Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill

Baroness Warnock Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Flight]

My Lords, I come down to a very practical issue. In the territory that we are discussing, pre-approval is absolutely necessary for dealing with staff and anti-money-laundering requirements.

[Baroness Warnock (CB)]

My Lords, I support this amendment, which we have heard is really at the heart of the disasters of 2008. I have felt a creeping horror since the 1980s, when I was head of a college. People would frequently come up to me and say, “I’ve changed my mind, I’m not going to go on to a further degree or teach classics—I have had an offer that I can’t refuse”. This would be a young man or woman of about 21. You could see that their ethical standards had dropped away; they did not exist anymore. That was a shock to me then and it has been a shock to me ever since, so I very strongly support the amendment.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

I shall add just a bit, particularly to what the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, was saying. When I entered the legal profession about 40 years ago, the branch that I joined had no rules of conduct at all, and gradually we appreciated that the public would not stand for that. The position now is that the legal profession has rules of conduct, although they are sometimes called codes rather than rules for the reason that was mentioned. I support the amendment against that background. I also suspect that, if we do not take that step now, we will have to take it in five or 10 years’ time when some other crisis emerges. It is an important step and, I respectfully suggest, an inevitable one, in line with what all the professions have had to deal with over the past 10 or 20 years in modernising how they behave and making their behaviour acceptable to the public. There is a lot to be said for the amendment against that background.