Independent Commission on Banking

Lord Higgins Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, for welcoming the Statement. Clearly, there is a series of different sorts of recommendations in the report. Some of them relate to ring-fencing and the adequacy of capital, where the date of 2019 fits in with the move to implementation of Basel III. So there is a clear logic for making sure that the construct that we are putting in place here is targeted at the same date as the related international recommendations in the same area. On the other hand, of course there are recommendations in areas such as competition, connected, for example, with the ongoing disposal of Lloyds branches, where the timetable is rather different and where the commission, quite rightly, is looking to see action on a shorter timescale. We need to look at the pacing of some of the reforms in relation to 2019, that being the date of Basel III implementation, and others in relation to the individual merits of the case. That is the approach we will take.

[Lord Higgins]

This is certainly a massive and comprehensive report which is rightly welcomed by the Government. I have two questions. First, there is certainly a point of view which says that the right answer is to have complete separation of investment and retail banking. The commission has not come down in favour of that but in favour of ring-fencing. The danger is that there are loopholes in the ring-fence. Could my noble friend say in what circumstances resources might flow from one side of the ring-fence to the other, thereby continuing, albeit perhaps in a more limited form, the dangers which arise if there is a degree of connection between investment and retail banking?

Secondly, as far as timing is concerned, I understand the point my noble friend is making about Basel. However, it has also been suggested that, given the state of the economy, it would be dangerous to implement these changes too quickly, because it would inhibit the continued recovery. Would my noble friend agree that it is right to review that aspect of timing as we go along, and not set in concrete the idea that we should wait until 2019 before going ahead with the ring-fencing proposals?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, I regret that I may fail to satisfy my noble friend Lord Higgins in my answers. On his first point about the design of the ring-fence, and whether there are loopholes, the commission has been quite clear in relation to one or two major structural elements of the ring-fence. It has recommended that discretion should be allowed to the banks as to whether the lending business to large industrial companies should be on one side of it or the other. That will be the first of a number of detailed issues that need to be looked at in the design work. I would not wish to pre-empt that work, other than noting that my noble friend’s question of loopholes and how they might come about will be, I am sure, very much in the minds of those doing the detailed work.

On the speed of implementation, I do think it is important—as it was with the Basel III work, and the European directive that flows with it—that the banking industry, taxpayers and all those who deal with the banks have a clear understanding of what the end position will be. There is a separate question as to what the appropriate implementation timetable will be. I am sure that the commissioners thought very carefully about this when they put forward the date of 2019. I repeat that—as my noble friend will know—it is the same date as the Basel implementation. I am sure they thought about that very hard.