Bank of England
Lord Sassoon Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Lord Sassoon
I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, for commending the appointment. I am pleased that he recognises what a great catch Mark Carney is for the Bank and the country. To answer the noble Lord’s last question first, he ought to ask Mr Carney directly about his change of mind. However, as the noble Lord says, we are very fortunate that he did change his mind.
On the other questions, there was no question of bringing the announcement forward. My right honourable friend the Chancellor has always said that he sought to complete the appointment process by the end of the year. I do not believe that there was any statement to say that the announcement would be made in the Autumn Statement or at any time; people may have been speculating on that, but it was pure speculation.
The noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, asked about Mr Carney’s role as chair of the Financial Stability Board. At the moment, Mr Carney combines being chair of the Financial Stability Board with being a central bank governor, so he is quite used to doing the two things. The main thing is that, subject to his term on the FSB being renewed—as I would expect it to be—it is very good news for the United Kingdom that we will have a Governor of the Bank of England who is also taking this lead central role through the Financial Stability Board in the G20’s leadership of the future shape of financial regulation globally.
The first time I had the pleasure of working with Mr Carney was when, in earlier lives, he and I sat on the predecessor body, the Financial Stability Forum, so I know from my own direct experience going back over 10 years what a contribution he has made over a long period. He will, of course, be very well supported by three deputy governors in the Bank of England on the important and wide-ranging responsibilities that he will have. One of the things that the interview panel will have looked at is Mr Carney’s management experience, which is unquestioned in his present job. I believe he will be able to combine his responsibilities.
As for accountability, the key thing is not so much how other countries do it but whether we have got the right accountability for the Governor and the Bank in the new structure. We have spent many hours, quite rightly, in the heart of the Financial Services Bill, that we are considering again this afternoon, to get that right. Most importantly, partly as a consequence of the debates in your Lordships’ House, we have introduced the oversight committee of non-executive directors, which introduces an important new strand of accountability that has not been present hitherto in the Bank.
Lastly, the important thing is that for the first time a Governor of the Bank of England will go through—has volunteered to go through—a pre-commencement hearing with the Treasury Select Committee. That is a major step. I am not going to offer thoughts on what other cases it may be appropriate for, but in this case, it is breaking new ground and totally appropriate. However, the main thing here is that I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, for confirming, as I am sure the whole House will agree, that this is an extraordinarily good appointment of the best available person.
Lord Sharkey
I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement and congratulate the Government on the appointment of Mr Carney. I send congratulations from these Benches, and perhaps commiserations too, to Mr Carney.
I note that two weeks ago, in a speech to the Canadian Club of Montreal, Mr Carney addressed the question of whether we have ended “too big to fail”. He concluded by saying that it is not yet clear that it has been ended. He said, quite explicitly, that each “global systemically important” financial institution,
“ must have mandatory recovery and resolution plans”
in place. I look forward to discussing Mr Carney’s views on this subject with the Minister when Report stage of the Financial Services Bill resumes later this afternoon.
Lord Sassoon
I am grateful to my noble friend and look forward to our further discussions on that important topic later this afternoon.
Lord Cormack
My Lords, does this prove that “never” is a short time in politics?
Financial Services Bill
Lord Sassoon Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Lord Sassoon
(b) the setting of a specified benchmark.”
The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon)
My Lords, I feel that I should warn you that my remarks on this group will be longer and more detailed than usual, because this group of amendments relates to Martin Wheatley’s review of LIBOR. This is a new area for this House’s consideration in the context of the Bill, as well as being vitally important.
LIBOR—the London interbank offered rate—is the most frequently utilised benchmark for interest rates globally. At the end of June this year, it was revealed that LIBOR had been subject to repeated attempts at manipulation over a number of years. The Government have been absolutely clear that any attempt to manipulate that important international benchmark is unacceptable.
Although misconduct was not confined to London, as banks and interbank benchmarks in a number of jurisdictions have also been implicated, the Government have moved quickly to restore the credibility of LIBOR, which is a key component of our financial infrastructure. It is vital that those who use and rely on LIBOR can continue to have confidence in its integrity.
