Greece
Lord Lilley Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Osborne
My experience of the Greek Government is that they are very well versed in events here in the United Kingdom. They have certainly noticed our economic revival. I repeat, however, that it is not for us to say which currency they should use.
Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend recall that when this country helped to persuade the rest of the world to forgive the debts of the heavily indebted poor countries, we argued first that lenders who lend too much share some of the responsibility with Governments who borrow too much, and should pay the cost, and secondly that the citizens of those countries are rarely to blame for the profligacy of their rulers, but have to suffer if they are forced to attempt to repay sums that cannot be repaid? Will he repeat those arguments to our colleagues in Europe?
Mr Osborne
My right hon. Friend has made a very good observation. The people who suffer when Governments get their economic policies wrong are often the poorest in the countries concerned. Sadly, we know that to our cost, given what happened in this country five or six years ago.
My right hon. Friend has also made a good point about the sustainability of debt repayments and the like. One of the big challenges that are looming is the repayment that is due to the European Central Bank. The discussion between Greece and its creditors has always been about ensuring that Greece pays what it owes but pays in a way that it can afford, and ensuring that it can grow its economy and undertake the structural reforms that are necessary to sustain its repayments. Indeed, that is an element of the discussion that is taking place now.
Money Creation and Society
Lord Lilley Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
It is a pleasure, as always, to follow the right hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher), who gave us a characteristically thoughtful and radical speech. I do not necessarily start from the same premises as him, but what he says is an important contribution to the debate, on the securing of which I credit my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker). He has done the House and the country a service by forcing us to focus on the issue of where money comes from and what banks do. He did so in an insightful way. Above all, he showed that he sees, as our old universities used to see, economics as a branch of moral sciences. It is not just a narrow, analytical, economic issue, but a moral, philosophical and ultimately a theological issue, which he illuminated well for the House.
A lot has been made of the ignorance of Members of Parliament of how money is created. I suspect that that ignorance, not just in Members of Parliament but in the intellectual elite in this country, explains many things, not least why we entered the financial crisis with a regulatory system that was so unprepared for a banking crisis. I suspect that it is because people have not reflected on why banks are so different from all other capitalist companies. They are different in three crucial respects, which is why they need a very different regulatory system from normal companies.
First, all bankers—not just rogue bankers but even the best, the most honourable and the most honest—do things that would land the rest of us in jail. Near my house in France is a large grain silo. After the harvest, farmers deposit grain in it. The silo gives them a certificate for every tonne of grain that they deposit. They can withdraw that amount of grain whenever they want by presenting that certificate. If the silo owner issued more certificates than there was grain kept in his silo, he would go to jail, but that is effectively what bankers do. They keep as reserves only a fraction of the money deposited with them, which is why we call the system the fractional reserve banking system. Murray Rothbard, an Austrian economist much neglected in this country, said very flatly that banking is therefore fraud: fractional reserve banking is fraud; it should be outlawed; banks should be required to keep 100% reserves against the money they lend out. I reject that conclusion, because there is a value in what banks do in transforming short-term savings into long-term investments. That is socially valuable and that is the function banks serve.
We should recognise the second distinctive feature of banks that arises directly from the fact that they have only a fraction of the reserves against the loans they make: banks, individually and collectively, are intrinsically unstable. They are unstable because they borrow short and lend long. I have been constantly amazed throughout the financial crisis to hear intelligent people say that the problem with Northern Rock, RBS or HBOS, or with the German, French, Greek and other banks that ran into problems, was the result of their borrowing short and lending long, and they should not have been doing it, as if it was a deviation from their normal role. Of course banks borrow short and lend long. That is what banks do. That is what they are there for. If they had not done that they would not be banks. Banking works so long as too many depositors do not try to withdraw their funds simultaneously. However, if depositors, retail or wholesale, withdraw or refuse to renew their short-term deposits, a bank will fail.
If normal companies fail, there is no need for the Government to intervene. Their assets will be redeployed in a more profitable use or taken over by a better-managed company. But if one bank fails, depositors are likely to withdraw deposits from other banks, about which there may also be doubts. A bank facing a run, whether or not initially justified, would be forced to call in loans or sell collateral, causing asset prices to fall, thereby undermining the solvency of other banks. So the failure of one bank may lead to the collapse of the whole banking system.
The third distinctive feature of banks was highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe: banks create money. The vast majority of money consists of bank deposits. If a bank lends a company £10 million, it does not need to go and borrow that money from a saver; it simply creates an extra £10 million by electronically crediting the company’s bank account with that sum. It creates £10 million out of thin air. By contrast, when a bank loan is repaid, that extinguishes money; it disappears into thin air. The total money supply increases when banks create new loans faster than old loans are repaid. That is where growth in the money supply usually comes from, and it is the normal situation in a growing economy. Ideally, credit should expand so that the supply of money grows sufficiently rapidly to finance growth in economic activity. When a bank or banks collapse, they will call in loans, which will reduce the money supply, which in turn will cause a contraction of activity throughout the economy.
In that respect, banks are totally different from other companies—even companies that also lend things. If a car rental company collapses, it does not lead to a reduction in the number of cars available in the economy. Its stock of cars can be sold off to other rental companies or to individuals. Nor does the collapse of one rental company weaken the position of other car rental companies; on the contrary, they then face less competition, which should strengthen their margins.
