Autumn Budget 2024

Lord Eatwell Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Eatwell (Lab)]

My Lords, the challenge faced by the Chancellor was to change the economy and to achieve a decent rate of equitable growth after 14 years of economic neglect and rising inequality. The black hole of Conservative economics is there for all to see: crumbling schools, the largest ever waiting list in the NHS, a wrecked criminal justice system, pothole-strewn roads, struggling local authorities and the lowest investment in the G7, with an economy on its knees from the neglect of the public sector and a Conservative Government with no clue as to how to nurture the private sector either.

To face up to this challenge, the Chancellor had to first begin to repair the damage, creating the foundations for the change necessary to achieve the growth that Britain needs—hence the expenditure to repair the health service, refund our education system and sustain public services, and the replacement of the Tory Spring Budget cuts in public sector investment with growth in public sector investment and increased research and development spending. It is noticeable that, in the criticism from the other side, there has not as yet been a single positive proposal as to what they would do instead.

The question then raised is: why the apparently limited impact on growth? After all, the OBR forecasts that growth will tail-off after a couple of years. There are two reasons for that. First, it must be remembered that it is far easier to follow the Conservative Party strategy of providing a short-term sugar rush by boosting consumption while neglecting investment. Secondly, investment is a relatively smaller proportion of GDP, hence it has a lesser impact, and the benefits of investment take time to realise. However, the really important point is that a successful growth strategy will involve major changes that would never be picked up by the OBR’s focus on tax and spend.

As the Chancellor argued in her Mais lecture, the dismal economic performance of the past 14 years derives from

“a failure to deliver the supply side reform needed to equip Britain to compete in a fast changing world”—

hence economic policy must

“begin with getting the institutional framework right”.

Getting the institutional framework right means ensuring that capital flows into new investment, whether in productive capacity, research and development or skills.

Is there anything more dispiriting than the strategies of Britain’s major banks, from which capital flows predominantly into mortgages, bidding up the prices of assets that already exist rather than creating new productive assets? Is there anything more dispiriting than the conclusion earlier this year of the Treasury Select Committee in another place that:

“Confidence amongst small and medium-sized enterprises … in accessing finance has fallen … This is accompanied by increasing de-banking … Unfair banking practices … may have further limited access and suppressed demand”?


This difficult small business environment is disincentivising risk-taking and innovation, and reducing growth. That is why the national wealth fund, incorporating a reinvigorated, proactive British Business Bank, is so important. Financial flows in Britain need to be redirected towards investment in new productive assets in the new industries of the future and in updating the everyday industries that shape our lives. Britain’s financial services industry must follow the wealth fund’s lead.

I offer one example of what can be done. Despite current financial difficulties, it is widely acknowledged that our universities are first-class centres of research. Some have created institutional mechanisms for translating that research into globally successful companies, but every one of our more than 160 universities should have a dynamic business advice and incubation unit, and should have access to the dedicated finance necessary to translate new ideas into new businesses. Those new businesses, like the universities, would then be spread throughout the country.

That is a job for the British Business Bank right now, but we cannot just rely on the public sector to take all the risks. The Chancellor has already indicated that reform of pension funds’ investment strategies is an immediate priority. Further reform of financial services is necessary. Funds must flow to new, real investment, not just to secondary markets. This Budget, by having the courage to identify honestly the true state of affairs and fix the foundations, indicates that the Government’s strategy of reform is on track to succeed.

Bank Resolution (Recapitalisation) Bill [HL]

Lord Eatwell Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 4th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

My Lords, I concur with what other noble Lords have said about this amendment: that is why I have added my name. It cannot be left as a possibility for any size of bank; if it needs to apply to a larger bank, perhaps the MREL level should have been set higher. We have this rather unusual situation in the UK where we set MREL at a much lower level; it is set at about a quarter of the level of other countries. If there is a nervousness about needing to use it for a bank that is a little bit larger, perhaps some other fundamentals about where MREL is being set are wrong.

The premise of this Bill is based on it being an alternative to insolvency, where that would have been the normal end result. Maybe the compensation scheme would have had to pay out on deposit guarantees and so there is the happy thought that the money could be perhaps put to different use this way round. But the assumption should still be insolvency and we need a public interest test before we go looking at the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. It is already an extraordinary event—so how extraordinary are extraordinary events? I do not think one can layer extra extraordinariness on top of it: there has to be a line somewhere.

We do not know how many dips into the Financial Services Compensation Scheme there are going to be. In insolvency, there is one dip for the deposits that are guaranteed. It does not say that there cannot be multiple dips. There is already the notion that there is this enormous pot of money. Maybe it looks like a bank tax—and everybody hates banks and it is a pot to raid—but it is a very good way to cause more issues within the wider banking sector. Frankly, it is unfair if there are not some bounds somewhere. So I think this is the right one and, if the Minister is not going to incorporate the amendment, which I think would be a jolly good idea, we on these Benches will be supporting the noble Baroness, Lady Vere.

