Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Earl of Erroll

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, I know that noble Lords are looking forward to hearing the Statement, but this is an important point. I certainly would not be able to add anything to what the most reverend Primate has said in a very powerful speech. I am glad that he liked my analogy about wallpaper and walls. I have to say to my noble friend the Minister that the writing is on the wall here, and it is absolutely clear that if we do not have in this Bill a clear provision that gives the Government power to deal with the sector as a whole, most banks will decide to go with the culture and try to make it work. But they are in competition with each other; one will come up with a clever scheme and the others will say, “They’re getting away with this—we ought to do the same, or we will do some variation of the same thing”. You need there to be a threat to the whole sector, if some of them fall by the wayside. That is another argument, in addition to the ones made by my noble friend Lord Lawson and by the most reverend Primate.

I hope that my noble friend the Minister will think about this very carefully and see the writing on the wall. He will find it very difficult to get this Bill through this House without a provision of this kind being incorporated in it.

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, I make a simple observation from experience. I have seen this attempt at ring-fencing in the past. When you have ring-fenced or non-ring-fenced entities—it does not matter which—reporting up to a group head, at the end of the day that group head can manipulate things at an investment level or at all sorts of other levels to influence the outcome in a way that is unexpected. It does not work, the moment that you have a group, because that is outside the ring-fence. I could give noble Lords instances, but it might cause problems if you did. I would rather say that I totally support the most reverend Primate and this amendment, which is very sensible.

Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Earl of Erroll

Wednesday 20th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

The noble Earl made a speech about employment protection being excessive. I am not sure I understand how Clause 27 would alter any of the things that he complained about, with the one exception of the request for flexible working, unfair dismissal and redundancy payments. All the issues that he referred to would still apply if Clause 27 went ahead.

[The Earl of Erroll]

Even better. Passing it does not matter then, but at least it would send the right signal and some people may relax. If, as the noble Lord says, it will not change the unfair dismissals process, we can all proceed happy that that continues. Why object? At the moment, I know that the law is biased in favour of the employee, not the other way round. With that, I will sit down. I would love to see other things tried. At the SME end, we need signals sent by the Government, and this is one.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

My Lords, I think that it is fair to say that the noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, has some of the best political antennae in the business. I therefore think that we can look forward with some interest to the response of the noble Viscount, Lord Younger of Leckie. In debate in Committee, precisely the proposition made by the noble Lord, Lord King—that in effect people could say, “You can only get this job if you sign up to the scheme”—was made. The Minister said:

“I have not seen the guidance”—

the 3,000-page guidance—

“but I do not believe that it will say that”.—[Official Report, 6/2/13; col. 289.]

Two questions arise. First, can the Minister tell us definitively this afternoon, before we vote, whether the noble Lords, Lord King of Bridgwater and Lord Pannick, are correct or incorrect: yes or no? I will not detain the House, but what baffles me, picking up the point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol, is how on earth the Government got the idea that this was convincingly presentable as part of the moral platform for modernising capitalism. As I think that the right reverend Prelate said, straight out of the Bible we have the precept, which is probably in the Koran as well, that you do not sell your birthright for a mess of pottage—that was Esau, I recall. Let me dub this Esau’s clause. It is incumbent on the Minister to give us a brief reply on that question.