Financial Services and Markets Bill

Debate between Earl of Erroll and Baroness Kramer

Report stage
Tuesday 13th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords I rise because this amendment allows me to do two things that I do not do very often. One is to thank the Minister because the amendments that she has brought forward are constructive, as others have described. The second is to say to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan: finally, a benefit from Brexit. One down, which pleases me, I have to say.

I want to ask the Minister if, in the course of the review, she will look at the industry that has mushroomed from the vetting of PEPs. I dealt with the American Express problem that others have described. I filled in my forms and still have my card—I am afraid that the BA miles win me over. I decided that I would open a savings account at Chase Bank as they were offering some good rates but discovered that I was caught up in this PEP process and the bank asked for a raft of information that, frankly, I should have never been asked for. The breaking point was a phone call asking me for payslips for my husband. On his death, I had inherited from him and therefore the bank wanted historical payslips. My husband died 17 years ago and I do not know how many people still have their payslips from 17 years ago, never mind those of a dead spouse.

To me, that was typical of the overstepping and exaggeration—gold-plating is almost an understatement —that has been going on in this process. It caused me to go on to the web and discover that there is a raft of consultants, advisers and legal entities that have become engaged in this process and taken straightforward guidelines from the FCA and blown them up into something extraordinary and complex. I am furious with the FCA because it does not enforce the guidelines; I hope the Minister will convey that and that the Government will become furious with the FCA for not enforcing its own guidelines. I hope that she will also encourage it to use the review to look at the vast industry that has burgeoned and makes its profits from making life an absolute misery for anybody it can catch in the system.

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, I should like to add to this because I have had enough trouble with the PEPs issue for a long time. First, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for explaining an important point about why I can get no information from Northern Trust on administering an investment trust in which my wife owned shares in Ireland. We had to get probity in Ireland, but the trust will still not release the money and will not say why. I am getting an absolute blind spot. Even Barclays, which wants money over here to pay off something does not seem to be getting any joy. I suspect that it is because the trust is not allowed to tell us that we are under investigation. That is wrong. If there is a problem, we could unlock it if the trust could just say, “We are trying to investigate this because we think we have to”.

I personally find it offensive that I am deemed to be a risk and a crook. I thought that in this country we were innocent until proven guilty. Actually, this is the other way around. Just because I happen to be a Member of the House of Lords, it is assumed that I am corrupt. This has caused a lot of problems for me and my family, but I am not going any further into detail. We have heard good stories from others, but I do not understand why we are PEPs. I have no access to government contracts and there is no reason to bribe me, sadly. I do not understand the logic behind that, and something should be done. The classification of PEPs should be looked at and revised because a lot of other people who are not PEPs are in places handling government contracts. As far as I know, they are not under permanent scrutiny, so I think you have got the wrong people and it is a nightmare.