[Lord Eatwell (Lab)]

My Lords, my colleagues from the Financial Services Regulation Committee are rather confused on two issues; that is very unusual, but they do seem to be. First, there is the idea that somehow, if MREL were exceeded in a financial crisis, that would be a regulatory failure. The only way to prevent such a regulatory failure is to have MREL at 100%; that is to avoid the total failure of the financial system. That would be a disaster for lending in this country. At the moment, MREL is set at levels that are deemed to be a reasonable buffer under circumstances that might reasonably, even in extremis, be expected to occur. As we saw in 2008-09, even events that are deemed to be events that would occur only once in a millennium can occur several times in a week in a severe financial crisis. An MREL which can never be exceeded is 100% and if my colleagues are seeking to impose that on the British financial system, I would be very surprised.

The other point that seems to be neglected—it is why I deem this amendment to be irrelevant—is that my colleagues should recall that, in one of the letters from the Financial Secretary, he pointed out there was a cap on the amount that would be raised from the financial compensation scheme for these purposes. That cap, as I recall, was £2.5 billion. In those circumstances, £2.5 billion would never be sufficient to deal with the collapse of one of the big banks. So the cap itself defines these regulations as fitting only relatively small banks.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, perhaps I could be helpful at this point. That £2.5 billion is certainly not in the Bill. If that is the argument being made by the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, is it an interesting one but not one that the Government have grasped.

Perhaps I should clarify the issue of the threshold at which MREL kicks in, because that was the point to which my noble friend Lady Bowles referred. The UK demands MREL or bail-in bonds as the mechanism for resolution in the case of the failure of a much smaller bank than in any other country across the globe. The differential between us and everybody else is very large. That, we assume, is why the Government want to keep this mechanism available for banks that have been required to have MREL: they are trying to deal with that small to medium-sized group that, quite frankly, should probably never be in the MREL group in the first place.

Budget: Taxes and Borrowing

Lord Eatwell Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I do not agree with that.

[Lord Eatwell (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lords opposite have some difficulty in understanding the arithmetic of coming through the black hole of £22 billion. Even if they cannot do the arithmetic, they can see that the prisons are full, waiting lists in the NHS are the highest they have ever been, schools are crumbling and there is a lack of police on the streets. It is their failure. Would the Minister agree that that is the core of the failure that this Budget is designed to correct? Is there not one important word missing in statements from the party opposite? That word is “sorry”.

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I 100% agree with my noble friend. It is incredibly striking that, in everything we have heard from the party opposite, not once has it apologised for the record we inherited. One of the reasons this is a once in a generation Budget is that we have had to simultaneously repair public finances and rebuild public services. That is why it is such a historic Budget. My noble friend is absolutely right that what we have not heard from those in the party opposite is an alternative. Would they not have repaired the public finances? Would they not have prioritised working people? Would they now cut funding to the NHS and schools?

Fiscal Rules

Lord Eatwell Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

Once again, I address a noble Lord who has far more experience in these matters than I do. I agree with a huge amount of what he says. I think that stability in fiscal rules is incredibly important and that they should not change particularly frequently—perhaps at the point when Governments change. I am tempted to agree with a lot of what he said, but unfortunately the Chancellor will set out the Government’s full fiscal plan, including the precise details about fiscal rules that he asks for, in tomorrow’s Budget, alongside an economic and fiscal forecast produced by the OBR.

[Lord Eatwell (Lab)]

My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, is quite wrong when she suggests that the Chancellor has just announced her change in fiscal rules? They were proposed in her Mais Lecture in February, if one keeps up. Does he also agree that the fiscal rules implemented by Mr Hunt were yet another component of the irresponsible economic policies pursued by the Conservative Government?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I wholeheartedly agree with both points made by my noble friend. Our fiscal rules, as he says, were set out by the Chancellor in her Mais Lecture and set out again in our manifesto. Everything that we have said subsequently is consistent with what we said in our manifesto, and I think that the policy of the Opposition is the reason our country is in the state it is in. It is why growth has been held back and why our critical infrastructure is basically on its knees.

Bank Resolution (Recapitalisation) Bill [HL]

Lord Eatwell Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 10th September 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)]

My Lords, very briefly, I support the noble Baroness’s amendments. Perhaps I would say that as a member of the Financial Services Regulation Committee—as one of the majority of us in this Room, I should say, who are members of that committee.

I see this as working closely alongside the reporting amendments that we discussed on Thursday. When we were talking about the reporting requirements the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, mentioned that it is all very well issuing reports, but not if there is no one to read them. This gives us somebody to read them. It is a fairly light-touch requirement: it is an obligation to notify but does not give any obligation on anybody to do anything with it, unless they feel they need to and that it is important. I hope that this simple measure, alongside the reporting discussions we had last week, will be something that the Minister is minded to accept.

