
“such remuneration as may be determined by the Bank”.
We want to add,
“with the approval of the Treasury”,
so that we have the necessary public safeguards on this issue.
Lord De Mauley
I thank noble Lords for introducing their amendments. Let me go through them. Amendment 139B would make explicit that both the PRA and the FCA should have specific regard to the UK Corporate Governance Code. That is an important point. The code is the benchmark for good governance. The Bill makes clear that both the PRA and the FCA will be required to have regard to such principles of good corporate governance as it is reasonable to apply to them. That includes principles from the UK Corporate Governance Code. The Government fully expect the regulators to comply with the relevant principles of that code.
However, generally accepted principles change over time—it is worth noting that just two years ago the UK Corporate Governance Code was called the combined code. I hope that noble Lords will accept that it would not be appropriate to put an explicit reference in the Bill to a specific document which may change from time to time, or the name of which may change completely.
Amendment 144K would require that the Bank must be satisfied that the non-executive members of the PRA board have relevant experience in the sectors that the PRA will regulate, including banking and insurance. Amendment 144L would require that the Bank must be satisfied that the PRA board must include members with insurance expertise. I thank my noble friends for raising this issue, which is also important. The Bank and the FSA have been clear that they understand that the nature of insurers’ business models exposes them to a different set of risks than banks, and that therefore the regulation of insurance requires a different approach.
I can categorically confirm to the Committee that the Government and the Bank are clear that the PRA board will have members with the necessary expertise in each of the sectors that the PRA regulates, including insurance. It will also be important for the PRA board to have expertise in investment banking, building societies and credit unions, for example.
My noble friend Lord Sharkey said that insurance expertise on boards should not be left to the discretion of the Bank. He is right; it will not be; the Treasury will approve the appointment of PRA non-executives. I hope that noble Lords will therefore accept that it is unnecessary to make such detailed provision in the Bill.
Amendment 144M would make explicit that appointments to the PRA board must take place in accordance with the principles of merit, fairness and openness. Of course the Government agree with the intention behind the amendment. Paragraph 10 of Schedule 1ZB already requires that the appointments to the PRA board should take place in line with,
“generally accepted principles of good practice relating to the making of public appointments”.
The clearest articulation of those principles is the Code of Practice for Ministerial Appointments to Public Bodies, published by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. The aim of that code is,
“to ensure that public appointments processes are fair, open and transparent, command public confidence and result in appointments which are made on merit”.
Although some of the principles in the code are relevant only to ministerial appointments, some have wider application. Merit, fairness and openness clearly fall into that category.
Amendment 146A would require that the Treasury approve remuneration of the PRA board. Let me respond to this amendment in the context of the Government’s approach to the FCA and the various policy committees of the Bank. The Treasury has no role in relation to the setting of remuneration for the FSA board, nor will it have any such role in relation to the FCA board. This is as it should be. The FSA is, and the FCA and the PRA will be, independent of government. The Treasury has no role in the setting of the remuneration of external members of the MPC because the Bank is separate from government. The Bank determines how much it needs to pay to get the right people, while still ensuring value for money.
Similar considerations apply to the PRA board. The Bank will need to assure the quality of the leadership of the PRA, so it must be able to determine the remuneration of the PRA externals in the same way as it determines the remuneration of other parts of the Bank group. The Bank and the PRA operate separately from the Treasury and they account separately to Parliament. Parliament has a key interest in whether the PRA is delivering value for money, which is why the PRA falls within the remit of the National Audit Office.
I hope that I have persuaded noble Lords to accept the government amendments and not to press their own in this group.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, could I clarify with the Minister what he said about the composition of the PRA board? I think he said that the Government were clear that there would be a member with insurance expertise. Did he mean any member, or a non-executive member? There only has to be a majority of non-executive members. I think that my noble friend said that, under that formulation, he believes that that could be met by having an executive member with insurance expertise. The drive of the amendments that we have been discussing was that there should be a non-executive member in an oversight role on the PRA board, bringing in insurance expertise.
Lord De Mauley
My Lords, I categorically confirmed to the Committee that the Government and the Bank are clear that the PRA board will have members with the necessary expertise in each of the sectors that the PRA regulates, including insurance. I did not specify, in answer to my noble friend’s question, but I will write to her if I may.
Lord Sharkey
I will also speak briefly to Amendments 129ZC and 130ZA in this group.
All these amendments address the PRA’s general duty to consult. As the Bill stands the PRA must consult PRA-authorised persons or, where appropriate, persons appearing to the PRA to represent the interests of such persons. This consultation is to be on the extent to which the PRA’s general policies and practices are consistent with its general duties under new Sections 2B and 2G. These general duties include, for example,
“contributing to the securing of an appropriate degree of protection for those who are or may become”,
insurance policyholders. This is a very wide if not universal category, as the noble Lord, Lord Flight, has pointed out. They also include a duty to have regard to the regulatory principles in new Section 3B, which include,
“the general principle that consumers should take responsibility for their decisions”.
In both these cases it is clear that the PRA will need to know what consumers want and need; what their experience is and has been; and, particularly when it comes to the caveat emptor clause, what information consumers need to be able properly to take responsibility for their decisions.
These three amendments simply add “consumers” and “the Consumer Panel” to the list of groups that the PRA must consult or whose representations it must consider. Quite apart from the obvious justice of consulting those who may buy the end products, consulting consumers can also have the beneficial effect of preventing the PRA being totally isolated from the real world and the real consequences of their actions. We can all see from recent events the danger of any part of our financial system, regulatory or otherwise, losing contact with what is actually happening or what people are actually experiencing.
These are simple and clear amendments with a simple and clear purpose. I hope that the Minister will give them sympathetic consideration. I beg to move.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I have Amendment 129A in this group and it concerns practitioner panels. With the leave of the Committee, and at the request of my noble friend Lord Northbrook, I shall also speak to his Amendment 130ZZZA and to Amendment 130ZAA in this group. When a Marshalled List has to resort to using the letters “ZZZA” there is something wrong.
My amendments concern consultation with practitioner panels. A number of amendments in this group concern consultation with consumers and the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, has just spoken to his amendments. I am sceptical about the role of consumers in relation to consultation on prudential regulation. I shall be interested to hear what my noble friend has to say in response, but I shall concentrate on practitioners.
Of course it is very good that the Bill contains a requirement for the PRA to consult in new Section 2K. However, the Bill merely enables—it does not require—the PRA to set up practitioner panels. That is in stark contrast to the existing requirement on the FSA to set up practitioner panels and the very detailed requirements in new Sections 1N to 1Q for the FCA to set up various kinds of panels as part of its consultation arrangements. My Amendment 129A would require the PRA to set up one or more practitioner panels as part of its consultation arrangements.
My noble friend Lord Northbrook’s Amendment 130ZZZA mandates a single practitioner panel, and it goes a little further than my amendment by setting out what it should do—namely, it should be a regular forum for policy debate for the PRA and also consider the cumulative regulatory impact of the FCA and the PRA; that is, it should not merely be reacting to specific concentration exercises by the PRA but should also be involved, on a more in-tune basis, as a conduit for practitioner views. That harks back to the concept of dialogue that we talked about earlier when we spoke of consultation in relation to the FCA.
There ought to be clear advantages for continuing with practitioner panels for the PRA as well as for the FCA. The panels have been a well understood and welcome part of the FSA’s interaction with the financial community, certainly from the perspective of the industry. I believe that they are generally regarded as having worked well.
These amendments are supported by the Financial Services Practitioner Panel. Its chairman, Mr Joe Garner, has written to me to say that his panel very much hopes that this Bill will be amended so that the practitioner panel will be able to continue to help the PRA in future as well as the FCA. He sees its role as making a positive contribution to regulation. I have also heard from several industry bodies and other bodies which also support the continuation of practitioner panels.
I have very great respect for the work done by the pre-legislative scrutiny committee on this Bill, but I believe that it was wrong to reject the practitioner panels as involving regulatory capture. I believe that that misunderstands the nature of the quite detailed and technical nature of the work that is carried on by the panels. The FSA did a lot of things wrong, but I do not believe that one of them was being captured by its practitioner panel. Amendment 130ZAA in the name of my noble friend Lord Northbrook seeks to put that beyond doubt by specifically providing that the PRA is not accountable to practitioners if it rejects their recommendations.
The issue of practitioner panels might be less important if there were confidence that the PRA’s approach to consultation would be carried out well. Unfortunately that has got off to a bad start, with considerable concern about the draft of the PRA’s approach to consultation which was recently issued by the FSA and the Bank of England. As I noted at Second Reading, there has been considerable dismay at the dismissive and patronising language used. If the document which is on the Treasury’s website is representative of the kind of thinking which would permeate the PRA, I believe that it is a problem in the making. I could list the problems with the published PRA guidance at consultation but I am conscious of time today. However, I am happy to give the Minister the litany of problems identified with the draft to date. These problems are serious from the perspective of those who are expected to be consulted.
