Kalifa Review of UK Fintech

Debate between Lord Agnew of Oulton and Lord Bilimoria

Tuesday 27th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

My Lords, these concepts are still being designed and I will be very happy to update the noble Lord when more information is available. However, the key emphasis of scale-up is to attract global talent and boost the fintech workforce, so it will be focused on the skills these people can offer our country.

[Lord Bilimoria (CB) [V]]

The CBI, of which I am president, welcomes the recommendations set out in my friend Ron Kalifa’s fintech review to ensure the UK’s position as the best place in the world to start and grow fintech business. Do the Government agree that having a proportionate, innovation-friendly regulatory framework will help support economic growth, facilitate access to global markets and enhance competition? Do they also agree with the review’s recommendation that a centre for finance, innovation and technology be created?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

My Lords, we are certainly keen to support the creation of a centre for finance, innovation and technology. In UK FinTech Week the Chancellor announced his support for the industry, and we certainly recognise a private sector-led centre for finance, innovation and technology’s potential as an accelerator of fintech sector growth. This can be achieved through research, thought leadership and working with regional fintech hubs and national fintech bodies. The Government are committed to working with industry to make this a reality.

Global Minimum Corporate Tax Rate

Debate between Lord Agnew of Oulton and Lord Bilimoria

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

I can only speculate on what that might be, but the important thing is to try to get as much harmonisation on rules for large multinational companies. That is why we were always keen on pillar 1, which ensures that the profits of large digital businesses are taxed in the countries where they make their sales. It is important because, as one of the largest economies in the world, we believe that these international companies should not be able to just come here and take all the advantages of the infrastructure that British taxpayers are contributing to the creation of.

[Lord Bilimoria (CB) [V]]

My Lords, the CBI, of which I am president, welcomes the United States’ renewed commitment to engage with the OECD multilateral process, which, after a decade, has two pillars. One is a new regime for the largest companies; the other is on setting a minimum tax rate, which the US aims to see at 21%. Do the Government agree with this rate of 21%? Do they agree that we want to avoid a patchwork of unilateral action—for example, digital services taxes?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

My Lords, the Treasury is assessing the statements recently made by the US Government on that tax rate, so we are not in a position to opine on those yet. We agree on the patchwork point: we introduced the digital services tax as an interim to plug at least some of the gaps and problems that exist, but we will certainly review that if we can reach an international consensus.

Future of Financial Services

Debate between Lord Agnew of Oulton and Lord Bilimoria

Wednesday 11th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bilimoria (CB) [V]]

My Lords, we look forward to the Ron Kalifa report on fintech. The trade credit insurance guarantees making a real difference. Would the Government agree it should be extended until June 2021? Will the Government consider instituting a new 3i-type funding to help provide equity finance for funding, recovery and scale-up? Will the Minister clarify if the Government will consider reinstituting a Green Investment Bank—a question that has been asked before? Finally, will the Minister agree that getting an EU deal with make equivalence much easier to resolve?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

The noble Lord asks a lot of questions: I will take the last one first. Of course, getting a deal will make the whole relationship far more constructive. We remain cautiously optimistic that this can be achieved. I think the Government are broadly sceptical about creating an equity distribution fund or a fund that makes equity available. As I am sure the noble Lord will know, the private equity industry has some $1.5 trillion-worth of dry powder available for investment around the world, including this country. I believe that we should be accessing that rather than using taxpayers’ money.

Economy Update

Debate between Lord Agnew of Oulton and Lord Bilimoria

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

I share the noble Lord’s concern for those who have fallen through the cracks. We have issued a number of initiatives over the last few weeks and months to try to close the gap. For example, for the arts sector, there is some £1.5 billion of support, some of which will be available to vulnerable groups which have not been able to be part of the traditional self-employed schemes. We have also made funding available to local authorities, which are able to use discretion in the allocation of some of that money for vulnerable self-employed people.