[Lord Eatwell (Lab)]

My Lords, perhaps I might suggest that it would be wise of the Minister, if I may be so bold, to look warmly on the amendment. Discussions around the accountability issue were a persistent theme in the debates on what is now the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023, and led as the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, pointed out, to the creation of the Financial Services Regulation Committee of your Lordships’ House, charged with the responsibility for maintaining parliamentary accountability of financial services regulators. I can assure him that if the Treasury does not accept this amendment, he will become weary of the number of times that it will come back again and again—the reason being simply that the committee feels strongly that its role is now a crucial part of the regulatory framework in the UK and that the reports to the committee effectively establish the groundwork of its role in pursuing the accountability agenda.

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

Not surprisingly, I too support this amendment. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, on her exposition of the genesis of the terms of Section 38 of the 2023 Act. Of course, I am a member of the committee that came as a consequence of that. In her presentation, although not in the amendment—wisely so—she suggested that maybe there would be some hearings and questions, and the possibility that they would be in camera.

I urge the Minister, the Treasury and, indeed, the Bank not to shy away from such suggestions, because it would not be the first time that I have heard mutterings about things being confidential and not wanting to talk about them to parliamentary committees. In Germany, its parliamentary committees can look into the books of the banks and get all kinds of confidential information and—do you know?—it does not leak out. It is quite possible for committees of this House to behave just as well. I put that in as some impetus for how you can get better accountability, oversight and, I suggest, help from the committees, where everybody, ultimately, is pulling in the same direction.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

I agree with what both previous noble Lords have said. We cannot rely just on the fact that something is going to be revised. It is the same old problem that we have with primary legislation a lot of the time: it lays out something that could be good or bad, but it says, “Trust me, we will get it right when we come to secondary legislation or something else down the track”. That is not satisfactory and, in the absence of some more detail, we have to see something about the code of practice or similar—whatever one calls it—in the Bill, just to make sure that there is an understanding of the direction of travel for the sort of detail that we are asking about.

[Lord Eatwell (Lab)]

I should like to pick up on the request for detail put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. I am concerned that the powers that the Bank of England has to act in an emergency, which this would presumably be, should not be constrained to any degree other than that which is absolutely necessary. In other words, we should not load up the code with detail, the reason being that the next crisis will be one that none of us has anticipated. It will be completely different.

If we look at the financial crises that have occurred, the major one in 2007-09 and some minor ones since, they have appeared in completely unexpected directions. The Bank must then have the freedom to adapt its procedures to whatever new challenge arises. I quite understand that we do not want just to say it can do anything it likes, but I feel strongly that we must be very careful about loading the code, and indeed the legislation, with excessive detail.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, I added my name to the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Noakes about the code of practice because it is important that we have this debate. I recognise what the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, says, but it slightly struck fear into my heart because it is about those circumstances where there is not sufficient guidance or a code of practice. Essentially, this is not necessarily just for the Bank of England; it is for all those stakeholders who will be involved in the other side of a resolution. A lot of people will read the code of practice and internalise it. When it is needed, it will therefore already be in their hearts because they will have read it, so I am not as concerned as the noble Lord is about putting in too much detail. The simple fact is that we have not seen anything, so we do not really know what we are dealing with.

It struck me that in the slight rush to bring forward some legislation to keep Parliament occupied, perhaps, the Government are not providing all the information that the House needs to consider this Bill fully. It is complex, and as noble Lords go through it, it is clear that we are all picking up new nuances that we consider might be of concern in the future. The code of practice makes up an important component of the regime and the Committee is slightly flying blind, having not seen a draft of the changes—not only a draft of what would happen as a result of the Bill, but also potentially to fill gaps that we know are not going to be part of the Bill. We know that the code is potentially the only protection between anybody who uses banks—essentially, the taxpayer—and the Bank being able to perform maximum adaptation to a situation. There has to be something in the middle that stops that happening.

I am warming to my noble friend Lady Noakes’s suggestion that the Bill should not come into force until the code of practice is finalised, but I sense that that might be a little churlish. The amendment itself is a little anodyne. I think all noble Lords agree that the Government will, of course, make changes to the code of practice, but I would appreciate hearing more information from the Minister about what changes are anticipated—specifically, what will be left out—and the timing for any code of practice because while it remains outstanding, even in draft form, there is a significant lack of clarity.

At Second Reading, the Minister stated that the update will happen in due course. How many times have I used that phrase? I know exactly what it means. It means “when we are sort of ready”. We need to be a bit more ambitious than that. Can the Minister give any further guidance on timing? If he cannot, would it be helpful if I tabled an amendment on Report that required the code of practice to be updated within, say, three months and subject to approval by both Houses? I am happy to do that if it is helpful.