Even if the shadow PRA had pretended that it really embraced consultation, I do not believe that it would have removed the need to set up in legislation a definite structure of consultation, such as the existing practitioner panel arrangements. However, the evident lack of enthusiasm on the part of the Bank of England and the PRA rather strengthens the case for recognising in this Bill the need to have practitioner panels.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, can the Minister explain in a little more detail why the FCA is not allowed any discretion about whether it has panels but the PRA does have discretion? Is it just because it is the Bank of England, and the Bank is saying that it has to have discretion?
Lord Sassoon
No, my Lords, of course it is not because it is the Bank of England and it says that it has to have discretion. This is government legislation and the Government are presenting a Bill that we believe is appropriate to the new financial architecture. Of course we consult the Bank of England, the FSA and all sorts of other people. We have also had the input of the Joint Committee. My noble friend is quite right to challenge me on this but I am quite clear on it. As I have tried to explain, it is understandable but simplistic of people to read across that there are panels now that would like to continue to be engaged with both new regulators. I can understand where the panels come from and why, as I have explained, since consumers have a considerable interest in the decisions taken by both bodies, consumers superficially may say, “Actually, we would like to be engaged directly with both”.
Baroness Noakes
Before the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, decides what to do with his amendment, I would like to come back to a couple of points raised by the Minister. I do not believe that he has given a rationale yet for why the PRA has a free-for-all in this. I believe that the Government should be concerned about the PRA’s potential attitude to consultation. The Minister said that the PRA was not going to set up consultation panels—that has been clear—because it did not need them to gain the information that it needed. The Government seem not to get the concept that the panel is about a form of dialogue, feeding back concerns as well as responding to specific questions.
I skimmed over the quality of the consultation paper. I do not know whether it is the same one as that of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. I have had mine for several weeks. I did not discuss earlier the kind of problems that there are; there is no commitment to a minimum period of consultation, to proactive consultation, to consulting on the exercise of national discretions on the implementation of EU policy or to decent implementation periods. I could go on. There is a very serious concern about the attitude to consultation in the PRA, which would be partially resolved if there were a more definite requirement in the Act not simply generically to consult but to make sure that groups were consulted. I have to say to the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayter and Lady Cohen, that I think that I am persuaded that consumers, too, should be formally recognised within that structure. I hope that the Minister, even if the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, lets him off this afternoon, takes this away and looks at it again over the summer, because I do not believe that the Government have got it right.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
My Lords, I have Amendments 131, 132, 133, 134 and 135 in this group. I certainly support Amendment 130B moved by my noble friend Lord Flight but my amendments go rather further and are rather more prescriptive in their approach. They relate to the attitude, approach and culture of the regulator, which we have been discussing. There has been a lot of hollow laughter about culture in the banking system, which I understand, but the financial services industry covers much more than the banks—it covers the IFA community, the insurance community and Lloyds. I think that in recent years the regulator has moved from a reasonably open, even-handed relationship with its regulated firms to one of much greater risk aversion. Of course, I understand that safeguarding client money and avoiding financial crime are very important indeed, but the regulator seems to have forgotten many chunks of the introduction to FiSMA, which sets out other objectives, requirements and issues that it has to consider in carrying out its regulation. Nowhere has this shift in culture been seen more than in the relationships with the smaller and medium-sized firms. Very often these are firms where innovation and some of the most exciting developments are taking place.
Specifically, I should like to draw to the Minister’s attention three or four things which I hope we can agree are being practised in an undesirable way at present and which are regulatory commercial approaches that henceforward we should try to avoid in the structure.
The first is Section 166 inquiries—the expert person investigations. These were designed to be used rarely but there are now 840 outstanding. A rough estimate of the cost of a Section 166 inquiry in professional fees for the regulated firm is £100,000, although it could be £200,000. Therefore, we are talking of between £84 million and £150 million of costs, and that is without the cost in terms of the management time spent providing the information needed for the professional firm carrying out the inquiry on behalf of the FSA.
This is sub-contracting regulation. There is really no restraint at all on the FSA in undertaking these inquiries. Such an investigation costs it nothing; it simply has to engage a professional firm to carry it out and away it goes. That is without the Section 404 thematic reviews, and without TC4, which are the run-off requirements when a firm is closing down. Of course, closing down a firm requires some very difficult judgments to be made about what you will be able to realise from the assets, the time over which you will be able to realise them and the consequent costs incurred during that period. If you make a series of extremely negative and conservative estimates, then of course you can put a firm in a very difficult position and make it almost impossible for it to carry on.
Last but not least is the position of the SIF—significant influence function—committee. I should like to give a real-life example of this, which I want to use to underpin the detail of my amendments. I have recently resigned as the chairman of a regulated firm. In April 2011 we took on from another regulated firm a new finance director, who came with good references. In July, he was told by the SIF committee that he was not able to take up the role of finance director. I went to the FSA and asked why. It said it could not tell me as there was an investigation and it was confidential. I asked the FSA if it could tell him what he had done. It said it could not do that either as it was confidential. That was June or July 2011. He is still waiting to hear the outcome a year later. He cannot find out what he has been accused of and is in a Kafkaesque situation. This is the sort of culture and risk-averse nature of the situation we now find ourselves in. My amendments are designed to prevent this being carried over into the new structure.
In the regulatory principles to be applied by both regulators in new Section 3B on page 28, I seek to add “operational rules” after “burden or restriction” because it is the unofficial stuff that can be made extremely expensive and difficult. It should cover firms as well as people. In particular, in Amendment 134, after “proportionate” I want to add “reasonable and fair”.
I have just given in some detail—and I apologise for going back to it—the example of the SIF committee. I can see how the regulator could argue that, if you have a person who has been involved in a firm which is under investigation, preventing him operating might be proportionate but to hold him in limbo for 13 months cannot be reasonable or fair. It offends the principles of natural justice.
I hope very much that my noble friend, when he comes to wind up and reply to this important set of amendments, can give me some assurance as to how we are going to make sure that the culture going forward is more even-handed and better than it has been over the past couple of years. It is absolutely vital that the future regulatory architecture enables financial services firms to play an effective role in the economy. To enable this role to be fulfilled, the regulatory regime needs to take an approach that considers whether interventions are proportionate, reasonable or fair.
My set of amendments would address a number of concerns. There would be assessment of business-specific risks—for example, the insurance sector presents very different risks from those of banks and has a very different business model. If the regulators are required to consider whether their approach is reasonable and fair, they should ensure that consideration is given to whether it is appropriate to apply regulations drafted with banks in mind to other industries in the financial services sector, including insurance. Then there is the question of the culture. My noble friend has said many times that the Government wish to avoid the stability of the grave. A requirement to have regard to what is reasonable and fair will help to ensure the regulators take a more measured approach. For example, the PRA has signalled a desire to make greater used of skilled persons and external auditors in its approach to supervision. While you have to recognise that these are important regulatory tools, it is imperative that they are used appropriately and in relation to those firms which represent a significant risk to the PRA’s objectives. This set of amendments is designed to help these considerations.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I have Amendments 144A and 147C in this group. They are in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McFall, and myself. I want to start by saying that I support what my noble friends Lord Flight and Lord Hodgson have said in respect of their amendments.
My amendments are much more modest. They just deal with Schedule 3, which sets up new Schedules 1ZA and 1ZB to FiSMA, which deal with the much more routine aspects of the FCA and the PRA. These little amendments simply add one requirement to the list of things that the FCA and the PRA have to include in their annual reports to the Treasury. That requirement is to include an analysis of the costs and benefits arising from regulation for which the bodies are responsible. It is important that this report is then laid before Parliament so the issue is kept visible.
These amendments come from the Treasury Select Committee’s first report of this Session, as do others in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord McFall. The Treasury Select Committee has received a lot of evidence from the financial services sector about the rising cost of regulation—I have mentioned that once already this afternoon. I know that in particular the non-bank parts of the financial services sector feel that they are paying a price that cannot be justified by reference to the risks related to their own activities, which is why the issue of costs and benefits is particularly important.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, reminded me that this morning I carried out my annual clearing out of documents to be binned or not to be retained. One of those that I reviewed was the document to which he has just referred, the Bank’s announcement in relation to how it would manage the PRA. That document did not go into the bin; it was saved for another day. However, it reminded me of the importance of the issue.
My noble friend Lord Hodgson referred to the number of staff who have left the FSA over the past year and a half. It is a very significant number of people at many levels, and often very senior people. The organisation is trying to live up to this new judgment-led supervisory approach and to cope with major organisational change, as the FSA is split into two organisations. My question to my noble friend on the Front Bench is: what confidence do the Government have that new regulatory organisations will have the staff? I am sure he will say, as the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, anticipated, that this amendment is not necessary. That may be so, but it is important to know from the Minister whether the Government believe that these organisations are ready for the responsibilities that they are to take on.