The collapse of a car rental company has no systemic implications, whereas the collapse of a bank can pull down the whole banking system and plunge the economy into recession. That is why we need a special regulatory regime for banks and, above all, a lender of last resort to pump in money if there is a run on the banks or a credit crunch, yet this was barely discussed when the new regulatory structure of our financial and banking system was set up in 1998. The focus then was on consumer protection issues. Systemic stability and the lender-of-last-resort function were scarcely mentioned. That is why the UK was so unprepared when the credit crunch struck in 2007. Nor were these aspects properly considered when the euro was set up. As a result, a currency and a banking system were established without the new central bank being given the power to act as lender of last resort. It has had to usurp that power, more or less illegally, but that is its own problem.
This analysis is not one of those insights that come from hindsight. Some while ago, Michael Howard, now the noble Lord Howard, reminded Parliament—and indeed me; I had completely forgotten—that I was shadow Chancellor when the Bill that became the Bank of England Act 1998 was introduced. He pointed out that I then warned the House:
“With the removal of banking control to the Financial Services Authority…it is difficult to see how…the Bank remains, as it surely must, responsible for ensuring the liquidity of the banking system and preventing systemic collapse.”
And so it turned out. I added:
“setting up the FSA may cause regulators to take their eye off the ball, while spivs and crooks have a field day.”—[Official Report, 11 November 1997; Vol. 300, c. 731-32.]
So that turned out, too. I could foresee that, because the problem was not deregulation, but the regulatory confusion and the proliferation of regulation introduced by the former Chancellor, which resulted from a failure to focus on the banking system’s inherent instability, and to provide for its stability.
This failure to focus on the fundamentals was not a peculiarly British thing. The EU made the same mistakes in spades when setting up the euro, and at the very apogee of the world financial system, they deluded themselves that instability was a thing of the past. In its “Global Financial Stability Report” of April 2006, less than 18 months before the crisis erupted, the International Monetary Fund, no less, said:
“There is growing recognition that the dispersion of credit risk by banks to a broader and more diverse group of investors, rather than warehousing such risk on their balance sheets, has helped to make the banking and overall financial system more resilient…The improved resilience may be seen in fewer bank failures and more consistent credit provision. Consequently, the commercial banks…may be less vulnerable today to credit or economic shocks.”
The supreme irony is that those at the pinnacle of the world regulatory system believed that the very complex derivatives that contributed to the collapse of the financial system would render it immune to such instability. We need constantly to be aware that banks are unstable, and are the source of money. If instability leads to a crash, that leads to a contraction in the money supply, and that can exacerbate and intensify a recession.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I am listening carefully to my right hon. Friend. Does that mean that the banks are uncontrollable, as things stand?
Mr Lilley
No; they can and should be controlled. They are controlled both by being required to have assets, and ultimately by the measures that Government should take to ensure that they do not expand lending too rapidly. That is the point that I want to come on to, because a failure to focus on the nature of banking and money creation causes confusion about the causes of inflation and the role of quantitative easing.
As too many people do not understand where money comes from, there is confusion about quantitative easing. To some extent, the monetarists, of whom I am one, are responsible for that confusion. For most of our lifetime, the basic economic problem has been inflation. There have been great debates about its causes. Ultimately, those debates were won by the monetarists. They said, “Inflation is caused by too much money—by money growing more rapidly than output. If that happens, inevitably and inexorably, prices will rise.” The trouble was that all too often, monetarists used the shorthand phrase, “Inflation is caused by Government printing too much money.” In fact, it is caused not by Government printing the money, but by banks lending money and then creating new money at too great a rate for the needs of the economy. We should have said, “Inflation follows when Governments allow or encourage banks to create money too rapidly.” The inflationary problem was not who created the money, but the fact that too much money was created.
The banks are now not lending enough to create enough money to finance the growth and expansion of the economy that we need. That is why the central bank steps in with quantitative easing, which is often described as the bank printing money. Those who have been brought up to believe that printing money was what caused inflation think that quantitative easing must, by definition, cause inflation. It only causes inflation if there is too much of it—if we create too much money at a faster rate than the growth of output, and therefore drive up prices—but that is not the situation at present.
Mr MacNeil
The right hon. Gentleman is giving a very good explanation of the different circumstances in which money is created. He has spoken about the morality, and about quantitative easing. When there is demand, what is his view of the theory of helicopter money, and where that money gets spread to?
Mr Lilley
As a disciple of Milton Friedman, I am rather attracted to the idea of helicopter money; I think it was he who introduced the metaphor, and said that it would be just as effective if money were sprayed by a helicopter as if it were created by banks. Hopefully, as I live quite near the helicopter route to Battersea, I would be a principal recipient. I do not think that there is a mechanism available that would allow us to do that, but I am not averse to that in principle, if someone could do it. My point is that the banks, either spontaneously or encouraged by the central bank through quantitative easing, must generate enough money to ensure that the economy can grow steadily and stably.
Mr MacNeil
Could it not be argued that increasing welfare payments would be a form of helicopter money, because the people most likely to spend money are those with very little money? If we put money in the pockets of those who have little money, it would be very positive, because of the economic multiplier; the money would be spent, and would circulate, very quickly.
Mr Lilley
There are far better reasons for giving money to poor people than because their money will circulate more rapidly—and there is no evidence for that; I invite the hon. Gentleman to read Milton Friedman’s “A Theory of the Consumption Function”, which showed that that is all nonsense. There are good reasons for giving money to poor people, namely that they are poor and need money. Whether the money should be injected by the Government spending more than they are raising, rather than by the central bank expanding its balance sheet, is a moot point.
All I want to argue today is that we should recognise that the economy is threatened as much by a shortage of money as it is by an excess of money. For most of our lifetimes the problem has been an excess, but now it is a shortage. We therefore need to balance on either occasion the rate of growth of money with the rate of growth of output if we are to have stability of prices and stable economic activity. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe on bringing these important matters to the House’s attention.