As my noble friend Lady Noakes and the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, pointed out, the Minister has referred to these things being addressed in the code of practice. Many of the elements in the reporting are also supposed to be in that code. My concern is that six weeks have now passed since the Minister said “in due course” and the House rises at the end of the week for Conference Recess. I presume that the Treasury is still working, so that would be a further window during which progress on a draft code of practice could be made. Therefore, I very much hope that the Minister can commit to having a draft document available for review before Report stage is scheduled. I look forward to hearing from the Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Eatwell (Lab)]

My Lords, I was rather enjoying being characterised as an old-fashioned central banker, until the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, attributed to me to me the idea that selecting from whichever pot would be entirely at will, so to speak. I add my support to what the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, just said: in a recapitalisation, shareholders and MREL must clearly be used first, and FSCS money used simply when those pots have been exhausted.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, I simply make the same point. The noble Lord, Lord Vaux, was absolutely right to summarise the principle which I think all noble Lords on the Committee feel is the purpose of the Bill. There cannot be any circumstances by which there is MREL or whatever it might be left, yet money is going in from FSCS to ensure the resolution of the bank. I cannot see any circumstance in which that would happen—perhaps Treasury officials would be able to think of one—but I think all noble Lords are agreed on the need for some clarity on what would happen.

I appreciated the comments from the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles. I got about 60% of them, so I was really proud of myself; the other 40% went way over my head. I am going to try to understand her points. We are in quite a difficult situation, but the way that she has been so forensic about it has allowed the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, to state what the principle is. It is about combining those two things—the forensic attitude to “This is what the Bill could say if read in a certain way” versus “Just tell us whether the Bill abides by the very simple principle that basically FSCS money should be a last resort, not there for anybody else, but just to prop up a bank to make sure it gets through to the other side of resolution, for the public interest and no more”.

Budget Responsibility Bill

Lord Eatwell Excerpts

2nd reading & Committee negatived & 3rd reading
Monday 9th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Eatwell (Lab)]

My Lords, the OBR was created by George Osborne to

“remove the temptation to fiddle the figures”.

An entirely non-political evaluation of major fiscal measures was certainly a good idea; unfortunately, it has not yet been achieved. The failure to attain political independence may be attributed to two elements that are not dealt with in the Bill yet are essential to its purpose.

First, key inputs to the OBR’s work are the estimates of future spending provided by the Government. We now know that these can be politically manipulated to ensure that fiscal targets seem to be met. As the Institute for Government commented at the time of the Conservative Budget this Spring,

“the figures that Hunt announced … are based on entirely fictitious future spending plans”.

Since the election, we have learned that not only were the Conservatives fiddling the figures that they provided to the OBR, but they were concealing spending plans too. In the light of post-election findings, Mr Hughes confirmed that the OBR was made aware of the extent of pressures on departmental budgets only in late July. Happily, the Financial Secretary has just outlined the measures that are to be taken to verify the data supplied by the Government. These measures are most welcome.

The second key political element undermining the value of the OBR’s current assessments is the current formulation of the charter. The current charter embodies three targets that the OBR is required to assess; unfortunately, none of them is based on sound economics.

First, there is the objective to have public sector net debt—excluding the Bank of England—as a percentage of GDP falling by the fifth year of the rolling forecast period. As the noble Lord on the Opposition Front Bench just pointed out, this means that whenever the Bank of England sells part of its stock of government debt to the private sector, it automatically tightens the noose around government spending. An important part of monetary policy has damaging consequences for fiscal policy—how foolish is that?

More importantly, the objective treats all government expenditure as having the same economic relevance. A crazy unfunded tax cut is assigned the same economic impact as investment in industrial infrastructure. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer argued in her Mais Lecture while still the shadow Chancellor,

“our fiscal rules differ from the government’s. Their borrowing rule, which targets the overall deficit rather than the current deficit, creates a clear incentive to cut investment that will have long-run benefits … I reject that approach”.

Unfortunately, the next objective, to ensure that public sector net borrowing does not exceed 3% of GDP by the fifth year of the rolling forecast period, is simply a dynamic version of the first objective and is, therefore, subject to the same rejection that the Chancellor has made.

The third and final objective is to ensure that expenditure on welfare is contained within a predetermined cap. One of the important operational aspects of economic policy is the value of the automatic stabilisers in the economy: when the economy booms, welfare spending automatically goes down; in a slump, welfare spending automatically goes up. The notion of a cap would emasculate the automatic stabilisers—again, a silly thing to do.

In short, none of the current objectives in the charter makes sound economic sense. It forces the OBR to make forecasts that are simply not relevant for the Government’s stability and growth objectives. It is imperative that the charter is revised prior to the Budget on 30 October. Given the requirement that revisions of the charter must be presented to Parliament 28 days before coming into effect, will the Minister tell us whether we can expect a revised charter to be presented before 1 October?

To conclude, the OBR is a very good idea, as is this Bill, but major operational aspects need urgent correction. I look forward to hearing from the Financial Secretary how these deficiencies are to be dealt with.

Bank Resolution (Recapitalisation) Bill [HL]

Lord Eatwell Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 5th September 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)]

My Lords, as we have heard, this group of amendments, including my Amendment 10, probes the reasons for including all banks in the scope of the Bill, rather than just the smaller banks, as originally envisaged in the consultation that started in January. The first sentence of the consultation was very clear:

“This consultation sets out the government’s intention to enhance and keep up to date the UK’s Special Resolution Regime … providing a new mechanism to facilitate use of certain existing stabilisation powers to manage the failure of small banks”.