Lord De Mauley
My Lords, my noble friend’s Amendment 138C would make the FCA and the PRA consider whether their staff are appropriately experienced and endowed with the requisite level of expertise and knowledge to carry out their general functions. That would be inserted into the list of principles of regulation to which both regulators will be required to have regard. Of course, we agree that it is absolutely critical that the new regulators employ the right staff—staff who have the necessary skills and experience to use their informed judgment will be the defining factor in the success of the new regulatory system. Likewise, we agree with the Joint Committee’s assertion that the PRA and FCA will need to attract staff with the appropriate approach and experience. As my noble friend suggests, it is important that staffing decisions are made by the regulators themselves. Specifically, they should be empowered to consider whether they are appropriately staffed in order to meet their statutory objectives.
In that regard, the FSA paper setting out its vision for the FCA’s approach to regulation, published in June 2011, highlighted the importance that the FCA will place on such matters. It says that,
“the FCA will need to retain and attract professional and dedicated staff, equipped with the skills and knowledge to tackle the difficult issues ahead. It will need to be a dynamic and learning organisation, committed to developing individuals within a career that includes management and specialist paths. It will put a premium on flexibility and team-working where resources are allocated flexibly across the organisation”.
There is a similar commitment in the PRA approach to the banking document:
“The PRA will maintain its own in-house specialists including staff with particular expertise in risk management and risk modelling”.
I also understand my noble friend’s concerns about the requisite experience of the European policy-making process. Indeed, engagement with international regulatory bodies will be crucial for the regulators. I confirm, therefore, that I would absolutely expect the regulators both to employ staff with the requisite knowledge of European policy-making and to provide comprehensive training for staff who work in areas where knowledge of this is desirable. However, again, these will rightly be operational matters for the regulators.
My noble friend Lady Noakes asked whether the Government have confidence in the ability of the regulators to find the necessary staff. Yes, we do: we will draw on the best of the staff of the FSA and of the bank cadres and I am confident that, with focused objectives, they will quickly develop deeper expertise in their areas.
Baroness Noakes
Could I have a follow-up to that one? Has the FSA managed to recruit for all the staff it has lost, particularly those it has lost at senior levels over the last 18 months?
Lord De Mauley
My Lords, I cannot answer that here and now, but I will write to my noble friend on that point.
Meanwhile, I assure my noble friend Lord Hodgson that while staffing is not a matter for the Bill—as the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, suggested—we regard it as absolutely key for the regulators themselves to consider. On this understanding, I ask him to withdraw his amendment.
Financial Services Bill
Baroness Noakes Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Viscount Trenchard
My Lords, I also recognise the good intention of the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, in moving this amendment. However, I think that the FCA is best helped to help the consumer by having clear objectives and principles, or matters to which they must have regard in pursuing the objectives. I worry that this is becoming overcomplicated.
I also suggest that new Section 1E(2)(a), which states that the FCA must have regard to,
“the needs of different consumers who use or may use those services, including their need for information that enables them to make informed choices”,
overlaps substantially with the effect of the amendment. Furthermore, I am not sure whether it is a good idea to put in the Bill,
“services which are appropriate to their needs”,
and,
“represent good value for money”.
Those two concepts are not defined and may be interpreted in very different ways by different consumers. Who is to say what represents good value for money? The important thing, which has been much too lacking in recent years, is that we should have complete transparency. However, I would like to hear the Minister’s view on this.
I would also like to ask him whether the words,
“The matters to which the FCA may have regard in considering the effectiveness of competition”,
mean that the FCA is prohibited from having regard to other matters, or is this intended to restrict—or to broaden—the matters to which the FCA can have regard? If the provision is intended to broaden the matters, surely the best way is to leave it as simple as possible so that the FCA can use its own judgment in deciding to which matters it should have regard.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, has made a powerful case for her amendment. I think that it is widely acknowledged that the needs of consumers require greater emphasis in the financial services industry as it moves forward, and I believe that that is why the consumer is being placed at the heart of the FCA. However, I am puzzled that the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, has chosen to put her amendment within the competition objective for the FCA. It seems to me that what she was talking about is quintessentially part of the consumer protection objective, which is in new Section 1C. A number of things are already listed within that consumer protection objective, including,
“the general principle that those providing regulated financial services should be expected to provide consumers with a level of care that is appropriate having regard to the degree of risk involved … and the capabilities of the consumers in question”.
It seems to me that if proper regard was paid to that in the development of the FCA’s policies, that would meet almost all of what the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, seeks to address in her amendment.
Lord Whitty
My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment and much of what has been said about it. I would also like to counter what the noble Lord, Lord Flight, said because the amendment goes much further than providing information to consumers.
Financial Services Bill
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Lord Peston
My Lords, first, I support my noble friend Lord Barnett in his remarks about this Joint Committee of both Houses, about which we had a great row last week and were even divided on. We would certainly like to know when it will be set up and when it will appear in detail in the business statement. Having said that, I have two or three questions.
My noble friend is quite right to use the word “experiment”, but I hope he will agree that the whole Bill is an experiment. We have not had anything like this placed before us in this form, certainly in my quarter of a century here. That does not mean that it is an experiment that should not take place, but it does mean that we must be immensely careful when it comes to implementation. In particular, the one thing that we do not want to do is what I am afraid all Governments do: look at the past and then repeat the errors of the past willy-nilly. This is not a party political point; it is part of the nature of our political system. We need to make absolutely certain that we do not repeat the errors of the past.
One slight point which my noble friend knows I will disagree on is the phrase,
“subject to scrutiny by the Treasury Select Committee”.
I would always want to add “and the Economic Affairs Committee of your Lordships’ House”, but again we have had that argument before, and the cliché “flogging dead horses” is not my stock in trade.
What troubles me much more is that I cannot see how what is said in the Bill does not lead to clashes with the MPC and what it seeks to do. There is an enormous blurred area of who is responsible for what. After all, if one knows any monetary economics, one knows that the MPC’s role is certainly to produce financial stability. That is the whole point of a correct monetary framework, yet there are these other bodies doing the same thing. I know that we went through this again last week and were told that the governor of the Bank—I add the now mandatory remark, “whoever he or she may be”—will be chairing both committees, but it is still a Herculean task for the governor to ensure that two different committees do not have a decision-making process that leads to conflict.
My last question is due to my ignorance of parliamentary procedure. Could the Minister say a bit more about what the phrase “by order” means? Does it mean putting an order before both Houses that is not amendable by us, or not? Apart from that, as I say, my support is strong.
Baroness Noakes
I may be able to help the noble Lord, Lord Peston, with his last question. In two groups’ time, we will be discussing precisely the nature of the procedure that will accompany these new tools. The noble Lord might like to wait until then.
The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon)
I am always grateful to my noble friend or anyone else who wants to take the heat on challenging questions. We will come back to the nature of orders.
On the question of what the experiment is here, the experiment that has failed is that of creating the FSA, and we now need to go back to putting the Bank of England at the heart of matters, which is what this is all about. I rather preferred the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, referring to a “project”, which he did at the end of his speech, rather than an “experiment”. It is indeed a major project.
To dispose of the not entirely relevant question about the Joint Committee on banking ethics and standards, the procedural Motion to set up that committee will be before us very shortly. There is not much more that I can usefully add. I do not think it is directly relevant to these amendments, but I am sure that that Motion will come forward very soon.
Baroness Noakes
“(1A) If the Treasury considers it appropriate to proceed with the making of an order under section 9K, the Treasury may lay before Parliament—
(a) a draft order, and(b) an explanatory document.(1B) The explanatory document laid under subsection (1A) must—
(a) introduce and give reasons for the order,(b) explain why the Treasury considers that the order serves the purpose in section 9K, and(c) be accompanied by a copy of any representations received from the FPC or the Governor.(1C) The Treasury may not act under subsection (1A) before the end of the period of 12 weeks beginning with the day on which the consultation began, unless the order is made in accordance with section 9K(2)(b).
(1D) Subject as follows, if after the expiry of the 40-day period the draft order laid under subsection (1A) is approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament, the Minister may make an order in the terms of the draft order.
(1E) The procedure in subsections (1F) to (1J) shall apply to the draft order instead of the procedure in subsection (1D) if—
(a) either House of Parliament so resolves within the 30-day period, or(b) a committee of either House charged with reporting on the draft order so recommends within the 30-day period and the House to which the recommendation is made does not by resolution reject the recommendation within the period.(1F) The Minister must have regard to—
(a) any representations,(b) any resolution of either House of Parliament, and(c) any recommendation of a committee of either House of Parliament charged with reporting on the draft order, made during the 60-day period with regard to the draft order.(1G) If after the expiry of the 60-day period the draft order is approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament, the Minister may make an order in the terms of the draft order.
