Scottish Independence: Currency Union

Debate between Lord Newby and Lord Martin of Springburn

Wednesday 12th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I have many burdens in your Lordships’ House but, fortunately, advising the leader of the Scottish National Party is not one of them. I will point out, however, that on all the available analysis, the likelihood is that were Scotland to adopt the pound, the interest rates that would be payable in Scotland would be significantly higher than they are here—possibly up to 1.65% higher. For an average Scottish mortgage holder, that works out as an extra £1,700 to pay.

[Lord Martin of Springburn (CB)]

My Lords, many people in Scotland, including myself, appreciate the fact that UK Ministers have come forward and explained the difficulties of separation. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is one of them. It is a nonsense for the First Minister to say that whenever a UK Minister comes forward to talk about the difficulties, that is bullying and bluffing. I say to the noble Lord from Plaid Cymru that the worst thing that could happen is to say to the Scottish people, “Vote yes and the following morning we will do a deal with the Chancellor of the Exchequer because he is only bluffing”. That is absolute nonsense and it shows the type of irresponsibility that exists within the Scottish Government.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, one thing I find slightly surprising, at a bit of a distance from this debate, is that any aspect of independence that is tricky seems to be met by the response from the Scottish First Minister that, “No, it’s not tricky. Don’t worry, it’ll be fine”—often with zero evidence to back it up. I hope that colleagues in my party and other parties in Scotland will carry on pointing out to the Scottish people the hollowness of many of his assertions.

Payday Loans

Debate between Lord Newby and Lord Martin of Springburn

Wednesday 11th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, the Advertising Standards Authority has been looking at a rising number of complaints about payday loan advertising on television. It has the power to ban misleading ads and already has done so in respect of ads placed, for example, by Cash Lady and FirstPayDayLoanUK. From April next year, the FCA will have the power to ban misleading financial promotions. It will be able to look at advertising and the whole way in which payday loans are promoted under that new power.

[Lord Martin of Springburn (CB)]

My Lords, there is deep concern in the social and community-based housing movement because the payday loan operators get access to people’s personal accounts to take the direct debit. The danger is that when people receive a rollover loan, in many cases the payday loan company has taken all the money out of that account and left the housing association with a tenant who is in deep arrears. Sometimes they are forced to take out eviction notices, which they are very reluctant to do. Can this be looked into?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, this matter has been looked into. The Financial Conduct Authority, which takes responsibility in this area from next April, has already proposed limiting continuous payment authorities to two payments and reducing rollovers to two. It has the power to constrain them further than that if that is still seen to be an issue. That is one of the things that the FCA will look at as part of its assessment of the total cap of the cost of payday loans, which it is currently considering.

Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill

Debate between Lord Newby and Lord Martin of Springburn

Tuesday 15th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

I am extremely sorry; I misunderstood the noble Baroness. I think that I shall have to write to her on that point.

My noble friend Lord Sharkey asked whether this was the only case in which a regulator had innovation as part of his remit. I simply do not know but I think that the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, pointed out that, if it were, that might indeed be an innovation. If it is an innovation, we think that it is a good one.

In terms of divestment and who picks up the shares, we are saying that this is something that the regulator should have the power to look at as one possibility. There is no blueprint in Treasury minds as to how he will do it or whether he will do it and, if so, who the beneficiaries will be. It is something that we want to have as an option for the regulator to look at. We want to give the regulator the greatest possible scope to come up with alternative ways of developing the system and possibly of generating new sources of funding for the innovation, which we are also keen on.

I am sure that I have omitted a number of points. My noble friend Lord Phillips raised a question concerning subsection (3) of the proposed new clause in Amendment 60B and I have now forgotten what he asked. Perhaps he would like to ask it again. He is indicating that he would not—that is good.

[Lord Martin of Springburn (CB)]

I have been very interested in what has been said about the regulator. Obviously the regulator has to work at arm’s length from those he is regulating. If any hospitality is offered to the regulator, is that put in a register that can be seen by the public? In other words, will we have transparency in this matter?

[Lord Newby]

I will write to the noble Lord as I do not have the faintest clue, except to say that I am sure that this regulator will follow the same rules as other regulators, but I simply do not know what their rules are in respect of hospitality. I suspect that, like Ministers, there will be some de minimis figure below which they will not need to make such a declaration and beyond which they will. However, I will check that.

Business

Debate between Lord Newby and Lord Martin of Springburn

Wednesday 13th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

My Lords, that is rather unfair on Back-Benchers. Perhaps the rule could be examined. It would be fairer if the minutes that the Front Bench took up could be disregarded as far as concerns the 10 minutes, so there could be a full 10 minutes for Back-Benchers.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, this is a new procedure, agreed by the Procedure Committee. One way of dealing with the noble Lord’s point is for the Opposition to keep their initial comments and questions brief.

Banking Reform

Debate between Lord Newby and Lord Martin of Springburn

Monday 4th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

On the second point, the Government’s view is that, as a general rule, we support the level proposed by Basel III and do not want the UK to be out of line with what is happening elsewhere in the global banking community. As my noble friend knows, the Government and I completely share her views about the importance of competition. As a first step, it is very important that we see rapid progress when it comes to those branches that, for example, RBS is supposed to be divesting itself of but which so far have not been divested. That is one step towards the greater competition that she seeks.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

Many of these big banks took over our friendly societies, which were excellent self-help groups and were able to ensure that young couples got a mortgage. In fact, the friendly- society legislation governed the trade union movement at one time. Will the Government look at the restoration of the friendly societies, which were gobbled up by these banks? There are far too many young couples out there who have to rent property when, like the rest of us, they would rather be in an owner-occupier situation.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, the Government share the noble Lord’s support for the mutual sector. It is interesting that, over the past couple of years, the mutual sector has been doing very well: Nationwide and the Co-op have been growing rapidly, which we very much welcome. We also welcome some of the specific decisions that have been taken by banks such as Nationwide, under which people who want a mortgage will get preferential treatment if they have had an account with that mutual for some time before they asked for it. That situation was commonplace a generation ago.

Children: Childcare Costs

Debate between Lord Newby and Lord Martin of Springburn

Thursday 31st January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I think the question that we have to look at in terms of the number of children is why it is that those countries that, by common consent, have the best childcare provision in the world have higher ratios of children. The answer is partly that we need to have a combination of things of which better training is one. The pay is very low, but the Government will fund the additional free support which I mentioned earlier at a higher average rate of pay than is currently paid across the sector.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

My Lords, not so long ago—and it might still be the case—employees in the House of Commons who had children in nursery care were given tax-free vouchers by the House. Will the Minister and his department look at extending this scheme to the wider population?

[Lord Newby]

Yes, my Lords. Vouchers are one of the possible ways of dealing with this, and they are one of the options being considered.