But, as we have heard, it is not restricted to small banks. Most of the amendments in this group would remove from the scope of the Bill those banks that are required to hold MREL and would be subject to bail-in procedures using those MREL resources. I think the number of separate but similar amendments that we seem to have is probably down to the fact that this all happened in recess, and we did not have the opportunity to get together. I am sure that if the Minister is not able to satisfy us, we will be able to coalesce around something in common.

It is worth quoting from paragraph 7 of the Explanatory Notes:

“This means taxpayers are exposed if a small bank failure is judged to require resolution action but the firm in question does not possess sufficient MREL resources to provide for recapitalisation, unlike larger banks that do possess these resources”.


If larger banks possess those resources, as they are required to do, why do we need them to be subject to the process envisaged by the Bill? The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, talked about the glide path situation where a bank has not quite got there—yes, I see that point—but for those that are there, does this not imply that we are not confident that the existing MREL scheme is sufficient? If there is a problem with the MREL scheme, surely it would be better to fix that rather than adding a new process on top of it.

So could the noble Lord please clarify under exactly which circumstances he sees the recapitalisation process in the Bill being used for a failing MREL bank? Is there a concern that the MREL resources are insufficient? Other than glide path situations, that is the only logical reason I can see to include big banks in the scope of the Bill.

Secondly, not having the expertise of the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, I do not really understand how the two processes would work together. Is this an either/or situation; is it either a bail-in using MREL resources or a recapitalisation? If that is the case, surely there is a risk that the industry would be required to fund the recapitalisation of banks with large balance sheets instead of the costs being borne by the failed bank’s shareholders and subordinated debt holders. That would create a potential moral hazard. Or is it a combined process where the MREL resources would be used first and, if insufficient, the recapitalisation would follow on top? If that is the case, it implies that there is a concern that the MREL funds are insufficient. The best way forward would be to fix that problem rather than add another process, as I said before.

So could the noble Lord please clearly explain how he sees the two processes working together? I am drawn to the suggestion by the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, of a worked example between now and Report to help us see how that could work. In particular, can he clearly confirm that the recapitalisation process can never be used to reduce the losses of a failing bank’s shareholders or creditors?

In the absence of a strong explanation of why, contrary to the originally stated intention, the scope of the Bill has been extended to larger banks, I would be minded to support amendments on Report that restrict its scope to exclude MREL banks.

[Lord Eatwell (Lab)]

My Lords, my Amendment 11 also—I think rather neatly—confines the Bill to what are defined as small banks. However, my concern is somewhat different from those voiced by noble Lords until now. It is that the whole approach to the resolution regime suggests that banks fail one at a time and not all together. Anyone who went through the experience of 2007 to 2009 knows that, in a systemic crisis, it is possible for all the banks in the country to be suffering major problems at the same time. In the circumstances of a systemic crisis, I fear that the mechanism proposed in the Bill could be a source of contagion, in the sense that the cost of the collapse of a bank, or of many banks together, would be seen by the market as imposing costs, which are now unbearable, on other parts of the banking sector.

This comes down to two issues—that of contagion and, I am afraid, that of persistent complacency. The Treasury and the Bank of England refuse to face up to the fact that, in the end, it is the taxpayer who will pay in a systemic crisis.

I will deal first with contagion. The levy links the financial failure of a bank or number of banks to the banking sector as a whole. Does this create a contagion effect? It must be remembered that much of contagion is created by the expectation of a cost, not just the reality. Expectation then becomes the parent of reality. It can reasonably be expected that the failure of a small bank would be manageable under the resolution regimes set out by the Bank of England and discussed in this Bill and its explanatory documents.

However, there are two fundamental problems where one could have significant contagion. One would be multiple failures, an issue I will address in a moment. The other is the potential failure of a big bank, because the Bill and the Explanatory Notes explicitly refer these mechanisms to big banks as well as small ones.

I will take the issue of the failure of multiple banks or a big bank. I wrote to the Financial Secretary about this and he very kindly wrote back a very valuable explanation. I presume that his letter has been circulated to the people who took part—no, I see that it has not. Well, I will quote a bit of it, because it seems to reveal the problem that I am identifying. He refers to multiple bank failures, but I would apply the same thing to a big bank failure. He says that there will be levies when the bank fails and adds:

“These levies are subject to an affordability cap”—


I did not know that—

“by the Prudential Regulation Authority based on how much the sector can safely be levied in a given year. This cap is currently set at £1.5 billion. If multiple firm failures resulting in a recapitalisation requirement is under £1.5 billion, the Government would expect the FSCS to borrow from its commercial borrowing facility and be able to safely levy from the banking sector and repay that commercial borrowing within 12 months. However, if the amount exceeds £1.5 billion, or if it is below £1.5 billion and the PRA has determined that the FSCS is unable to raise the levy on affordability grounds, the Government would expect levies to repay any borrowing from the National Loans Fund to be spread out over multiple years”.

But, no, you do not have multiple years in a systemic banking crisis; you have to operate now.