One week after the revelations emerged, my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer asked Martin Wheatley, chief executive-designate of the FCA, to consider immediate reforms to the framework for setting LIBOR. Mr Wheatley reported his findings and made his recommendations at the end of September.
LIBOR is the most important interest rate benchmark globally, as it is used in a multitude of contracts, including bilateral and syndicated loans, interest rate derivatives, mortgages and variable-coupon bonds. Indeed, the Wheatley review estimated that at least $300 trillion-worth of contracts reference LIBOR. For that reason, it is imperative that LIBOR is comprehensively reformed with the minimum of disruption to international financial markets. The Wheatley review provides a 10-point plan to reform LIBOR, including recommendations to both Government and market participants. The Government welcome and endorse the Wheatley review recommendations in full, and are determined that they should be implemented by all parties involved without delay.
Accordingly, I have tabled three sets of amendments. First, Amendments 70 to 73 enable benchmark activities such as LIBOR and, potentially, any other benchmarks to be brought within the scope of statutory regulation under FiSMA. Secondly, Amendments 108 to 114 create a series of new offences designed to tackle misconduct in the financial sector, including a new distinct criminal offence for making false or misleading submissions in connection with the determination of a benchmark. Thirdly, Amendment 80 provides the FCA with a new rule-making power to require banks to submit to LIBOR and other appropriate benchmarks.
These amendments complement other market-led reforms to LIBOR as recommended by the Wheatley review, including the replacement of the BBA as the rate administrator, through an open tender process; the requirement for banks to make explicit and clear use of transaction data to corroborate LIBOR submissions; and a number of technical changes, designed to reduce the ability and incentives to manipulate LIBOR.
I will now explain the amendments in more detail. Martin Wheatley made an express recommendation to the Government that the submission to, and administering of, LIBOR become regulated activities. Amendments 70 to 73 enable benchmark-related activities to be specified as regulated activities under FiSMA. Amendment 70 inserts,
“the setting of a specified benchmark”
as a class of activity which is able to become a regulated activity under FiSMA. Amendment 71 defines “benchmark” as an “index, rate or price”, which is defined from time to time by reference to the state of the market, and is used for the purposes of determining sums due under contracts, determining the value of investments, or measuring the performance of investments. A benchmark will be capable of being regulated only if it meets this definition, but the definition has been drafted in such a way as to be able to capture many possible benchmarks, potentially including inter bank interest rate benchmarks such as LIBOR, equity or bond price indices, commodity benchmarks, and so on. Amendment 73 sets out the scope of activities related to the setting of benchmarks that may become regulated activities. The activities covered include, among other things, the determination of a benchmark, the provision of information to a benchmark and the administration of a benchmark.
The precise activities and the range of benchmarks which will be brought within regulation will be specified in secondary legislation. Regulation of these activities will enhance and strengthen the FCA’s ability to make rules on benchmark-setting as well as the regulator’s ability to supervise directly and take regulatory action against persons involved in benchmark-setting processes.
The Wheatley review recommended that banks, including those not currently contributing to LIBOR, should be encouraged to participate as widely as possible in the LIBOR compilation process. Participation in LIBOR is currently voluntary; at present a total of 23 banks are members of different LIBOR currency panels. It is important that banks continue to play an active role in the process of submitting to LIBOR. In the absence of banks’ submissions, LIBOR would lack sufficient evidence to be an accurate reflection of bank borrowing costs and could eventually cease to be an authoritative benchmark. In an extreme scenario, the rate may not be able to be published. The failure or absence of LIBOR—given the vast number and variety of contracts that reference the benchmark—would lead to severely disruptive implications for banks, other institutions and international financial markets. While the benefits of LIBOR are enjoyed by all banks, only a small number of banks contribute to LIBOR. Some large banks do not currently submit to LIBOR.
While it may not be necessary for the FCA to use this power immediately—if at all—should the number of LIBOR-contributing banks fall, then the use of this power could be considered. To that end, the power outlined in Amendment 80 allows the FCA to impose requirements on authorised persons to participate in a benchmark, including by reference to any code or other document published by the person responsible for the setting of the benchmark, such as the benchmark administrator. This ensures that the precise detail of what information is required to be provided—in what format, to whom and at what time—can be determined by the administrator through their code, and not directly by the FCA.