Banking Reform
Lord Lilley Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Greg Clark
I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s question, to whom I extend my thanks for serving with distinction on the commission.
I said that the Bank of England did not want a general reserve power, but the right hon. Gentleman made the perfectly valid point that it might not necessarily be a choice for the Bank. It seems to me, however, that the power to break up any individual bank is a very strong one, and quite rightly, as the commission recommended, it would make the ring fence more impenetrable. Nevertheless, to provide for a reserve power in this Bill that would change the whole system would, in effect, be a different policy. I understand the reasons for wanting to do that, as many distinguished members of the commission do, but changing the whole policy would deserve the scrutiny of a Bill of its own—any future Government would be free to introduce such a Bill. To have it as a rider to a Bill designed to implement the Vickers report would be the wrong step forward.
Finally, as for accepting amendments, there are several Members of this House who have served on Bill Committees with me in the past. My demeanour, now and throughout the passage of the Bill, will be to listen to good and sensible suggestions from wherever they come—not to treat this as an exercise in partisanship, but to try to find consensus on the best system for financial regulation in this country.
Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
Is my right hon. Friend confident that the very welcome proposals he has announced will not be swept away by the tsunami of regulations bearing down on us from Europe under the Single Market Act, even though none of those regulations creates a single new opportunity for financial services businesses to trade on the continent and all of them result in the transfer of power from this country to Europe to regulate our most important industry?
Green Economy
Lord Lilley Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Laura Sandys
It does not undermine that agenda. We need to understand where subsidies, incentives and tax reliefs are deployed throughout our energy sector. I look to a future with a mixed energy economy that utilises all the different energy resources, but we must be transparent about where those subsidies lie.
Oil and gas exploration, for example, has been hugely beneficial to this country, as no one can deny, and that is why we subsidise the sector. Oil taxation measures, oil allowances, petroleum revenue tax safeguards, the ring-fenced expenditure supplement, the field allowance and coal investment aid are all important parts of the energy industrial strategy. As John Browne, formerly of BP, has said:
“People forget the government supported the oil and gas supply chain in its early days: with generous tax incentives, training programmes, strategic infrastructure; and supportive regulation.”
The Government are still doing so today.
Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend draw breath and think again? On this suggestion that we have been subsidising oil and gas, we have very high taxes on petroleum products and an extra tax on petroleum production called the petroleum revenue tax, so where does she get this “subsidy” from?
Laura Sandys
The International Energy Agency states that the fossil fuel sector is currently subsidised by $480 billion.
Laura Sandys
In all sorts of forms, from production right the way through to—
Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
I oppose the motion. I suspect that I will be the only person to do so. It is not because we cannot have green economy. We could—indeed, we once had a totally green economy. We relied on windmills to grind our flour, on watermills to saw our wood, on horsepower for transport, and on biomass—as burning wood is now called—for heat, but we abandoned those when we discovered that coal could fuel a steam engine, that oil could fuel the internal combustion engine, and that gas and nuclear could give us electricity. Since then, we have enjoyed huge increases in our material standard of living based very largely on comparatively cheap energy from fossil fuels.
The great Victorian economist, Jevons, pointed out nearly a century and a half ago why coal had ousted wind:
“The first great requisite of motive power is that it shall be wholly at our command, to be exerted when, and where, and in what degree we desire. The wind, for instance, as a direct motive power, is wholly inapplicable to a system of machine labour for during a calm season the whole business of the country would be thrown out of gear.”
Much the same can be said about the unreliability of solar and the discontinuity of tidal energy. My hon. Friends may want to return to a mediaeval economy that relies on unreliable, high-cost water, sunshine, wood and wind, but I do not. I am a conservative, not a reactionary. Of course, it may be that some time in the future new sources of energy will become available that are as reliable as, and cheaper than, fossil fuels—perhaps thorium reactors, nuclear fusion or cheaper battery storage, in conjunction with the intermittent renewables that we are developing at the moment. I will rejoice if those come about, but they are some way off.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that since the time of the quote he read out, we have had three further industrial revolutions, which makes his assumptions completely obsolete, and that we are in the middle of a further clean-tech and biotech industrial revolution that will make obsolete the previous assumptions on industrial revolutions? Has he taken that into account in his calculations?
Mr Lilley
I do not know which industrial revolutions the hon. Gentleman is referring to, but they certainly did not rely on our subsidising the use of more expensive energy to replace less expensive energy.
There are perfectly respectable, if not entirely convincing, arguments for saying that we have to replace cheap energy with expensive, less reliable energy to reduce carbon emissions, and that that is a price worth paying, to coin a phrase. However, the premise of this debate is that we can generate economic growth by introducing fiscal measures to subsidise and promote green energy. Let us be clear what that means: it means subsidising the replacement of comparatively cheap and reliable energy from fossil fuels with more expensive and intermittent energy from renewables.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the debate should really be about whether we want to switch from higher-emitting to lower-emitting sources of energy, rather than having this complete confusion all the time about its being a question of carbon emissions or renewable energy? Renewable energy is very expensive, but there are plenty of sources of non-renewable energy that would be far less carbon-emitting.
Mr Lilley
I am sorry, but I have given way a couple of times.
To suggest that we can make ourselves richer by adopting more expensive energy is self-evidently ridiculous. Most of what has been cited as evidence of green growth involves creative accounting on a scale that would make Enron blush. First, there is the suggestion that a green sector has arisen, which allegedly employs 1 million people, produces goods and services worth £120 billion and, as the Deputy Prime Minister said the other day, contributes 8% to our GDP—although the House of Commons Library can find no source for that figure, other than the Deputy Prime Minister.