The cap of £1.5 billion is worth comparing with the measures that the Government had to take in 2007-08—Lloyds Bank, £20 billion and NatWest, £45 billion. So the failure of one of those banks could be somewhat above the affordability cap, as set out in the Financial Secretary’s letter to me. Indeed, today, those numbers could be multiplied by a factor of roughly five.

Even when MREL is taken into account, the £1.5 billion cap seems to me to expose the fact that this scheme is not applicable to large banks. For example, if we look at the largest MREL plus required capital, it is that of Barclays, which is 30% of risk weighted assets—the largest of all the major banks. That leaves 70% of risk weighted assets to which the taxpayer is exposed. There would not be a collapse of all of those, but there can be very large numbers very quickly. So the idea that with an affordability cap of £1.5 billion, one could handle the Lloyds Bank situation or the NatWest situation as the Government confronted them in 2007-08 is, it seems to me, fanciful.

This brings me to my final related point. There is a persistent reluctance in all the documents concerning the resolution regime to admit that the resolution of a large bank will always fall on the taxpayer. Given the need for the maintenance of confidence in the banking sector, this persistent reluctance and the pretence that MREL has eliminated the taxpayer from exposure is damaging to confidence. It would be valuable for the Purple Book to make clear that, in extremis, Bagehot’s rule comes into effect, the Bank lends without limit and the Treasury will step in to resolve those banks that are “too big to fail”. My amendment clears away a dangerous ambiguity in the Bill. The threat of multiple small failure will continue to exist, but it takes away the ambiguity that this could be involved in the resolution of a big bank in the circumstances of a systemic crisis similar to that which we have faced in the past.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)]

My Lords, this weather sounds like the reason I ended up tabling a load of amendments in south-west Scotland: I had nothing better to do for a few days.

Again, the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, raises a really important point. I have tried to attack it in a different way in Amendment 16, where I look at the recovery of money from shareholders. I will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say. I had in mind the sort of scenario where a foreign company sets up a bank in the UK, it does not go very well and it decides just to walk away from it, having perhaps removed all the assets in the meantime. Clearly, it does not seem fair that the costs of sorting that out should fall on the industry or, indeed, the British taxpayer. It would be really interesting to understand how we can ensure that foreign shareholders behave properly and how, when it does go wrong, we can recoup the money from them.

[Lord Eatwell (Lab)]

My Lords, I am somewhat puzzled by the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, in this case. Surely, under the Basel accord, the UK regulator is responsible for the regulation of a subsidiary that is legally established in the UK. If “subsidiary” were changed to “branch”, the foreign regulator would indeed be responsible for regulation in that case. It seems to me that this particular amendment would violate the Basel accord to which His Majesty’s Government are committed.

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

I will just comment that we have seen capital being sucked out of subsidiaries and taken back to the States and have been left with the collapse here. Basel accord or not, there ought to be some kind of mechanism of group support. I wonder whether there has been any international progress on that. What other mechanisms could be used to ensure that those kinds of things do not happen? Ultimately, it is going to be quite difficult to do this unless you somehow put on some extra capital requirements–and then you then start to get into all kinds of international difficulty. Perhaps the Minister could say something about what levers, if any, are available.

Public Spending: Inheritance

Lord Eatwell Excerpts

Tuesday 30th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble and right reverend Lord for his question. As was set out yesterday, we will conduct a complete review of the new hospital building programme, with a thorough, realistic and costed timetable for delivery. I cannot give him any specific information on the project he mentioned. As I said to other noble Lords, we are absolutely committed to reforming adult social care to create a sustainable system that delivers for the people who draw on that care, their families and the social care workforce. We will work to build consensus for the reforms needed to build a national care service.

[Lord Eatwell (Lab)]

My Lords, with respect to the details revealed in the Chancellor’s statement yesterday, on some of which the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, casts some doubt, has the Minister noticed the statement published by the IFS yesterday evening? It stated:

“some of the specifics are indeed shocking, and raise some difficult questions for the last government. If the scale of these overspends and spending pressures was apparent in the spring—and in lots of cases, there’s no reason to suppose otherwise—then it is hard to understand why they weren’t made clear or dealt with in the Spring Budget. Jeremy Hunt’s £10 billion cut to national insurance looks ever less defensible”.

Does the Minister agree that the Spring Budget was another example of the economic mismanagement and fiscal irresponsibility that is a persistent characteristic of this Conservative Party?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for drawing the House’s attention to yesterday’s remarks from the IFS. It is clear that it is as shocked at the rest of us at the scale of this overspend. I 100% agree with my noble friend that the Spring Budget was just the latest and, fortunately, last episode in 14 years of failure from the party opposite.

Bank Resolution (Recapitalisation) Bill [HL]

Lord Eatwell Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 30th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Eatwell (Lab)]

My Lords, the introduction of the resolution regime in the Banking Act 2009, and the subsequent development of living wills in which large banks are required to produce plans for how they could be wound up, are both designed to reduce the risk of the cost of failing banks falling on the taxpayer. This Bill seeks to add an additional protection for the taxpayer, by shifting the risk of funding the resolution of a bank from the Treasury to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme and therefore to the banking sector as a whole in subsequent levies—so far, so good. The Explanatory Notes provided by the Treasury suggest that the purpose of this legislation is to provide for the resolution of small banks, citing the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank UK as an example of where the successful resolution of a failing bank was clearly preferable to the alternative—namely, insolvency.

