Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill

Lord Desai Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord McFall of Alcluith (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lords, Lord Eatwell and Lord Sharkey, have done the Committee a service by raising this issue. Four years on from 2010, when the Government came into office, we have much less competition: banks are bigger; the cost of capital, as the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, said, is more expensive; and SMEs’ credit is still drying up. The problem is that British banking lacks a “spare tyre”, as Adam Posen of the Monetary Policy Committee said. I remember a conversation that I had with Stephen Hester when he was chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland. He said, “If you have new entrants into the banks, all they will do is replicate the business model that already exists. You need a Google, a Yahoo or a Facebook to have that disruptive technology”, as the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, described.

I was of the opinion that, as a commission, we should have a referral to the Competition and Markets Authority straight away because this is an area in which, when talking about change, we are talking about years and possibly decades. If we do not get on to this straight away then we will see very little improvement at all in five or 10 years’ time. As the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, said, if we are talking about establishing regional banks—an aspiration which the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury articulated—we need a secure structure. We have to understand how small banks failed. People say, “Well, small banks are just the same as large banks”. I have a quote here from February 2006 in which an individual said,

“we are now in the midst of another wave of innovation in finance. The changes now underway are most dramatic in the rapid growth in instruments for risk transfer and risk management ... These developments provide substantial benefits to the financial system. Financial institutions are able to measure and manage risk much more effectively. Risks are spread more widely, across a more diverse group of financial intermediaries, within and across countries”.

So, the system is safer. The individual who said that was a certain Tim Geithner, whom the President of the United States then appointed as the United States Treasury Secretary. Mr Geithner had a great knowledge of individual institutions but Mr Geithner, like the IMF and others, was clueless about the interconnectedness of the banks, which is why the banks went down. Whether we are talking about large investment banks or small regional banks we must turn our attention to that area of risk if we want a better system.

My noble friend Lady Liddell mentioned the Airdrie Savings Bank. I was privileged to give the 150th anniversary address there. To re-emphasise what she said, the non-executive directors there were local and unpaid. The Airdrie Savings Bank was a fly on the back of the elephant that was the Royal Bank of Scotland. However, the Airdrie Savings Bank prospered and the Royal Bank of Scotland went under. The Chancellor at that time, Alistair Darling, said that he got a call in the morning from Tom McKillop, the chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland, saying that it would be out of business in the afternoon if the Government did not step in. Surely there are lessons to be learnt there from the small banks.

I do not accept the proposition that small and regional banks are not on. A chief executive of a very large bank said to me in private that we should look at retail banking in the United Kingdom as utilities—as predictable and boring activities. That is the way we should be looking at our banks. I think a referral to the Competition and Markets Authority would be wise at the moment because we will be talking about this issue for 10 or 15 years to come. If we do not look at the structure of retail banking in the United Kingdom, we are simply going to replicate what we have at present. There is an opportunity for innovative thinking. These amendments offer the Government that opportunity and I hope that the Minister in replying will indicate that this is a fertile area and we can get on to looking at a new structure for our banking.

[Lord Desai (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Eatwell and want to comment a little on the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, and my noble friend Lord Glasman. The key is what the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, said. Where are the economies of scale in banking from? Why are large banks more successful in surviving and, as it were, swallowing up smaller banks here than they are elsewhere? We had smaller regional banks for a number of years in the 19th century and later. Then we had the concentration of only five large clearing banks left and then even fewer. One question that the competition authority ought to ask is, “Are the economies of scale technological, or is it just that larger banks can borrow money on the money market at a more favourable rate than small banks can? Or are we as authorities putting serious restrictions in the path of small banks to stop them starting and prospering? Are we imposing extra costs on the small banks so that the large banks get away with lower costs than small banks?”. Those are the questions that we ought to examine.

I do not particularly mind whether these are regional banks—what we need is more diversity in banking. Regional and local banks may have failed not because there is something wrong with being local or regional but because there was a storm of cheap credit available and people decided that even if you were a local bank you could still get into the American subprime mortgage market to make money. That is what ruined people; it was not being regional. In a globalised market you have access to buying and selling assets all over the world. German local banks got into subprime mortgage markets in America and lost out.

We really ought to nail down where the economies of scale are and encourage and increase diversity by removing the non-competitive restrictions that currently help large banks to dominate, rather than creating small banks that would have special competitive advantage—as it were, some kind of subsidy—which may be desirable in some larger sense but is not economically efficient. We have to ask whether large banks are surviving because of a competitive advantage and whether they will fail again, costing us a lot of money. Should we look for diversity and a level playing field among large and small banks?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Eatwell]

My Lords, I have an amendment in this group and it may be for the convenience of the Committee if I speak to it now. Before doing so, I would like to make two comments about the discussion that has gone on so far. First, Amendment 55 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Deighton, which includes the meaning of what is a bank, requires very careful exposition by the Minister, because if it says what it appears to say then it seriously undermines the whole discussion about the senior persons regime that we have been having up until now.

Secondly, on the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Brennan and his colleagues, it seems that it is incumbent on the Treasury between now and Report to produce a written report demonstrating the noble Lord’s claim that these amendments are unnecessary; showing that the current regime is fully in accord with the latest FATF principles; and therefore providing the comfort which my noble friend might seek if his amendments are indeed unnecessary. Perhaps the noble Lord could also take in some of the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, as there are areas that the noble Baroness wants to be sure are equally well covered. Particularly with respect to the issues raised about anti money-laundering and prevention of terrorism principles, it is crucial, as those principles are conveyed into legislation, that we are absolutely clear—and the legislation is clear and explicit—on this matter.

Amendment 100, which is in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe, proposes to introduce a licensing regime to apply to all approved persons. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, made the extraordinary remark that this would weaken what was elsewhere in the regime as set out in the Government’s amendments. However, I was heartened to hear the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, use the word licence as I did, and to hear him quote almost word for word the specification of,

“minimum thresholds of competence … integrity, professional qualifications, continuous professional development”,

and so on, which is included in our amendment.

Amendment 100 would significantly strengthen the requirement for approved persons to be suitably qualified in this country, to be licensed and to face the possibility of having the licence removed. Doctors, teachers and lawyers all require some form of professional licence, so why not approved persons in banking? If the noble Lord really undertook to understand this amendment he would realise that it fits precisely with the goals of the commission and would significantly strengthen the quality of regulation and approval of those working in the banking sector in this country.

[Lord Desai]

My Lords, I support what my noble friend Lord Eatwell said and speak in relation to what the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, said. People who are supposed to be responsible for the conduct of, as it were, their inferiors in the bank sometimes do not understand what is happening below them. Certainly, in the case of Baring Brothers the management did not understand what Nick Leeson was doing. This is a matter of competence. I very strongly support this amendment because we ought to have periodic examinations of people in charge of banks, and see whether they pass those examinations, because the profession is changing and they are way behind a changing business.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, I support very much what the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, has just said. We need a clear and authoritative report from my noble friend the Minister as to who is right between the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, who is a highly distinguished lawyer, and those who are advising my noble friend. If there is any doubt about the matter, I see virtue in the amendments put down in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Brennan, Lord McFall and Lord Watson of Invergowrie. I commend the organisations that have helped to craft those important amendments. There again, the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, seems to make a strong point. If on second thoughts the Minister cannot assure us that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, is superfluous, one would want him to assure the House that the noble Baroness’s concern is superfluous.