Financial Services Bill

Lord Blackwell Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 24th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am delighted to speak to this group of amendments and declare my interests as set out in the register.

I congratulate my noble friend Lady Noakes not just on the eloquence that she demonstrated in introducing these three amendments but on the quality of their drafting. As an ex-City solicitor, I look on that with awe. I also congratulate my noble friend on offering options. We had a thorough and in-depth debate in Committee on these issues. My noble friend has done the House a great service in bringing a buffet approach for the Government to consider. If they are not partial to Amendments 4 or 5, Amendment 6 will work just as satisfactorily.

These amendments need to be seriously considered. For the want of certainty and for ensuring that litigation does not result if we do nothing, I ask my noble friend the Minister on Amendments 4, 5 or 6, as I have in the past and will do on forthcoming amendments: if not this Financial Services Bill, which financial services Bill? If not now, when?

[Lord Blackwell (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. I support these amendments, which have been so well explained by my noble friend Lady Noakes. In Grand Committee, the Minister accepted that there were concerns that a residual risk of disruption and potential litigation would remain even once the FCA had exercised its powers under the Bill. This is really important, given the amount of money and the number of contracts at stake, and the timescale of the changes in the benchmark at the end of 2021.

My noble friend the Minister said that the Government would prefer to wait for the results of the consultation, but these are not new issues. The Treasury and regulators have been aware of them for many months. The argument was made that the reason for waiting for the consultation is that there might be areas where there was legitimate reason for civil litigation and that those legitimate legal claims might be blocked. I am not persuaded that there are legitimate legal claims where the benchmark is being replaced with a synthetic benchmark at the direction of the regulator. There has to be a change and I cannot think of situations where those claims might be appropriate and fair. I would welcome it if the Minister can explain where those concerns come from and what situations might be blocked unfairly by these amendments.

Other than that, we should move to deal with these concerns now, as noble Lords have said. If the Minister does not like the specificity of Amendments 4 and 5, I would certainly be prepared to accept Amendment 6. I hope my noble friend the Minister will come back at Third Reading with government amendments to address these issues. If she does not feel able to do that and my noble friend Lady Noakes were to bring back her amendments at Third Reading, I would be compelled to support her.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, for bringing forward these amendments. I have to confess that I am not keen on Amendment 5 because it seems that it would create an opportunity for various institutions to use the change in the benchmark in a way that would be abusive to a customer, who would then have no redress.

Amendment 5 goes too far, but Amendment 6 makes perfect sense to me. Frankly, I find it extraordinary to think that the Government have not seized it and put “government” in front of it. We will face tough legacy contracts and there needs to be a sensible and appropriate way to deal with them. Amendment 6 captures that exactly as it should. I hope very much that the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, will get a positive reply on Amendment 6 from the Government, otherwise there will be litigation and a mess, and I am not sure that that helps anybody.