(1H) If after the expiry of the 60-day period the Minister wishes to proceed with the draft order but with the material changes, the Minister may lay before Parliament—
(a) a revised draft order, and(b) a statement giving a summary of the changes proposed.(1J) If the revised draft order is approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament, the Minister may make an order in the terms of the revised draft order.
(1K) For the purposes of this section, an order is made in the terms of a draft order or revised draft order if it contains no material changes to its provisions.
(1L) In this section, references to the “30-day”, “40-day” and “60-day” periods in relation to any draft order are to the periods of 30, 40 and 60 days beginning with the day on which the draft order was laid before Parliament.
(1M) For the purposes of subsection (1L), no account is to be taken of any time during which Parliament is dissolved or prorogued or during which either House is adjourned for more than four days.”
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord McFall, is unable to be with us this afternoon because he is en route to receiving an honorary degree tomorrow, which I am sure the Committee will agree is well deserved.
This is another amendment that the noble Lord, Lord McFall, and I have tabled to ensure that the issues covered in the first report in this Session of the Treasury Select Committee in another place are properly debated. I am pleased to see that the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, has added his name to the amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, has already emphasised the importance of the macroprudential tools which are covered by new Sections 9G to 9M. I am sure that the thrust behind these new sections will command general support, but the detail of the new tools must be approached with very great care. My noble friend does not like the term “experiment”, but most of us think that if something looks like an experiment and sounds like an experiment, it is an experiment. We cannot get away from the fact that, because these macroprudential tools have not been used before in this country, nor is there much international experience to go by, we are talking about something very new which should receive very considerable scrutiny. Not even the Bank of England claims a monopoly of wisdom on what these macro- prudential matters should be.
This experimental phase will run for some time. The measures that are initially specified will almost certainly vary over time, as the focus of risks to financial stability changes and as experience is gained of working with the measures. We have something that is very new and, as the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, has also pointed out, these are very powerful tools to be placed into the hands of the FPC. We have already seen the FPC’s first shot at what it believes those macroprudential tools should be. It has suggested a countercyclical capital buffer, sectoral capital requirements and a leverage ratio. At that time the FPC said that some other measures, such as loan-to-value ratios and loan-to-income ratios, would need public support before they were introduced. I would like to suggest that all the potential measures need public support and therefore there has to be proper debate before it would be wise to introduce them. The Government have, correctly, decided that the new measures cannot simply be set by the FPC or the Bank. They have to be prescribed by the Treasury by order, and that order is subject to parliamentary approval. That meets the point which troubled the noble Lord, Lord Peston, a little while ago.
So far, so good. The measures are to be initially specified by the Treasury, not left to the Bank and the FPC, and they have to be approved by Parliament. The problem is that new Section 9M prescribes the draft affirmative procedure. This procedure is, of course, better than the ordinary affirmative procedure which is, in turn, better than the negative procedure. However, none of these procedures is, in truth, more than a rubber stamp. Oppositions know this only too well, but that knowledge seems somehow to evaporate when they find themselves on the government Benches. Some of us still remember.
The importance of the macroprudential measures lies not in their technical specification and potential impact on financial stability, though those are very important issues. The equally important issues are the consequences of using the measures and their impact on the wider economy. These matters need proper scrutiny and debate both in Parliament and, as we discussed earlier, outside. Once the FPC has been granted these measures they will be able to use them without any further parliamentary intervention. The price for getting these wrong could be very high and so Parliament needs to be very sure that it understands the potential impact of the powers and that it has an opportunity to amend or circumscribe them if that is appropriate. The only way we can get a proper debate in these terms is through the use of the super-affirmative procedure, and that is what the amendment proposes.
The Treasury Select Committee in another place believes that the super-affirmative procedure is appropriate and fully in accordance with Erskine May, which describes the procedure as used,”
“in enactments where an exceptionally high degree of scrutiny is appropriate”.
It is inescapable that these measures fall into that category. It is generally the case that Governments never start out thinking that the super-affirmative procedure is the right one. However, the will of Parliament does sometimes prevail over the Executive in this area.
The Government recently accepted in the Public Bodies Act 2011 that their powers to wind up such hugely important bodies as the Home Grown Timber Advisory Committee or the Railway Heritage Committee should be subject to the super-affirmative procedure, but it appears that they have yet to be convinced that granting these massive new powers to the FPC is of that importance. It is a no-brainer that the super-affirmative procedure should be used and I hope that my noble friend will be prepared to accept that that is the case.
I am aware that the Delegated Powers Committee, which I hold in the highest regard, has not raised objections to the affirmative procedure in the Bill. That is interesting but not conclusive. The final arbiter on these matters is Parliament. The Delegated Powers Committee acts as an early warning system of problems for Parliament to address. The committee does not act on behalf of Parliament to approve particular procedures.
In responding to the Treasury Select Committee, the Government have raised concerns about timing and, in particular, the impact of recesses. This is a red herring. We are not generally dealing with matters which need to be introduced immediately. However, if the FPC woke up one morning with an urgent need to acquire a new macroprudential tool, one’s first reaction would be that that was surprising. However, if that were genuinely the case and the Treasury were committed, my Amendment 62 does not remove the ability to act with urgency. The powers set out in new Section 9M for the made affirmative procedure can be used when the Treasury is convinced of the urgency of the matter.
When the Governor of the Bank of England came to talk to a number of us last week, he rightly emphasised the accountability of the Bank and the FPC to Parliament. Accountability is an ex post concept: Parliament also has to have the ability to be involved fully ex ante in the formulation of important matters such as the macroprudential measures, and the super-affirmative procedure is the only proper way to proceed. I beg to move.
Lord Northbrook
My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Noakes in her Amendment 162. Like my noble friend, I believe that there should be stronger parliamentary scrutiny of the macroprudential tools.
While I accept that there must be flexibility to grant the FPC new tools quickly in rare and urgent circumstances, I still agree with the Treasury Select Committee’s report on the accountability of the Bank of England. As the legislation stands, approval by the House of Commons requires only a 90-minute debate in a general committee and a decision without debate in the House. Like the Select Committee, I recommend that the Government amend the draft legislation to require debates on orders prescribing macroprudential measures to be held on the Floor of the House and not be subject to the 90-minute restriction. The House would benefit from prior scrutiny of such orders by the committee. This view is supported by the Joint Committee on the draft Financial Services Bill, which agrees that there should be a system of enhanced parliamentary scrutiny of these important tools. Like my noble friend Lady Noakes, I was disappointed. Although I respect enormously the Delegated Powers Committee, I felt that its arguments for not wishing this were not as substantial as I would have liked.
Baroness Kramer
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Peston, for giving way on that because I am again working in murky waters here. The Minister may correct me but I think the example that he referred to was of a leverage ratio, in which the assets had to be weighted in some way for their riskiness or toxicity. There would be an argument for using those weights within a leveraged ratio, would there not? You can use risk weights on anything, I say, having used them. However, that is not the kind of detail we would want to get into on the Floor of this House. My argument is that it would become so highly technical. If there is an amending capacity, that is exactly where we will take ourselves—and without a series of blackboards and three academics to lead us through it, I am not sure we could manage, frankly.
Baroness Noakes
Perhaps I might intervene on whether there is the power to amend or not. Debating under super-affirmative procedure is not like considering a Bill. There are no amendments tabled and voted on but there is the ability of either House to pass a resolution saying what it thinks. Much as the noble Lord, Lord Peston, articulated, either House would be able to consider whether it thought that the tools were up to the job. More importantly, as I tried to explain in my opening remarks, Parliament could consider the potential impact of using those tools and say to the Government whether it thought the tools appropriate in the context of the wider impact, not simply the narrow impact, on the regulation of financial institutions. The super-affirmative procedure does not allow a specific amendment process but it allows Parliament to say, “Government, we think you have got this wrong”. It is in contradistinction to any of the other procedures where we have the nuclear option: we either accept the order or we do not accept it. It is a more deliberative and amenable process, in particular for considering these very new tools which are being talked about. I hope that helps the Committee.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, this has been a helpful additional go-round of the tracks because it illustrates, I suggest, that with the procedures already in the Bill and the commitment that my right honourable friend the Chancellor has made to debate the toolkit on the Floor in another place—the same could apply here, clearly, subject to the usual channels agreeing it—we have in substance exactly what my noble friend wants to achieve. We have that without locking ourselves into the difficulty that goes with the 124 days, plus Recess time, which we can get locked into in cases that may be either minor ones where none of this is warranted or, more particularly, ones that started off not being urgent but then became more so. Having had this useful go-round and with the reassurance I have given of what the Chancellor has committed to, I ask my noble friend if she will withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, the Minister has not appreciated the difference between the affirmative procedure and the super-affirmative procedure. Simply having a debate can have only one outcome, of approving or not approving the order, and that is the fundamental flaw. It is the thing that we all learn in opposition and that all Governments forget. Whether or not additional time is allowed or whether a different procedure is adopted in the other place may well improve the quality of debate but it cannot change its outcome. In your Lordships’ House, it is always open to us to have a debate on a draft order on the Floor of the House by the simple mechanism of any noble Lord tabling some kind of Motion disagreeing with it. That will automatically bring it into the Chamber. That is not the problem; the issue is the outcome.