Those figures aroused my natural scepticism, so I tracked them down and found that they came from a Department for Business, Innovation and Skills report published earlier this year, entitled “Low Carbon Environmental Goods and Services (LCEGS)”. My scepticism was confirmed by the opening words, which explain:
“The definition of the LCEGS sector is the result of five year’s work”.
You bet it was! It carries on:
“The definition is broad”—
I can believe that—
“and includes activities that may appear under the overlapping headings of Enviro, Eco, Renewable, Sustainable, Clean Tech, Low Carbon or No Carbon (and any other we might have missed).”
That is not my comment, but theirs. It goes on:
“In the strictest sense it is not a ‘sector’ but a flexible construct or ‘umbrella’ term for capturing a range of activities spread across many existing sectors”.
What does the sector contain? A quarter of it or more has nothing to do with low-carbon activities at all, but relates to things such as sewage and water treatment, double glazing and controlling noise. Those are all excellent things, but they are not what we are talking about today and nothing to do with the low-carbon economy.
The biggest sector within the low-carbon sector looks promising: it is called “Alternative Fuel Vehicle” and employs 105,000 people, making it the biggest employment area in the low-carbon sector. I thought, “Terrific, we are employing 105,000 people making electric cars.” Sadly, however, we are not. I know one of the producers of electric vehicles and, alas, it is no longer producing them. It turns out that the name relates to mainstream and other vehicle fuels. We are not starting off some great manufacturing revolution through all this subsidy at all.
Laura Sandys
The largest wind farm in the world is off the shore of my constituency, and 5,000 people are going through the port of Ramsgate on the construction side. The investment that has come in to the area has been significant—
Mr Lilley
That is fine, but my hon. Friend has read her speech. It is a question I was hoping for.
The growth of such sectors is either natural, in which case it is splendid, or it is the result of subsidies, in which case it is tosh. Subsidies can boost one sector at the expense of the rest of the economy, but we cannot make ourselves richer by providing subsidies. If a person moves a pound note from their left-hand pocket to their right-hand pocket, they are no richer. Subsidies can make us worse off, however. If we invest in offshore wind, which is twice as costly as conventional energy generation, we get half as much energy for a given sum of money. That makes us worse off, not better off.
Mr Lilley
Only if the hon. Lady is going to prove that we make ourselves better off by producing half as much electricity for a given sum of money. She is not. If she gives up on that, I am glad.
The only way in which subsidies might conceivably generate an economic revolution is if we subsided the producers of goods and services that we could export;, but we are not allowed to do that under European rules. Instead, what we do is subsidise users, consumers and those who install generating capacity in this country. Unlike the Chinese and the Koreans, we are not allowed to subsidise those who manufacture wind farms or photovoltaic cells. We may want to, but we are not allowed to. The pretence that the subsidies that we are giving will promote infant industries is untrue.
Mr Lilley
No, I have given way lots of times, including when it has reduced my own time.
Let us give up on the belief that we will create a new industry. All we are doing is subsidising jobs in other countries, whose manufactured goods we import. It is quite clear from a look at the detailed figures in this bogus sector that we are not creating an infant industry.
I will now give way to the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George), who wished to intervene, because I have a couple of minutes to go.
Andrew George
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He must address the fact that the low-carbon goods and services market, including the renewables sector that he is talking about, is worth £3.2 trillion a year, employs 28 million people and is growing at a rate of 4%. Either we turn our back on that as a market for the UK or we engage with it, in which case we have to have production capital here.
Mr Lilley
Exactly, but who is we? If we is the Government, the hon. Gentleman is proposing that the Government subsidise industries to go for that £3.2 trillion world industry. In fact, that is a bit of an exaggeration, but let us suppose that the figure is correct. The Government are not allowed to do what he wants because of European Union rules, which he supports. We cannot offer infant industries subsidies in this country, or indeed anywhere else in the European Union, although some of our partners may do so in concealed forms. We do not and cannot, so let us not pretend that we are doing so.
The subsidies that we deploy in this country go largely towards generating electricity by more expensive means than is necessary, which increases the cost base of our industry and makes it less competitive across the board. I hope that companies in this country will set up businesses in this sector, as in any other sector, to win exports across the world, but the Government are not allowed to support those companies, and let us not pretend that they are doing so when, in fact, they are subsidising imports.
Dr Whitehead
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: not only are the jobs real, but they are long-term, skilled jobs. Other countries are investing heavily in such jobs as that sixth-wave energy and industrial revolution takes off across the world.
My reference in an intervention to the several industrial revolutions since the horse and cart and steam relates to the fact that we are now beyond the information and technology revolution and moving into the clean-tech biotech revolution, which is taking off throughout the world. Who is the world leader in clean energy? We talk about its pollution and energy profligacy, but it is China—a country that is clearly engaged in a conspiracy of useless non-job creation in the green economy.
Dr Whitehead
As it happens, EU regulations enable the underwriting of investment in technology that will lead to a lower-carbon economy. The renewables obligation is regarded as state aid, but such investment can be underwritten precisely because it brings new technology to market, reduces its costs and increases its prevalence. That is why the Chinese invested £34 billion in clean energy in 2009, compared with £18 billion in the US. As the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) has said, the goods for low-carbon markets are expected to reach something like £4 trillion by 2015. Put simply, if we are not in that market, we will be sidelined not temporarily, but permanently.
Curiously, the recession gives our country an opportunity to be far more proactive than we might otherwise be. The cost of capital is low and liquidity is high because of the paradox of thrift: there is no danger that investment in green goods, services and plants will crowd out other forms of investment. Fiscally, we can go for it, but in view of the asymmetry, there must be clear and long-term signals.