Maintaining the operations of a bank, particularly where the asset side of the balance sheet is strong, if illiquid, has obvious advantages. It avoids the disruption of banking services that occurs under formal insolvency procedures. Indeed, the sale of Silicon Valley Bank UK to HBSC for £1—I wonder if anyone knows whether that was actually paid; perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, knows—ensured that banking services were maintained by HSBC for an important segment of UK industry.

The focus on small banks is important. It is a recognition of the important role—referred to just now by the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, yet so often unrecognised—that small banks are playing in the UK economy today. I will give the House just one example: a bank called Unity Trust Bank. It has a balance sheet of a little over £1 billion. To give an idea of scale, the balance sheet of Barclays Bank is 1,500 times larger. Last year, 87% of Unity’s quarter of a billion in new lending supported projects in health and well-being, community spaces and services, education, skills and employment, and financial inclusion. Around half of that lending went to parts of Britain defined as areas of high deprivation, as measured by the Index of Multiple Deprivation. It achieved all this while earning a very healthy return on equity and maintaining a tier 1 capital ratio of 20%. If Barclays’ numbers were the same as that, Britain would be a very different and a very much better place. This is just one example of the excellent work done by small and medium-sized banks.

That is why it is particularly welcome that the Bill makes no provision for increased funding burdens on small banks such as MREL provisions. Britain already suffers from the fact that necessary prudential regulation creates an anti-competitive environment in banking, making it particularly difficult for small banks to cover compliance costs. We should not make the task of small and challenger banks even more difficult.

All this adds up to a valuable and proportionate piece of legislation. Unfortunately, the documentation provided in support of the legislation contains a number of disturbing propositions that take some of the shine off the Bill. For example, in the Treasury document replying to the consultation on the Bill we find the following proposition:

“Noting that the expectation is that the mechanism would generally be used to support the resolution of small banks, the government considers it appropriate for the mechanism to be, in principle, applicable to any banking institution within scope of the resolution regime”.


So, this procedure is not deemed to be targeted solely at small banks but might apply to banks of any size. Perhaps the Minister could enlighten us as to what the Treasury has in mind?

Most disturbing of all is the evident belief, held by both the Treasury and the Bank of England, that this new resolution mechanism can deal not just with idiosyncratic risk—that is, failures in just one or two banks at a time—but also with systemic risk: failure impacting the system as a whole. Consider this statement in the Bank of England’s guide to resolution entitled The Bank of England’s Approach to Resolution:

“The need for a financial system to have an effective resolution framework was a key lesson from the global financial crisis of 2007-09. During the crisis, governments had to resort to ‘bailouts’ as some banks had become too big, complex, and interconnected to be put into insolvency like other types of firms. Without a resolution regime, letting them fail would have meant that people or businesses would have been unable to access their money or make payments. The potential risks to the financial system and the economy meant they had become ‘too big to fail’”.


Now it goes on:

“Resolution changes this by providing powers to impose losses on investors in failed banks while ensuring the critical functions of the bank continue”.


Well, I hope and pray that the Bank of England does not believe this nonsense. The ability of a resolution regime to protect the taxpayer depends on the proposition that the banking services can be maintained by sale of the failing bank to a competent and well-funded counter- part. But, in a systemic crisis such as 2007-09, this is impossible because there are no buyers. Everyone is in trouble. In these circumstances, there are only two answers: bailouts by the taxpayer or insolvency.

Size matters, too. When Credit Suisse failed, the Swiss authorities immediately abandoned any pretence at resolution; only public funds could handle the job. This is not just true in the case of a large bank failing. As the Treasury consultation document notes,

“while an individual institution may not be considered systemic, if a risk is common—or perceived to be common—among similar institutions, the collective impact can pose a systemic risk”.

In other words, the failure of many small banks all at once can be as devastating as the failure of a large bank. But, having made this very sensible point, the Treasury goes on to suggest that somehow “targeted resolution” will sort things out. It would seem that both the Treasury and the Bank of England are prone to wishful thinking.

It is also worth noting that, in the face of a systemic crisis, the levy proposed in the Bill, which is designed to fund the demands on the FSCS, would be a powerful source of crisis contagion. I note that the Treasury is taking steps to limit such contagion.

There is one small irritation with the documentation that is important for later stages of the Bill. The cost- benefit analysis presented by the Treasury has little relevance to the Bill’s subject matter. It compares costs and benefits of the resolution regime with the alternative of insolvency, but that is not the issue here, which is the comparison of the costs and benefits of the new funding mechanism as an addition to the old resolution regime, as set out in the Banking Act 2009. I suspect that the benefits, predominantly of flexibility, are small and that the changes in costs are negligible, even though the allocation of costs is now different. Could we please have a relevant cost-benefit calculation for later stages of the Bill?