The super-affirmative procedure is a more deliberative procedure; it allows views to be expressed without going so far as to say, “We are not having it”—the outcome of which is usually described as very harmful. That is why the House has a general practice of not voting orders down, because it is such a dangerous thing to do. That is why this super-affirmative procedure gives each House of Parliament more opportunity to debate all the issues contained within the order. It may be that we need a greater range of ways of handling this; however, all the methods of handling an order other than the super-affirmative can allow only acceptance or rejection of the whole. That is a difficult thing for the House to do—to put itself in the position of disagreeing with the whole.
The other issue is delay, although I do not see an issue here. The issue is about whether we take the right amount of time to get the thing right. The Government have available in the Bill, unaffected by my amendment, the ability to put something through on an urgent basis. Nobody would dream of circumscribing that power, because it may well be necessary. Even in the middle of the process to get a new measure through, if it was suddenly decided that it was so important that it had to come in urgently, the Government could default to that procedure. As I said earlier, the timing issue is therefore a red herring. The issue is about whether government can give the proper amount of time and consideration to these important new measures.
I will consider carefully what my noble friend has said, but my first instincts are that he has not said enough to convince me that the super-affirmative procedure is not the appropriate procedure for these new measures. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, Amendment 96A stands in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Eatwell. Despite the increasing importance and powers of the new European Systemic Risk Board and its three ESAs—including, on occasion, the power to override our own regulators—the Bill’s new architecture does not map with theirs. So while Europe cuts by area—with a committee for banking, one for securities and markets and one for insurance and occupational pensions—the Bill divides between prudential and conduct. As AXA warns,
“There is a significant danger that the new structure will diminish the UK’s capacity to influence European regulators as”,
our,
“new ... bodies will be organised along different lines to the European Supervisory Authorities”.
London First, which represents over 200 of London’s leading employers, including many in the financial world, expresses similar concerns about the new framework not mapping onto that of Europe. While it welcomes the establishment of an international co-ordinating committee, it remains worried about the committee’s effectiveness unless it is appropriately resourced and staffed.
We have ceded powers to the EU on many areas of financial services regulation, but there are areas where we may want to retain powers; for example, to impose higher capital requirements on banks. There are also areas for future negotiation where it is imperative that we give leadership and have a good negotiating stance and team in order to have a good outcome. That depends on good preparation within domestic regulators—and that will require considerable co-ordination, which we will rely on a committee to produce.
Our own European Union Committee warned about the mismatch between our new structure and that of the ESAs last July, but the Government did not appear to take much heed of the potential problem. Perhaps the Government are right, and whichever way one cuts and divides, there will not be a brilliant fit. However, given the Government’s commitment to,
“ensuring that the UK authorities … take a leadership role in the ESAs”,
and given the importance of Europe in regulating, in standard setting and in influencing our financial regulators, it might be wise to have a built-in review to check whether we have got it as good as it could be, and to give this House and the other place a chance to see whether any adjustments are called for in the light of experience.
The Governor of the Bank of England has said that the new architecture is,
“a bit by way of an experiment”.
He went on to say that we,
“need to experiment and see how it evolves”
in regard to the whole schema, which he thought should be revisited after five years. In the case of our relations with the European bodies, however, we cannot wait that long. Decisions are being taken even as we meet.
These overlaps—or underlaps—are not theoretical. We know that Michel Barnier, the EU Commissioner overseeing financial services, is to amend EU market abuse rules in the light of the LIBOR scandal. Much of this work will overlap with the probe led by Martin Wheatley of the FCA which is examining almost the same issues. While the EU initiative is likely to complement Mr Wheatley’s conclusions on whether to apply criminal penalties to the manipulation of LIBOR or any other indices, there is potential for a clash over whether to regulate this or other indices.
Clear, focused input into EU thinking is therefore essential for the UK markets. We must ensure that we have the processes and structures right to make sure that those decisions suit our needs. This amendment seeks the information needed to help us assess what adjustments might have to be made to ensure that the decisions taken both here and in Europe really are as good as they can be. I beg to move.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I completely take the main thrust of the noble Baroness’s amendment, which is that the lack of mapping of our structure onto the European regulatory structure potentially creates problems. We have certainly heard from bodies in the City that they also are concerned that the particular issues that arise in their areas might not be well represented. There is a particular concern about the FCA and ESMA, given the FCA’s inevitable consumer centre-of-gravity and the perceived problem of issues relating to proper representation of the markets in Europe. So I completely buy the need to keep this under review. I question, however, whether the Bank of England is the right body to do that. If we need to hard-bake some kind of review process into the Bill, the review ought to be done by the Treasury, because it is the Treasury that could do something about it if it is not working well.
Baroness Noakes
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I am standing in again for the noble Lord, Lord McFall, in respect of the amendments that are in our joint names. In moving Amendment 101ZD, I shall speak also to Amendments 101B and 118B, which continue on from the concerns of the Treasury Select Committee in another place as expressed in its first report in this Session.
These amendments concern the FCA’s strategic objective, which was the subject of debate on our first day in Committee when, unfortunately, I was not able to be here. The effect of the amendments is to remove the strategic objective set out for the FCA and leave it with its so-called “operational objectives”. The FCA would then have simply objectives.
The FCA’s objectives have been amended quite considerably since they first saw the light of day in a draft nearly two years ago, but it seems to have been a case of two steps forward and one step back. The Treasury Select Committee believes that the Government should aim at simplicity and clarity when framing statutory objectives and that the existence of a separate strategic objective adds confusion. When the Government responded to the Treasury Select Committee’s earlier recommendation in this regard, they said both that the strategic objective,
“has a valuable role in supplementing the operational objectives”,
and that,
“it operates as a check and balance on the operational objectives”.
As the Treasury Select Committee has noted, that is rather contradictory and the Government appear confused. It is difficult to disagree with that conclusion.
The Government also said that the strategic objective acted as a mission statement for the FCA. The Minister repeated that two weeks ago when he responded to the group of amendments led by Amendment 42. The Treasury Select Committee’s view, as set out in paragraph 4 of the 28th report of the 2010-12 Session, is that:
“A ‘mission statement’ has no place in primary legislation. At best”,
it,
“adds nothing. It may be harmful. Multiple tiers of objective risk adding to complexity and diffusing the focus within the FCA”.
Under new Section 1A, the FCA has not only this mission statement-cum-strategic objective but also has three operational objectives, a requirement to promote competition in the interests of consumers, two “have regards” and four functions. As the Treasury Select Committee has pointed out, this really is not clear and simple. I might have understood why the Government had used this contorted formulation if it had been repeated for the PRA or the FPC. However, the Bill does not take this multiple-levels-of-objective route for those bodies, nor was it the route taken for the FSA under FiSMA. I regard it as an unusual formulation for bodies created by statute.
The Minister said last week that there were precedents for this framework but he did not cite them. Perhaps he will do so today so that we can judge whether they are good precedents. The noble Lord also did not explain why this formula is good for the FCA but not for the other bodies in the new financial stability universe. Again, perhaps he will do so today.
When the Minister replies, can he also explain what,
“so far as is reasonably possible”,
means in the opening words to new Section 1B(1)? Surely, the FCA should always act in accordance with its objectives, strategic or otherwise. What do the words mean? How could the FCA possibly act in a way that was not compatible with its objectives? I do not have a specific amendment on this point for Committee and the drafting of the Bill does not permit any sensible stand part debates, but I hope that the Minister can explain this when he responds. I beg to move.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, in giving those four examples the noble Lord knows very well that the first and fourth of his examples very much fit the bill, and the second and third very much do not. This is all about markets that work essentially to assist the end user of those markets. It has nothing within it to do with working well for a trader or something superficial that all looks smooth on the surface but does not provide the end result of liquidity, price discovery or choice for consumers. The noble Lord knows very well that it would be impossible within the compass of such a piece of legislation to try to define the well working of a market, but the Bill spells out the main ways in which the FCA will seek to promote the well functioning of markets—those operational objectives that I touched on.
Those operational objectives give clues and pointers to the FCA. It will be for the FCA’s board to consider if and when it needs to consider these questions of well functioning markets. I believe that it will be well equipped with its expertise to consider market by market what well functioning means. I see absolutely no problem with this. However, there needs to be something that brings together the FCA’s very diverse and individual functions, roles and responsibilities.