At this point I would like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, for her eagle-eyed attention to the detail on this, and particularly to the version of the amendments we published in draft in October, which referred to a “code of practice”. As the noble Baroness suggested, this was not quite right in this context. The codes we are talking about here are not going to be confined to procedural or practical matters, so I agree with her that “code of practice” is not an appropriate description. It is a point with which I agreed, and I sought to amend the draft amendments before tabling them to refer simply to a “code”. The reference to a “code of practice” in subsection (2) of proposed new Section 137DA of the Financial Services and Markets Act was amended, but the reference to a “code of practice” in subsection (3) was overlooked, for which I apologise, but not by the noble Baroness, who has correctly spotted a drafting inconsistency. I am grateful for her pointing that out and can confirm if she presses Amendment 80B in due course, I fully intend to accept it. There may not be many other concessions today, but I thought I would get it in early. There is always one, so far.
The Wheatley review recommended the creation of a new criminal offence to provide an appropriate sanction for those who attempt to manipulate benchmarks, such as LIBOR. While such attempts to manipulate LIBOR could constitute a criminal offence under legislation other than FiSMA, the FSA, and subsequently the FCA, are not in a position to investigate and effectively prosecute such conduct. The Government agree with the conclusion of the Wheatley review that there is a strong case that the body responsible for supervising the conduct of firms in the financial services sector—that is, the FCA—should be able to investigate and prosecute misconduct in this area. Furthermore, the Wheatley review also recommended that the Government review the workability of the existing offences under Section 397 of FiSMA.
To this end, the proposed amendments repeal the existing Section 397 and create provisions for three separate criminal offences. In particular, Amendment 114 repeals Section 397, and Amendments 108 to 110 create the new criminal offences. Amendment 108 recreates the existing offence of making a false or misleading statement in Section 397(2), with modernised language because that offence originally dates back to 1939.
Amendment 109 widens the existing offence in Section 397(3) of misleading practices to include creating a false or misleading impression as to the market in, or price or value of, an investment for the purposes of making a profit or avoiding a loss. Amendment 110 creates a new criminal offence related to misleading statements and practices in respect of specified benchmarks, such as LIBOR. Amendment 111 deals with penalties for the new offences and replicates the penalties for existing offences under Section 397; that is, a person found guilty of these offences may face a prison sentence of up to seven years and an unlimited fine.
The other amendments in this group are related consequential amendments dealing with matters such as interpretation, procedure for the relevant secondary legislation that specifies to which investments and benchmarks the offences apply and references to Section 397 which, as I have explained, is being repealed.
The detail of the activities which are to be regulated under FiSMA and the investments, activities and benchmarks to which the new criminal offences apply need to be set out in secondary legislation. This secondary legislation will be subject to the draft affirmative procedure, so the prior approval of this House and another place will be required.
The Government’s current thinking is that LIBOR should be the only benchmark specified for the purposes of regulation and the new benchmark offence. The Treasury will begin a public consultation on these proposals shortly and, having considered the consultation responses, will seek to lay the orders in draft before Parliament as soon as the parliamentary timetable allows next year. This legislation has been designed so that additional activities and benchmarks can be specified as regulated as well as to allow the addition of further benchmarks for which the proposed criminal offence apply, should this be deemed necessary.
Indeed, the Wheatley review discussed the impact of the review’s conclusions on other financial benchmarks and recommended that international regulatory bodies, such as IOSCO and the FSB, develop international principles or guidance for the provision and use of benchmarks. Should these international initiatives conclude that regulation is required to other benchmarks, that is possible through amendments to secondary legislation.