What might we do? We could invest in decarbonising our homes, for climate change purposes and for demand reduction purposes. We should insulate homes to make them fuel poverty-proof—as we know, the green deal will only scratch the surface. We will get £4 billion per annum over the next 15 years from the EU emissions trading scheme, carbon trading and the carbon floor price. As a fiscal measure—without hypothecating what is in the tax pot—we could invest a large amount of that money in ensuring that our homes are energy-efficient.
We should invest in low-carbon energy provision in the way that I have outlined. If the state wills the ends of that provision, it must underwrite it. That need not mean putting money in the pot, but it does mean underwriting at least some of the risk. It is ridiculous, for example, that there is no state backing for the contracts for difference that will replace the renewables obligation under the Energy Act 2011, and that no demand-side measures, underwritten by feed-in tariffs, are being introduced under the Act. We can get long-term value by taking such fiscal action.
Fiscal policy need not involve underwriting money. Holding the ring on risk and bringing new forms of low-carbon power home is key. To get us to a position in which we have a substantial number of ultra-low carbon vehicles on the road, why not have a “feebate” system, whereby we use, as a fiscal measure, additional fees on high-carbon consuming vehicles to underwrite the new low-carbon vehicles that come on stream? We have a target of 1.7 million ultra-low-carbon vehicles on our roads by the early 2020s. That is the sort of measure we should undertake.
Above all, we should get real about the green investment bank. The bank will have £3 billion as a fund until 2016, or perhaps later, depending on whether the Chancellor decides that it is ready for investment as a whole, yet last year KfW, the German public green investment bank, invested £24 billion—more than a third of its £70 billion —on energy and climate change measures. We can do that if the green investment bank is a bank, but it needs the ability to raise bonds and money at an early stage. That is the sort of fiscal underwriting we need for this green energy, resource and social revolution that we are going through. We need to get on with that urgently, and I urge the House to support the motion to assist with that process.
Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)
We will hear in the debate arguments for and against investment in renewable energy, although I can see only one person in the Chamber who is against such investment. Those on both sides of the argument would probably agree on two things: the first is that there is only a finite supply of fossil fuels, and the second is that Britain relies too heavily on foreign imports for the energy needed to power its homes and businesses.
Both factors are problems that need to be addressed if Britain is to have long-term energy security. Hon. Members have a choice: we can leave the problem for our children and grandchildren to solve in 40 or 50 years’ time, when it might be too late to find a solution, or we can get to grips with the problem now and ensure that future generations can switch on their lights.
The problems I mentioned are interlinked and can be solved only by finding replacements for the fossil fuels on which Britain has become too dependent. There are a number of options, including nuclear power, shale gas, clean coal technology, biomass energy, anaerobic digestion, ocean wave energy, tidal power and wind energy. The sensible long-term strategy would be not to major on any one of those alternatives, but to establish a national plan that draws in power from all of those sources to supplement the reserves of oil that will become increasingly scarce and expensive over the next few decades.
The advantage of establishing an alternative energy industry is that most of the components needed to generate power could be sourced in Britain. That is particularly true of the renewable energy sector. As an island, we have the advantage not only of a limitless flow of water, but also of access to all-year-round wind, particularly offshore, which leads me nicely to that part of the green economic sector on which I would like to concentrate.
Many oppose an expansion in Britain’s wind capacity. They either say that wind turbines will never produce enough electricity to make them viable, or object to the use of Government subsidies to encourage investment in wind energy, or both. I would have more sympathy for the first argument if wind turbine technology had stood still, but it has not. For instance, the new V164 offshore turbines, which are being developed by Vestas on the Isle of Wight, each generate 7 MW of electricity.
It was with deep regret that we learned one week ago that Vestas has decided not to renew its option for land at the port of Sheerness, which had been set aside as the site for a factory that would have produced the blades for the V164. That factory would have created 2,000 new jobs for my constituency, and many of them would have gone to people living in my constituency. Given that my constituency has a higher unemployment rate than the average south-east constituency—in Sheerness East, where the factory would have been built, it is more than 11%—the decision by Vestas has been another blow to the morale of my constituents.
In many ways, Vestas’ decision is surprising, because Sheerness is an ideal location for a wind turbine factory, which is why I will be working closely with Swale borough council, Kent county council and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to attract another manufacturer to the Isle of Sheppey. Full planning permission is in place, and we have the right infrastructure and a willing and ready work force; all we need is somebody willing to take Vestas’ place.
Mr Lilley
Will my hon. Friend confirm that the one thing that none of those organisations can do is offer a subsidy to anyone to come to his constituency to produce wind farm components? It might be desirable that they should—it would certainly be a better use of money than subsidising rich landowners to install wind farms—but it is not the case. Can he confirm that?
Gordon Henderson
I can confirm that none of those organisations can offer such a subsidy, but that is not to say that we cannot do something to attract an alternative.
Caroline Lucas
I apologise, but I will not give way again, as I do not have much time left.
For many low-income households the green deal financial mechanism simply does not stack up. [Interruption.] The mechanism is based on loans with interest rates of between 6% and 7%. That creates the risk that these loans will be taken up by middle-class and well-off households, which might be able to afford to take them up without needing any support, rather than by less-affluent families with next-to-nothing in their pockets. Although there are limitations in respect of this market mechanism, if we are going to use it, we will at least need support to bring interest rates down to a more realistic level—as Germany has done through the development bank, KfW.