That relates to one of the questions asked by my noble friend Lady Noakes, who asked why the FPC and the PRA do not have strategic objectives. It is precisely because they have much more narrowly focused objectives that they do not need the overall strategic objectives that the FCA needs because of the breadth of its responsibilities. I agree with my noble friend and others that we have not provided this strategic objective for the FCA on some whim. We have not put it in for the FPC and the PRA because it is not necessary. It is precisely because of the diversity and the potentially conflicting nature of the objectives of the other bodies that we believe it is right to have it in the case of the FCA.
By the same logic, the strategic objective will act as a check and balance. If, say, the FCA seeks to advance its consumer protection objective by placing detailed requirements on firms, we want it always to ask itself whether what it is doing contributes to the ultimate end goal of ensuring that markets function well. What functioning well means will be determined with some commonality across all markets, but some of it will be market-specific, particularly depending on whether it is a consumer or a wholesale market. This is no afterthought. It reflects the Government’s desire to enshrine regulation which seeks to ensure that markets can do their job.
My noble friend also asked a question about how the FCA could act in a way that was not compatible with its objectives. There are examples which we need to take into account, one of which might be a short-selling ban which is, arguably, in the interests of end-consumers but is a measure which is not normally thought to be compatible with a well functioning market.
Baroness Noakes
I thank my noble friend for that example, in which a short-selling ban could be introduced because it was compatible with one of the operational objectives yet was incompatible with the strategic objective. What, then, is the point of having the strategic objective sitting in this Bill?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I have explained why a strategic objective is necessary in order to tie together the very disparate responsibilities of the FCA. Nevertheless, in answer to my noble friend’s question about the “in as far as reasonably possible” carve-out, I give her an example of why there will be circumstances where those words are necessary. It is entirely compatible with the need for the general, overarching statement to admit and allow for the possibility that there will occasionally be instances of conflict with that overarching objective. We have done that in the Bill and this does not in any way invalidate it.
I turn briefly to Amendment 101D in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell. This seeks to extend the FCA’s strategic objective to ensure that markets function in the best interests of society as a whole. Consistent with what I have already said about the well functioning of markets, I support the sentiment underpinning the amendment. We want markets which serve the wider economy, underpin growth and contribute to a more prosperous society as a whole. We are not talking about markets that are working exclusively for those who are operating in them. This sentiment is very much part of what drives this whole programme of financial services reform.
Having said that, I am conscious about the amendment for two reasons. First, it is not the FCA’s job to decide what is ultimately in the best interests of society. The FCA is being set up as a focused, tough and proactive conduct-of-business regulator. If its new style of conduct regulation contributes to ensuring that the financial sector serves the wider economy, that is good and what we want to see. However, I suggest that deciding what benefits society as a whole cannot be the role of a financial services regulator.
Secondly, and linked to that, is an important question of expectations. The FCA will have some important powers but it is questionable whether we could argue that it has all the powers to deliver a market that benefits all of society all of the time.
There are difficult judgments to be made here, not least because there will always be trade-offs between policy choices. It is my strong belief that these societal choices are, ultimately, for the governor and not the regulator. I cannot, therefore, support Amendment 101D. I may be proved wrong in just a moment, but I sense that I have not completely won over my noble friend—no, I will not be proved wrong. However, she is always very reasonable about these things and she recognises the very considerable way that the Government have moved on the FCA’s strategic objective. I ask her to withdraw her amendment.
Lord Sassoon
I said the Government. I hope he would agree that it was for the Government, not the governor. Good.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I am glad that my noble friend has cleared that up because I heard him say “governor” too. Perhaps there was a small slip, but Hansard will doubtless make sure that what he intended to say is recorded as having been said.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, for his support for my amendments and I agree with him that the current drafting is not much more than a vacuous statement. The Minister said that this is going to be an overarching goal, that it is going to be a check and balance but the first example he gave me, of short-selling, means that it can be ignored. This seems to be some form of window dressing. It is trying to appear that the Government agree with as many people as possible. It probably has no meaning whatever and it is therefore possibly something that we do not need to get overexcited about. It certainly does not add to clarity in the Bill. I shall think further on what my noble friend has said before we return to this on Report. For now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Financial Services Bill
Baroness Noakes Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Flight
My Lords, I am extremely happy with the domestic competitive objective of the FCA, where it is straightforward that a healthy competitive market is clearly in the interests of consumers. My amendment relates to international competitiveness. I well appreciate that the Treasury is sensitive to that being linked to the concept of easy and relaxed regulation which is being partly blamed for the problems that have occurred. This is why my amendment is in a negative form, reading “does not harm” competition rather than “actively promotes international competitiveness”.
In the context of this Bill the FCA is perceived primarily as looking after the interests of consumers, but it continues from the FSA to regulate in a wide range of territories. The balance sheets of life insurance companies and overall banking supervision go to the Bank of England. Left with the FCA is the investment management industry, retail and institutional. I should declare my interests, as in the register, in a number of investment management companies. What makes that industry stay and succeed in the UK is a mixture of a competitive tax regime, good regulation and a good supply of able people. I cast my mind back 30 years. On a largely fiscal issue I pleaded with the Treasury to enable the UK to compete with Luxembourg, but this did not happen for 20 years and more. As a result a huge investment management industry grew up in Luxembourg which London could easily have had. For institutional business in the various areas which the FCA regulates, it is important that it is at least mindful not to create situations that make the UK less competitive than it need be. There is a warning for the investment management industry that partly for fiscal reasons there has been an exodus from the UK over the past year or so by about 30% of the hedge fund industry and of other more straightforward investment management operations.
This is a practical matter. There is nothing to be ashamed of in having a requirement that what the FCA does should not harm the competitive position of the UK in the world at large. I beg to move.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I have two Amendments in this group, Amendment 104, which is in my name, and Amendment 139A, which stands in my name and in the names of the noble Lord, Lord McFall of Alcluith, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Cohen and Lady Kramer. Therefore, Amendment 139A has a pretty solid set of supporters. I shall come to that amendment in due course.
In different ways, both these amendments and the others in this group address the position of the UK’s financial services sector. This is a difficult time to be defending the financial services sector in the UK because it is far easier to be in attack mode, as we have seen in both Houses of Parliament and in the media. I thought long and hard about whether it would be appropriate to speak to these amendments at this time, but whatever the current difficulties, which are huge for the banking sector and individual institutions within it—I remind the Committee that I am a director of the Royal Bank of Scotland—we need to be dispassionate about this legislation. We cannot solve all the problems of the sector in this Bill and, thankfully, another Bill will be coming along soon if we need to respond in legislative terms to the latest issues. However, this Bill could, inadvertently or otherwise, damage the broader financial services sector, which is and has been a major contributor to the UK economy. We have a duty to ensure that when this Bill leaves your Lordships’ House we have taken a balanced view of the risks and threats to the UK and have responded in a measured way.
I will start with Amendment 104A. It is very similar to Amendment 101A which my noble friend Lord Flight has already moved. My noble friend’s amendment places lack of harm to the competitiveness of the UK’s financial services sector as a general duty in new Section 1B. My Amendment 104A adds to subsection (5) of new Section 1B a “have regard” item in respect of the international competitiveness of the financial services sector. My amendment merely reinstates the law as it currently applies to the FSA and makes the FCA have regard to the desirability of maintaining the international competitiveness of the UK.
My concern has been that the loss of the FSA’s specific duty to have regard to international competitiveness may be taken as a green light to have no regard whatever to the issue. That would be a mistake for the UK. I do not need to remind noble Lords of the size of the financial services sector. It amounts to very much more than the global banks and it is important for employment, tax revenues and its contribution to GDP.
At Second Reading my noble friend said that the Government’s view was that having high standards of regulation was all that was necessary to establish,
“the attractiveness and competitiveness of London”.—[Official Report, 11/6/12; col. 1262.]
I hope that he meant more than London because the financial services sector is important to many parts of the UK and is not confined to London. More importantly, high standards of regulation can never be enough on their own. We can have the highest possible standards, but they could be operated in such a way that they actually drive business away. There is a very real danger that in response to the financial crisis and more recent revelations the regulatory pendulum will swing to a place which, to use the phrase of my right honourable friend the Chancellor, achieves the “stability of the graveyard”. If there is no reference in this legislation to the wider context of the financial services sector, there is a very big risk that it will be ignored entirely, and that is a risk which I suggest that we ought not to take with this legislation.
I should say that I tabled Amendment 104A in respect of the FCA but did not table a similar amendment in respect of the PRA. At that point, my primary focus was on the fact that the FCA’s objectives are very consumer-focused. That is clear from the Bill and is also clear from what Mr Wheatley, the chief executive designate, has said in public. However, the FCA has a very broad scope in wholesale financial markets, including the recognised exchanges, where issues go way beyond consumer protection in a narrow sense. Wholesale markets are important, both internationally and as part of the infrastructure which supports the financing of British business. There may be other ways of ensuring that the FCA does not forget the wider picture, but my amendment is just one way of achieving it.