This is a very useful measure to deal with the failure of small banks in circumstances in which the rest of the banking system is in rude health. Please let us not pretend that it is anything else.

Spring Budget 2024

Lord Eatwell Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Eatwell (Lab)]

My Lords, debating the Budget Statement carries a great temptation to focus on the short term—on immediate tax and spend decisions—but today we can avoid often misleading short-term analysis and make an informed assessment of Conservative economic policy, relying on the fairly accurate data of the past 14 years. No forecasting is necessary; the facts will do.

The crucial fact with respect to the growth performance of the economy is growth per capita—not the number used by the noble Baroness, which is, as we know, growth driven by the highest level of immigration into this country in modern times. Since 2008—that is, prior to the global financial crisis—UK income per capita has grown at less than one-fifth of 1% per year, one of the worst long-term performances since the war and one of the worst in the G7. Consequently, average real household disposable income after taxes and benefits is lower today than it was 16 years ago, and that is the worst economic performance since the war. Today, following year after year of Tory-led economic failure, we have a no-growth, high-tax, high-debt economy, a crumbling public realm, with education underfunded and an NHS in near collapse.

Of course, there were worldwide economic shocks to navigate—the global financial crisis, the pandemic, the war in Ukraine—but much of Britain’s economic misery was self-inflicted. Consider the following. In the first half of 2010, the UK economy was on the road to recovery from the impact of the financial crisis. In the months before the May election, the economy was growing at a rate approaching 3% per annum. Conservative austerity killed that growth stone dead. The five years of austerity resulted in higher unemployment and lower investment, both public and private. The UK did not recover pre-2008 levels of income until 2015. Germany recovered it four years earlier.

Austerity was defined by an assault on the public sector. For a decade, real spending per capita on health actually fell, and it has still barely recovered. Real education spending per pupil fell by 8%. The police force, the justice system and defence have been criminally underfunded. Then there is the attack on local government: 14 years of swimming pools closed, libraries closed, youth services cut and local skills initiatives cut. The Conservative Party has hollowed out the facilities and institutions that define communities. For so many, they have destroyed hope.

Then came Brexit. In the Economic and Fiscal Outlook, the OBR has taken the opportunity of newly available data to confirm its view that the impact of Brexit is a permanent 4% reduction in GDP. That translates into lost government revenue this year alone of £42 billion. In an attempt to manage the disruption of Brexit, the Conservatives launched an industrial strategy in 2017, complete with glossy brochures setting out 180 diverse policy measures and commitments. In 2018, they created an independent Industrial Strategy Council, chaired by Andy Haldane, to offer evaluation and advice. Unfortunately Haldane’s rather chilly evaluation was too much for the Government. In 2021, the then Secretary of State for Business and Industrial Strategy told the other place that he was abolishing the council, arguing:

“I have read the industrial strategy comprehensively, and it was a pudding without a theme … I am very pleased to announce to the House that we are morphing and changing the industrial strategy into the plan for growth”.—[Official Report, Commons, 8/3/21; col. 678.]


Thus spake Kwasi Kwarteng. A year later, his plan for growth inflicted devastating damage on the British economy. Now, we have Jeremy Hunt’s plan, as echoed by the noble Baroness. The foundation stone is set out in the Budget speech:

“Conservatives look around the world at economies in North America and Asia and notice that countries with lower taxes generally have higher growth”.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/3/24; col. 848.]


Unfortunately, years of academic and policy research have demonstrated quite conclusively that the proposition is simply false. For example, a week after the Budget, the free market Institute of Economic Affairs—close supporters of the Conservative Party—commented,

“tax cuts do not generate sustained higher rates of economic growth … when we compare growth rates averaged over long time frames between different countries there is little correlation, negative or positive, with tax burdens or marginal rates”.

Yet Jeremy Hunt clings on to “Truss-Kwarteng lite”, even citing the Laffer curve—a reference that eliminates any suggestion his thinking is serious.

Commentators across the political spectrum agree that the next Government will inherit from today’s Conservatives a uniquely dire economic situation. If the new Government should be Labour, it is argued that the economic fundamentals are so bad that Labour will be forced to abandon all its economic and social goals. Fortunately, that prediction is incorrect.

Economic history tells us that beginning from the worst can lead to the best. Four policy ingredients are required: a Government with a comprehensive commitment to long-term investment; a vision of the commercial demands of the future and the technologies to meet them; a private sector corporate structure geared to long-term investment; and a financial system that funnels resources to long-term investors. A better characterisation of Keir Starmer’s missions for Britain will be difficult to find: a commitment to the rebuilding of material and human capital; a focus on the inevitable demands for new green technologies as the world faces up to the costs of climate change; legal reforms to stimulate the private sector; and a new national wealth fund to channel investment that fulfils long-term goals.

However, let us go back to this scorched-earth Budget. The past 14 years suggest that the Conservative Party should join “Economics Anonymous”. The party should admit its horrible errors, identify their origin in defective ideology, and rethink its way back to economic sanity. A decade or so in quiet opposition is required.