Renewable energy enjoys massive public support. That is true even of wind—although judging by the outcry from some Tory Back Benchers, we would be forgiven for assuming otherwise. In November, a YouGov survey found strong support for renewables, with 60% of people supporting wind power subsidies. The Prime Minister said in his half-speech at the clean energy ministerial meeting in April that he passionately believed that the rapid growth of renewable energy was vital to the UK’s future, but, sadly, his Government’s policies do not reflect those warm words. Instead, we hear rumours that he and his Chancellor are seeking backroom deals for a 25% cut in subsidies to onshore wind. Any reduction beyond the proposed 10% cut to wind subsidies would fly in the face of environmental and economic common sense, jeopardising the future of both onshore wind and investment in other renewables across the country, as well as the thousands of jobs they could bring.
The solar feed-in tariff fiasco provides another example of coalition Ministers creating harmful uncertainty. As one solar company in my constituency described it, the industry has had to endure a series of “unsettling knee-jerk changes” that have undermined not only investor confidence, but public confidence in the solar industry. Solar energy has huge potential in the UK and it is a tragedy that we are not supporting it more.
Marine energy also has massive potential. With the right support the UK industry could seize almost a quarter of the world’s potential market, according to the Carbon Trust. That would be worth an estimated £29 billion per annum to the UK economy by 2050 and would support more than 68,000 jobs. Sadly, that potential looks hugely unlikely to be realised, given that we have a Government Budget with a £3 billion tax break for more offshore oil and gas drilling—
Caroline Lucas
I will not give way, because I am running out of time. I am sorry. I was going to say that we also have a draft Energy Bill that threatens to usher in a new dash for gas.
Finally, in my last 40 seconds, I wish to pick up on the way in which “accelerate green growth” is being used in the motion, as we need to be a little clearer about that. Of course we need faster growth in some sectors of our economy, including in renewable energy and energy efficiency, but we must stop pretending that we can have infinite growth on a planet of finite resources. The current economic crisis gives us the opportunity to change direction and get on the path to a very different kind of economy, one that it is not measured solely by GDP. The problem with GDP is that it measures everything in cash terms; it does not measure what is growing, and it does not give us any sense of the quality of the economy and whether it is delivering true well-being.
Financial Services Bill
Lord Lilley Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the shadow Chancellor, who began by promising us—somewhat uncharacteristically—a speech that would not be partisan or adversarial. I am sure that the House would have been as disappointed as much as surprised had he fulfilled that promise. I shall endeavour to do so for him because, as Chairman of the Joint Committee scrutinising the Bill, I had to adopt a more consensual approach than is sometimes my wont.
I am grateful to the Chancellor for responding so positively to the Joint Committee’s report and taking on board the substance and spirit of most of our recommendations. I hope that we have helped to make the Bill better. This was my first experience of the Joint Committee procedure, and I found it extremely productive, not least because the members, Chairman apart, were all of an immensely high calibre, brought great experience and approached their task in a thoroughly constructive way. However, it is salutary to remind ourselves that the first ever Joint Committee was set up to scrutinise the Financial Services and Markets Bill, which this Bill effectively replaces.
My Committee was conscious that, despite the eminence of our predecessor Committee, it did not diagnose the problems that subsequently ensued—above all the lack of focus on banking supervision and systemic stability. I hope history will not show us to have missed the elephant in the room.
The Bill is essentially about changing the structure of regulation from the tripartite system to a twin-peaks model in the light of the recent banking crisis. However, the Committee was struck by the weight of evidence for two things. First, no system of regulation can guarantee that there will never be another banking crisis. Consequently, it is essential to have a process in place to resolve the situation if banks get into problems. I urge the new FCA to make it a priority to see that major banks draw up their living wills as soon as possible. It is also essential to know who is in charge if a serious crisis erupts. We heard from the previous Chancellor that during the last crisis there were serious differences between the Treasury and the Bank of England and no easy way to resolve them. We recommended that, once the Bank has identified that a problem could lead to a call on public funds, the power to exercise responsibility should lie with the Chancellor, even though he may continue to leave that power in the hands of the Governor. I am pleased that the essence of that recommendation has been adopted.
The second point made by many witnesses was that regulatory structure is less important than the culture, focus and philosophy of the regulator, as the shadow Chancellor reminded us. That culture will depend crucially on the leadership, staffing and training of the new regulatory bodies, which are beyond the scope of this Bill. The only way in which legislation can influence the culture and focus is by setting clear objectives, powers and responsibilities, and systems of accountability for each of the new bodies. We made a number of detailed recommendations to clarify those and I am glad that most have been taken on board.
The House will be relieved to hear that I do not propose to go through all 70 recommendations item by item, but the biggest change of culture is from what has been described as box-ticking regulation to discretionary or forward-looking supervision. The Government advocated that change before the Joint Committee was established, but we found it hard to see where in the Bill the approach was given legal backing, especially for the Prudential Regulation Authority. I hope that the Chancellor is confident that regulators will be fully empowered under the legislation to behave in that way.
As our work progressed, the Committee became increasingly aware that, however well drafted, the Bill will have a decreasing impact on how the British financial system operates, as regulations are increasingly being set at a European level. A veritable tsunami of EU regulation is about to wash over the City, so it is vital that the UK exercises the maximum influence on decision making in Brussels. However, the architecture of the regulatory structure being created in Brussels is different from that in the UK. It’s is based on sectors and ours will be based on prudential and financial conduct. There is a danger that our lobbying input to the EU regulators will be fragmented, divided and weakened as a result. We therefore proposed the establishment of a high level committee, chaired by the Treasury and reporting to the Chancellor, to co-ordinate the UK lobbying effort in Europe of all the bodies created by the Bill, and in international forums such as Basel. I am glad that that recommendation has been adopted in the memorandum of understanding between the various bodies, but it is obviously also important closely to consult financial firms—both British and foreign—that do business in London, Edinburgh and elsewhere in the UK, whose lobbying power also needs to be deployed in Brussels.