I should probably have tabled a similar amendment in respect of the PRA. The two bodies have different functions but they both have the capacity to do harm or good to our financial services sector. I am therefore supportive of Amendment 129 tabled by my noble friend Lord Flight.
Both the PRA and the FCA should have something about the success of the financial services sector hardwired into their framework, so I have also tabled Amendment 139A, which was suggested by the London Stock Exchange. Amendment 139A is slightly different. It amends the regulatory principles, which will apply to both the FCA and the PRA through new Section 3B of FiSMA. Under subsection (1)(b) of new Section 3B, the regulatory principles include the principle of proportionality—that is, that burdens should be proportionate to costs. I am sure that we will look at this in more detail later in our Committee, but for present purposes my amendment states that in considering benefits and burdens, the regulators should consider,
“the capacity of the financial sector to contribute to the growth of the United Kingdom economy in the medium or long term”.
The point is that regulators need to think about the impacts of their regulatory actions in the broader context of the financial services sector and its impact on the UK economy. There could be direct impacts, as in the direct contribution of the sector to GDP or employment; or there could be indirect impacts; for example, through the ability of the financial services sector to support the real economy.
I am not wedded to the precise formulation of this amendment, or indeed the other amendment in my name, but I would simply note that it is drawn from wording that applies to the way in which the FPC is required to go about its business as set out in new Section 9C(4) under Clause 2 of the Bill.
When my noble friend the Minister wrote to noble Lords after Second Reading on the issue of proportionality, he urged us to examine the FSA’s compatibility statements, which are used to evaluate proportionality. My noble friend misses the point, which is that the FSA currently has the “have regard” obligation in respect of international competitiveness and so of course it includes the financial sector’s position in the compatibility statements. If we take the “have regard” out of the legislation or indeed any other similar reference to the wider context, it will follow, as night follows day, that such issues will drop out of the compatibility statements. We cannot assume that these issues will remain anywhere in the minds of the regulators.
The substance of these amendments is crucially important and much more important than the exact form of the amendments in this group. I hope that my noble friend will give them serious consideration.
Baroness Cohen of Pimlico
I support Amendment 139A, also tabled in my name, along with the noble Baronesses, Lady Noakes and Lady Kramer, and my noble friend Lord McFall, who is not in his usual place. I remind the House that I am a director of the London Stock Exchange. The words are carefully chosen, and I would not disagree radically with the other amendments proposed. I believe that we are all seeking a regulatory regime, which, while preserving stability, leaves room for one of our most successful industries to grow and prosper. It can only do that if regulators are able, as the amendment suggests, to include consideration of the capacity of the financial sector to contribute to the growth of the United Kingdom’s economy in the medium or long term. It remains vital—even in hard times like this, when much of our financial services industry is under criticism —not to forget the long term and not to handicap the regulator, enabling the industry to grow as it should while retaining stability.
Financial Services Bill
Baroness Noakes Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Eatwell
My Lords, this is another of those bran-tubs full of amendments, to jump us around various aspects of the functions of the FPC as set out on pages 5 and 6 of the Bill. Let us deal first with Amendment 42. I do not know whether this is a slip in drafting—although I know those never occur in the Treasury—but with respect to the need to understand or support the objectives of the FCA, the strategic objective of the FCA is left out. Since the FCA very emphatically has both operational and strategic objectives, it is interesting to know why the FPC does not have to avoid prejudicing the strategic objective of the FCA. According to this drafting, the FPC can readily prejudice the strategic objective that markets should function well. That is a mystery. We are going to have the FPC being able to ensure by its measures that markets do not function well. I think if it got up to that, it would rapidly get short shrift from the Treasury and, indeed, from Parliament, so I presume that this is just a slip and that the strategic objective of the FCA will be added to the operational objectives.
In Amendment 47, here the issue is knowledge collection for the FPC, in the sense that it is important that the FPC has knowledge of levels of leverage, as we discussed earlier this afternoon. Knowing levels of leverage is a vital part of systemic risk analysis so the amendment ensures that the FPC will have access to that information, either from the FCA or from the PRA, divulging levels of leverage as defined clearly in the Basel III agreement. You could take other definitions but the Basel III agreement is a perfectly reasonable definition of leverage and that is why my noble friend and I have used it here.
Amendment 51 is a probing amendment, tabled because I did not understand the issue of a “publication”, as referred to in new Section 9G(10) of the Bank of England Act 1998. Describing directions issued by the FPC, it says:
“The direction may refer to a publication issued by the FCA, the PRA, another body in the United Kingdom”—
so any other body, such as my local sports club—
“or an international organisation, as the publication has effect from time to time”.
I am sure that “publication” in this sense must be a term of art and I am missing something. I would be grateful if the noble Lord could elucidate the issue both of what a publication is in this context and what is “another body” in the UK. Does it include my local sports club, and if not, why not, since it is another body in the UK?
Amendment 53 is one of the standard openness amendments, which have been encouraged by the Treasury Select Committee in another place, requiring the chairman of the Treasury Select Committee to be informed and given reasons if a copy of a report on a direction is not laid before Parliament. A persistent problem that we are going to face in the workings of the FPC is that it is going to be using powers that have traditionally been those of the Executive or of Parliament. There is therefore always going to be this tension of accountability between the FPC and the Executive and Parliament until, after a few years, the process has settled down, we hope. In these circumstances, it seems important that if for some reason a report on a direction is not to be laid before Parliament, the chairman of the Treasury Select Committee should be informed and given reasons.
Amendment 64 is rather more important, particularly in respect of some of the discussions we have had over the last few days, including this afternoon, and relates to the definition of “regulated persons” and the scope of exemptions. We know from the whole LIBOR debacle that one of the problems was that this particular market did not come within the scope of regulation. I am sure the FPC would have been quick off the mark last March, when the Treasury first knew, or presumably even earlier when the FSA knew what was going on, and would have included the setting of benchmark prices within the definition of regulated persons or dealt with it under the scope of exemptions. The recommendations that the FPC should make on the scope of financial regulation are enormously important and it is vital that the FPC has the powers to keep these matters under review. Amendment 64 is, if anything, the most important amendment in this whole group. We have to give the FPC the power to make recommendations with respect to the scope of regulation as it affects financial stability and systemic risk.
Amendment 65, which applies to page 9, line 34, is one of these amendments to which I have already referred where the committee is given discretion over its own action, even though the action seems to be firmly defined in the particular new subsection of the Bill, which reads:
“The Committee may make a recommendation under subsection (2)(e)”—
with respect to additional persons who may be required by the PRA to provide information, so this is very important indeed—
“only if it considers that the exercise by the Treasury of their power to make an order under section 165A(2)(d) of FSMA 2000 in the manner proposed is desirable”.
It is only “if it considers” that. Why should it be its consideration that limits whether it makes a recommendation? Either this is just trivial—in other words it would not have acted if it had not thought it should act—or this is limiting the scope of any legitimate limitation on the recommendations that the committee might make. If we took out the phrase “it considers that”, it would read “The Committee may make a recommendation under subsection (2)(e) only if the exercise by the Treasury of their power to make an order under section 165A(2)(d) of FSMA 2000 in the manner proposed is desirable”.
There the test is the desirability of the Treasury’s action, whereas at the moment the test is whether “it considers that” it is a desirable action. How do we want the test to be posed? Should the test be posed that the committee decides to act, or that there is an objective consideration of the desirability of the action under consideration?
Amendment 88 is thrown into this group for reasons which are not entirely obvious, but I will speak to it because again it is a straightforward openness amendment requiring that the chair of the Treasury Committee be informed and given reasons should information concerning a direction not be published.
These amendments are all to do with the very important activity of directions and recommendations by the Financial Policy Committee. We have the need for information derived through directions and the openness issues, which are hugely important. The most important, particularly in the light of what we have seen over the last couple of days, is the question about the scope of financial regulation and the recommendations that the FPC may make about that scope as set out in Amendment 64.
To go back to the beginning of this bran tub-list, let us deal with Amendment 42. I simply want to ask the noble Lord why the FPC can actually, if it wishes, endanger the FCA’s pursuit of its strategic objective of having markets function well. I beg to move.
Baroness Noakes
May I clarify one item with the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell? He said in relation to Amendment 64 that the important thing was the definition of regulated persons and that that would have been necessary to ensure that the events in relation to LIBOR were kept under review. Is it not the definition of regulated activities rather than regulated persons that would have been relevant in that instance? That is to say, the activities were already being carried out by regulated persons but they were not regulated activities.
Lord Eatwell
The noble Baroness has made a very interesting point. I have forgotten the precise names, but you have a person who submits the information, and a person who receives it and then has the responsibility of transmitting that received information into the LIBOR setting. That is the person I have in mind.