[Lord Bilimoria (CB) [V]]

[Inaudible]—will be crucial. The news of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is very welcome. Does the Minister agree with the recommendation of the CBI, of which I am president, about the creation of an economic recovery commission, uniting government, business and unions? It would be a vital step, as would the urgent rollout of affordable, regular mass antigen testing—with the Liverpool pilot, thankfully, having been started and now in full swing—along with investment in job-creating projects, with a focus on digital skills and green jobs. To reinforce what the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, said, what can the Government do to help the 3 million excluded from the huge amount of government support that has been made available so far, for which we are all grateful?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are in constant contact with the business community. They absolutely accept that the wealth creation engine of our economy is vital for us to recover from this pandemic. I share the noble Lord’s optimism about the vaccine. Of course, we need to be careful—we are not through the last hurdle yet—but it is certainly nice to have a little bit of good news occasionally. I have answered the point about the self-employed, raised by several other noble Lords. It is perhaps worth reminding the noble Lord that we have improved the universal credit system to try to provide a little more protection at that end of the system. We have also confirmed that those on mortgage holidays can extend to six months without any impact on their credit file.

Covid-19: Economy Update

Debate between Lord Agnew of Oulton and Lord Bilimoria

Tuesday 27th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

My noble friend raises an important point. This country now has a more devolved structure. We have tried to keep the devolved and mayoral authorities involved in decisions at every point. We have given some £13 billion to the devolved authorities to react to the issues that we are facing. I accept that it might be easier if we could operate on an entirely national basis, but unfortunately that is not the present reality of our constitution. I assure my noble friend that we are doing everything possible to talk to the devolved authorities at all times.

[Lord Bilimoria (CB) [V]]

My Lords, we welcome the latest support measures from the Chancellor, especially the new Job Support Scheme. It is miles better than the one he announced a few weeks ago. Can the Minister tell us when the rapid 15-minute, affordable antigen coronavirus test will be available to businesses, universities and schools across the country so that regular testing can take place to enable the economy to fire on all cylinders? When we will be able to open up airport testing to allow tourist and business travel?

Economy: Update

Debate between Lord Agnew of Oulton and Lord Bilimoria

Tuesday 28th April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I do not have that figure as I do not believe that that calculation has been made yet. It will depend very much on the timing and speed of exiting lockdown. The sooner we can exit, the less damage will be done, but we must balance against that the Prime Minister’s overriding concern for the health of the nation, not overwhelming the NHS and the nation’s morale if we were to get a bad second spike of the disease. It is a bit too early, but we will of course keep noble Lords informed of our thinking as it develops.

[Lord Bilimoria (CB)]

My Lords, I am sure the Minister is aware that Germany, as part of its bazooka €1.1 trillion package, is guaranteeing 100% of loans of up to €500,000 to its small and medium-sized companies and of up to €800,000 for those with up to 250 employees. The Swiss have given out 98,000 loans—six times more than the UK, and their economy is one-eighth the size of ours. They guarantee 100% up to 500,000 Swiss francs, delivered within 24 hours. As the Minister just told us, we have granted 20,000 loans under the CBILS, totalling £3.3 billion out of £330 billion. I reiterate what the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said; we are really grateful to the Chancellor for what he is doing, acting so swiftly six weeks ago with the vast range of programmes which now include the bounce-back loans. However, does the Minister agree that we desperately need our own 100% guaranteed CBILS loans up to £500,000? Yes, some checks would have to be made, but the Chancellor said in the Statement that he does not agree with that because he thinks the ordinary taxpayer should not bear the entire risk. However, surely it is better to do this now, to have companies existing and surviving now, rather than not having them and having instead the unemployment that will be created. We need to go from bounce-back to bazooka.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I take on board the noble Lord’s point. Comparisons with other countries need to be done carefully so that one is comparing apples with apples. For example, the Swiss have not used a number of the other levers of support that we have used; this has been their main lever. Also, their furlough scheme requires employers to contribute one-fifth of the payments to the scheme, whereas in our country the furlough scheme removes that burden from businesses. In terms of the macro position, as I mentioned earlier, the Chancellor has announced support of up to 15% of GDP, which is a colossal sum of money, and he continues to be open-minded, which he demonstrated yesterday with the bounce-back loans, as to what further help the economy might need.