I should mention that while I was in Brussels last week on other business I had the opportunity to meet Monsieur Barnier, the commissioner responsible for most of the proposed financial services legislation. I am grateful to him for seeing me. When I told him that many of us on the Committee had been surprised to learn about this tsunami of financial services legislation descending upon us, he rightly said that we should not have been. The measures were in the public domain and followed from the decisions of the College of Commissioners and the Council of Ministers. He is correct. Mea culpa—or nostra culpa: the fault is ours in this House if we pay too little attention to what is brewing across the channel until it is too late. The European Scrutiny Committee does sterling work, but I wonder whether our procedures need to integrate its work more closely into our process of scrutiny on the Floor of the House, bringing Ministers here to explain our negotiating position at an early stage.
Kelvin Hopkins
As a member of the European Scrutiny Committee, I appreciate what the right hon. Gentleman is saying, but does he not agree that it would be strengthened if the European Standing Committees had permanent instead of ad hoc membership which means that the work is not taken so seriously?
Mr Lilley
That is probably a good point, and I hope that the relevant powers will listen to it.
When Monsieur Barnier came to London a few weeks ago, he defended his legislative programme as necessary to creating a single market. If it would create a single market, most Members on both sides of the House would wholeheartedly support it—I certainly would—but I cannot see how any of the measures will open up a single new opportunity for financial companies to trade outside their own national markets across the single market beyond what is already open to them. Most if not all of the directives are about centralising regulatory powers over the financial sector in Brussels rather than in nation states.
Monsieur Barnier did not dispute that, but he argued that the financial crisis had been caused by lack of regulation of “British and American banks”, so it was essential to impose regulation at an EU level. I gently reminded him that the credit crunch had been sparked when a French bank, BNP Paribas, announced it could no longer put a value on its property funds, that it subsequently emerged that continental banks had far higher levels of gearing than Anglo-Saxon banks, and that the current euro crisis is, at its heart, a banking crisis, as continental banks are so under-capitalised that they cannot absorb the losses on their holdings of sovereign debt and their Governments cannot afford to recapitalise them openly and immediately, as British and American Governments did.
Monsieur Barnier also argued that a single market requires a single rule book. However, that was promptly negated by his promise that that does not mean a one-size-fits-all regime and that
“we also need to allow considerable flexibility for national supervisors”.
Either there are separate national rule books, or there is a single EU-wide rule book. We cannot have or pretend to have both—or rather we can, and in a sense we do. Under the second banking directive, any bank or similar financial firm can operate anywhere in the EU under the supervision of its home authority, so any individual bank can operate under a single rule book throughout Europe. Of course, that rule book must obviously meet minimum requirements agreed at EU level. I believe that that is the model that we should retain and encourage across Europe within the single market.
That brings me to the issue of the draft fourth capital requirements directive, which will implement the Basel III agreement. The Committee discussed it at length with Mr Enria, chairman of the European Banking Authority, who strongly defended the EU’s decision to set not only a minimum level of reserve that each country must require its banks to hold, but a maximum level that banks can be required to hold. We subsequently wrote asking for clarification of his reasons for setting a maximum, but found his arguments unconvincing. His claim that our setting a higher rate would somehow siphon off funds from other countries, or that it would be unfair if we made our banks safer than those of other countries, were not entirely convincing.
In the light of the Committee’s experience, my interview with Monsieur Barnier and the evidence from Mr Enria, I believe strongly that the Prime Minister was right to seek to reintroduce what Monsieur Barnier called a dose of unanimity in decision making on financial markets. I hope that the Prime Minister will continue to press that with the support of both sides of the House.
Banking Commission Report
Lord Lilley Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Osborne
Well, we have tried the right hon. Gentleman’s approach and look what happened: the entire banking system collapsed. So with the greatest respect, his advice on what is a dangerous approach to regulation we will take with a pinch of salt.
I turn to the right hon. Gentleman’s other points. On international agreement, obviously it is extremely important that we are able to do this under European law. There has been an argument about this. We have a great deal of support. Countries such as Spain and Sweden have written to the Commission to urge it to allow countries to have their own national regimes that sit on top of the minimum capital requirements, and we are encouraged by the very recent Commission quote which says that “Vickers can be implemented fully in the UK in a way that is compatible with EU law”, but we will continue to make our argument. It is encouraging that both the European Commission and the European Parliament have expressed their keen interest in the Vickers report and are doing their own work on that. It is good to see us leading the international debate on that.
The right hon. Gentleman mentions competition. On Northern Rock, we welcome the National Audit Office investigation. It would be very surprising if the NAO did not do a report into such a financial transaction. It has done reports into all the previous financial transactions by this Government and the previous Government. I think what it will demonstrate is that this was a loss-making bank and the independent advice that we received was that it would go on losing money. The people who should be to blame for losing taxpayers’ money are sitting directly opposite me.
On Lloyds and the Lloyds branches, we have spoken throughout this process to John Vickers. Obviously, he can speak for himself and give his view, but we have kept him closely informed of what we are proposing. I think it is consistent with the intention in the report to create a strong challenger out of the divestment of the Lloyds branches.
Let me turn to the timetable that the right hon. Gentleman mentions. As I say, we will be implementing some of the competition requirements in the Vickers report—for example, the new competition remit for the FCA. That will be part of the financial services Bill that we introduce in January. We considered carefully whether to try and put all the Vickers requirements—the creation of the ring-fenced banks—into the financial services Bill that we are introducing early next year.
We did not think that was sensible. That was also the view of John Vickers, who recommended a separate piece of legislation. That is precisely what we are going to do, but our commitment is clear. We will have all the primary and secondary legislation, which is where quite a lot of the detail will be, through by the end of this Parliament. That is exactly what we want to see.