Baroness Noakes
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, in moving Amendment 42A, I shall also speak to Amendment 62A in this group. These are probing amendments. Amendment 42A deletes line 38, on page 5. New Section 9F of the Bank of England Act 1998 sets up the functions of the FPC, and subsection (1)(c) creates the function of making recommendations. Amendment 42A deletes this function.
Amendment 62A deletes a lot of lines, but in practice deletes the whole of new Sections 9N to 9Q, inclusive, which detail the functions created by new Section 9F. The purpose of tabling these amendments is to probe why the FPC needs the power to make recommendations, and what the legal significance of this function is in practice.
When I first saw the Bill, I was mystified by the need to create a statutory power to make recommendations. I was not familiar with that being a requirement, so I did a little research. I seemed to find that this statutory power of recommendation-making is a relatively new phenomenon in legislation, with similar provisions in a handful of laws, all of which have been created since the Government came to power in 2010. I am beginning to think that this might be one of those constitutional innovations for which we have to thank our colleagues on the Liberal Democrat Benches, although I may be wrong on that.
The Minister wrote to noble Lords with an interest in this Bill yesterday, following the first Committee day, which I was unable to attend. In the letter he said that the Treasury has a common law power of recommendation, but that bodies created by statute need a specific power. I find that pretty odd, given that bodies created before 2010 managed perfectly well without a statutory power of making recommendations. Indeed, the Bank of England has managed perfectly well for over 300 years without any kind of power to make recommendations.
It may be just a matter of legislative fashion. One has to go with the times. The main purpose of my amendment is to probe what is meant in practice by the ability to make recommendations.
New Section 9N allows the FPC to make recommendations within the Bank. I found it difficult to get my head around making recommendations within the Bank. The FPC is a committee of the Bank’s court, and that is under Section 9B. Under new Section 9N, this committee can tell the corporate body in which it is housed what it thinks that body should do. What is the purpose of that? More to the point, what is the effect? The Bank, which acts through its court, fulfils its own function, and as far as I can see, those functions do not include paying any particular attention to what one of its committees says. I do not believe that the functions of the Bank or its court are changed by the Bill in this respect. If I am wrong on this, I know that the Minister will correct me. However, I am completely mystified about what making recommendations within the Bank means in practice. The Committee discussed the circularity of this in the context of the financial stability strategy under proposed new Section 9A, which covers the FPC making recommendations to the court. I must say that I was no wiser after reading both Hansard and the Minister’s letter on this point.
Proposed new Section 9O—9 Oscar—would allow the FPC to issue recommendations to the Treasury. However, while the FPC has to take notice of any recommendations made to it by the Treasury and has to respond to them—that is set out in proposed new Section 9D—there does not appear to be any reciprocal provision requiring the Treasury to respond to the FPC’s recommendations. If that is the case, why on earth do we have to provide in legislation for the FPC to make recommendations to the Treasury?
Proposed new Section 9P covers the FPC making recommendations to the FCA and the PRA—and does contain requirements for the FCA or the PRA to comply or explain their non-compliance. This seems to be the only part of the Bill dealing with the FPC’s recommendations that makes sense and has any real-world impact.
Will the Minister explain why, in drawing up the functions of the FCA and the PRA, no reference is made to their duties in respect of the FPC recommendations? If it is necessary as a matter of law to set up a power to make recommendations, why is there no requirement to set up a reciprocal duty or requirement of compliance with the recommendations?
Finally, proposed new Section 9Q allows the FPC to make recommendations to the whole world. The justification for this is that it may make recommendations to bodies such as the Financial Reporting Council. However, since the recipients of these recommendations can—as far as I am aware—do what they like with them, I fail to see the point of the provision.
I looked at the June 2012 FSR, which has been referred to already this evening. The executive summary makes either six or seven recommendations, depending on how one interprets “recommendation”. In six instances it states that the committee “recommends” that other people should do things, but in one instance it states that banks “should” continue to do something. I have no idea whether that constitutes a recommendation. In any event, most of the recommendations were addressed to the FSA—which will be the PRA and the FCA in due course—and two or three, depending on one’s interpretation, were addressed to banks. That is interesting because making recommendations to banks was not mentioned at all in the extraordinary recommendation-making powers, although clearly this will be an important part of their activity.
Perhaps I ought to be less worried about the scope of the recommendation-making power that is not bounded by space or time, because it appears to be of little substance. If my noble friend tells me that it does have real substance, we would look to constrain it in some way so that it did not include the ability to tell the whole world how to act.
In summary, this is a set of largely one-sided recommendation-making powers that might amount to something of importance—or alternatively, not much more than window dressing. We should be told. I beg to move.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
My Lords, I have some sympathy with my noble friend’s amendment. When the Minister replies, perhaps he will focus some remarks on proposed new Section 9Q, which is the declaratory piece about the whole world. It seems that either the parliamentary draftsmen are saying, “Because you said certain people were included, you must include everybody else”, or it is otiose.
It would also be helpful to have some suggestions about the sort of events and recommendations that might fall under new Section 9Q, so that the Committee gets some understanding of the purpose behind this clause, if it is anything other than declaratory, to avoid, for parliamentary draftsmen’s reasons, the view that, because certain parties have been suggested, by definition they could make recommendations to nobody else.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, that is broadly right. [Laughter.] We should remember that the FPC will be made up of a different group of people, including independent members, who will be making recommendations. Taking the example I gave of the supervision of payment systems, the FPC, with its independent members and statutory responsibilities, could be making recommendations to the Bank regarding its supervision of payment systems. It would therefore be a mischaracterisation—it really does not matter who signs a letter to whom, it would be the FPC making a recommendation to the Bank. To reduce it to a suggestion that the governor will be writing to himself would be a mischaracterisation of an important power that should have a degree of formality around it, in the same way that the FPC will be required to exercise its powers of making recommendations for other regulatory bodies.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I thank the Minister for the explanation that he is trying to provide, but I feel a little as if we are in Alice in Wonderland. Can the Minister give me an example in the real world where people within organisations behave in the way in which we seem to be expecting the Bank of England to behave?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I am not sure whether one can distinguish the world in which we are talking about financial regulation from the real world. This is the real world. It is a world in which these are very important powers that go to the heart of ensuring the financial stability of the UK. This is not a frivolous point. It may appear on the surface to be Alice in Wonderland territory but, if the FPC is to exercise the really significant powers in the system that it is being given or the responsibility for financial stability, it must first have the levers. One of the important constituencies that it will be addressing—and it would be totally remiss of the Government and this Bill to leave it out—would be directions from the FPC to another important regulatory body, of which the Bank is one.
An awful lot of things could be left unsaid which one would assume would somehow happen. This is not one where it would be safe in any way to do so because, if we did not have this power to make recommendations, there could be a significant risk that the FPC would not have the powers—the levers—over critical areas of the supervision and the regulation of the financial infrastructure that underpins so much of our financial system. One only has to look at recent events to see how computer glitches and apparently relatively simple IT problems can have very significant consequences. I suggest that the FPC would have a huge hole in this armoury if it was not able to make recommendations also directed at those who supervise the infrastructure.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, my clear understanding of the drafting here—and like these other drafting points that we have dealt with, if I have got it wrong I will of course write—is that a specified regulated person is the key thing, which in the examples I gave would be Barclays or the RBS. We should not be concentrating on the verb “relate” but what we need to be looking at in new Section 9G(4) is the construction on “specified regulated person” and that would be naming an individual firm.
If the FPC were to make a direction related to regulated persons of a specified direction which happened only to be a class of one firm, then I am clear that that is what is intended here. If I have got it wrong, which I do not believe I have, I will clarify the situation. I wish I had the complete Oxford English Dictionary. It would be quite difficult to bring it in to discuss it over a glass of wine, but I have the Concise Oxford English Dictionary at my fingertips and it might help the noble Lord to say that the concise edition defines “relate” interalia as meaning “having reference to”. I do not know whether that helps him, but perhaps we can move on.
We were on Amendments 48 and 66, and I think that that particular point was the major one here concerning the Committee. I would just say more generally that we are absolutely committed to maintaining clarity of responsibilities and distinguishing micro or firm-specific roles from the macro role. We do not want any lack of clarity here, but on the situation which the noble Lord postulates, I hope that I have satisfied him that indeed the drafting is correct. After that long and interesting discussion, I would ask my noble friend to consider withdrawing her amendment.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, given the hour I shall not prolong any further what has been an interesting debate. I would like to thank my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, for taking part in 50-odd minutes of discussion. My noble friend says that these recommendations to which my amendments were addressed are a lever, and that they need legal backing. I frankly do not see that. I am going to read with great care what my noble friend has said, in particular about making recommendations within the Bank, to the rest of the world and indeed to the Treasury, none of which seems to have any legal effect and is just simply a way of writing down something that might happen. I will not prolong the agony any further this evening and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.