Finally, the right hon. Gentleman has been going around complaining that we are not doing enough, we are in danger of watering down Vickers, and the like. This is from the people who have opposed structural reform to our banking system. When I was sitting on the Opposition Front Bench as the shadow Chancellor under both the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is in his place, and also under the Chancellor of the Exchequer before, who then became the Prime Minister, they opposed structural reform. They did not want to separate the banks. No doubt they can answer for themselves, but for the former City Minister who was in post when RBS made its bid for ABN AMRO, for the City Minister who was in post when Northern Rock was offering those 125% mortgages, for the City Minister who was in post when HBOS was making all those commercial property loans, for the former City Minister to complain that we are not doing enough is ridiculous. This is the man who advised that Fred Goodwin should get a knighthood and who told his boss to go and open the Lehman Brothers headquarters. That is his record, and his mealy-mouthed apology reminds me of that film “Whoops Apocalypse”—I am sorry, I just brought down the entire British economy; can we all please move on now. That is what he has done. Frankly, he has not made a substantive or interesting contribution to this debate on bank reform. Perhaps in the next few months he will.
Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his welcome for the Joint Committee report on the financial services Bill. Will he confirm that the legislation implementing recommendations on ring-fencing will be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny, but after that the banks will be required to implement ring-fencing without delay, whereas there is a strong case for allowing time for the requirements for higher capital adequacy to be built up to prevent intensifying the shortage of capital in the short term?
Mr Osborne
I will consider the case for pre-legislative scrutiny, and the House will consider it, closer to the time. Obviously there is a trade-off between getting the legislation through and having the pre-legislative scrutiny, but my right hon. Friend’s Committee has done a very good job. Not everyone here will have had a chance to read its report, but I have read its executive summary and I will read the full report tonight. It is an impressive piece of work and an advert for pre-legislative scrutiny. I repeat our commitment that we want all this legislation, primary and secondary, by the end of the Parliament.
Eurozone Financial Assistance
Lord Lilley Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Michael Connarty
I will give way in a moment.
Everything I am discussing is the consequence of the things that the Governments of these countries did; this was not about the EU being in existence and not about their being members of the eurozone. These things were done by those Governments. The offer is that the IMF, the World Bank and the eurozone countries, mainly, will bail out those countries.
European Union Economic Governance
Lord Lilley Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
The question that this House must face is this: do these measures and the possible treaty change that they presage constitute a threat to the sovereignty of this country or an opportunity for us to regain a little sovereignty? If the measures envisage a substantive transfer of sovereignty, restricting our fiscal and economic freedom, then the issue is clear: we should veto them or seek a full exemption from them. If the Government were to contemplate accepting them without a full exemption, there would have to be a referendum. Indeed, the very prospect of a referendum would be enough to gain us full exemption. My hon. Friends have concerns, which I fully understand and respect, that although limited to giving information and possibly signing up to targets that we could not be compelled to meet, these measures may be the thin end of a Trojan horse—if I may mix my metaphors.
We have seen in the past how wording that has been glossed over has led to the transfer of powers. So far, I am not persuaded that the measures and what is envisaged in the treaty changes would result in a substantial transfer of sovereignty. However, I shall listen closely, and advise others to inspect thoroughly and scrutinise deeply. If at the end of the day we are signing up just to the sort of surveillance that we already receive from the IMF, that would not worry me too much. Indeed, then I would say to myself, “This is an opportunity.” If the measures solely concern the members of the eurozone, but none the less require our assent before they can go ahead, we should say to them, “We will let you do to yourselves what you want. We will give you the necessary approval, if in return you let us do some things that we want to do, which won’t concern you, by repatriating some powers.”
We on the Conservative Benches were elected on a manifesto that said:
“We will work to bring back key powers over legal rights, criminal justice and social and employment legislation to the UK.”
We have a target, and this is an opportunity, so we should seize it. However, we are, of course, a coalition Government, so we should seek modest returns of powers that are compatible with the objectives of the whole coalition. Liberal Members in the west country expressed their hope for a return of powers over fisheries; indeed, they stood at the election on it. Fisheries are not a big issue in my inland constituency, but I would be prepared to work with those Members for a return of powers.
However, the coalition agreement is quite specific. It says not only that we will
“ensure that there is no further transfer of sovereignty or powers over the course of the next Parliament,”
but that we will
“examine the balance of the EU’s existing competences and will, in particular, work to limit the application of the Working Time Directive in the United Kingdom.”
I therefore have a simple question for the Minister, which I hope he will answer in the affirmative in his winding-up speech. Will we be using this opportunity both to meet the objectives laid out clearly in the coalition agreement and, in return for our consent to such measures, to seek to limit the application of the working time directive to the United Kingdom?
Economic Governance (EU)
Lord Lilley Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. I would remind the House that if I am to accommodate a reasonable number of colleagues within the very limited time frame available, brevity in both questions and answers is essential.
Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
Can the Minister confirm that even if the proposed treaty concerns only and exclusively the member states of the eurozone, it would still require the support of the British Government to go ahead? Can he assure me that that support will not be given without obtaining concessions in return, such as the return of powers to this country that were unnecessarily given? Can he assure me that we will not give that support without demanding a price? This is the ideal opportunity to obtain that price.
Mr Hoban
My right hon. Friend makes an important point, but I would point out to him that, at the moment, there are no proposed treaty changes on the table. That may happen at the European Council next weekend, and we should respond to those treaty changes as they arise. However, I go back to the comments that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made: we will not agree to any changes to EU treaties that move more powers from this country to the EU.