I conclude by restating that it is imperative that LIBOR is both swiftly and comprehensively reformed, not only to restore and maintain credibility in the rate for the $300 trillion worth of contracts that reference it, but also to demonstrate that, in this country, such behaviour by individuals in the banking sector will not be tolerated. This Government believe that these amendments, alongside market-led reform of LIBOR, will restore global confidence in the rate. I beg to move.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I ask my noble friend a simple question, for which I apologise for not having given him notice. It is a question I had intended to raise in respect of an earlier amendment but for various reasons I was not here when that amendment was dealt with. It relates to the definition of financial crime. The FCA has, as one of its integrity objectives, the financial system not being used for a purpose connected with financial crime, and financial crime is defined in new Section 1H. An amendment moved by my noble friend earlier was to include terrorism financing in the definition of financial crime. It seems to me that the definition as it stands does not automatically include the new offences that are created in this rather large group of amendments, which we can shorthand as the LIBOR offences, because it would not otherwise have been within the remit of the FCA. I would be grateful if my noble friend would answer that point.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I was rather getting into the swing of this. I have never had so many questions in such a short time and I was waiting for more to come. Noble Lords know that I usually try to group my answers together in some coherent way, but the questions have come so thick and fast that I fear that in answering as many as I can the answers may not be grouped together quite as efficiently as I would like.
Let me start with the definitional issues around what we are trying to cover here. First, to the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, benchmark may be defined by Chambers Dictionary, on Google and in many other places, but it has never before been defined in FSMA and I think it is necessary to have a FSMA definition. I am sorry the noble Lord went to all these other sources and did not look at the very particular definition in the Bill, but that is where these amendments start. The noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, asked if the definition was wide enough and the noble Lord, Lord Peston, takes the view we should only be talking about LIBOR so the definition may be too wide.
Lord Peston
All I was saying was I thought that the Bill team, when we met them, told us that these amendments dealt with LIBOR, end of story. I am asking whether they deal with lots of other things. I am not saying it is wrong to do so, I am simply asking.
Lord Sassoon
I tried to make that clear in my opening remarks, but let me have another go. We have a serious LIBOR problem which needs dealing with. These clauses put in place a framework within which the Wheatley recommendations for dealing with the LIBOR problem can be dealt with. Many of the issues I have set out and will come back to will be dealt with in secondary legislation, which I can confirm will be by draft affirmative order. The consultation on the secondary legislation will start very shortly, as I said, with a view to that secondary legislation being laid as early in the new year as the parliamentary timetable permits. So, on LIBOR, we will have a framework and secondary legislation to bolt down much of the detail in the normal way.
There are a considerable number of other benchmarks out there. It is entirely possible that, because of the way in which the framework within these amendments has been constructed, other benchmarks, through affirmative orders and secondary legislation, could at some point in the future be included. My noble friend Lady Kramer asked for clarification in this area but I crave her indulgence for a couple of weeks or so until the consultation document comes out so that, rather than receiving a half-hearted letter from me, the consultation document will deal with the issue. The LIBOR problem needs to be addressed immediately. There are other benchmarks that people may, now or in the future, wish to be covered and the framework is sufficiently flexible and future-proof in this respect. If and when a case is made for other benchmarks to be treated in the same way as LIBOR, this framework will allow for that. However, it will have to come through the appropriate secondary legislation.
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, I was waiting to deal with the scope of Amendment 71. I entirely understand that the particular benchmarks to be included will be determined by subsequent order—and that is fine—but Amendment 71 confines the category of benchmarks to an index, rate or price that has something to do with investments. Can the Minister explain?
Lord Sassoon
The noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, asked the question very clearly earlier. If he would give me another minute or two I will get to his important point. He asked a lot of questions, as did other noble Lords, but it is the next point that I shall come to.
The noble Lord identified something that is consciously in the drafting: it sets a line between purely physical commodity markets where there are other provisions in place which cover price setting. In energy markets, if we are talking about a purely physical commodity price setting, Ofgem is the regulator and has the investigative and enforcement powers for the manipulation of physical markets under the so-called remit legislation. I appreciate that the line drawn raises the questions that the noble Lord has quite rightly asked. With pure commodities that are consciously dealt with in other legislation, Ofgem would be the principal regulator. However, gas, oil and other commodity benchmarks may well be referenced by derivatives or other financial instruments, in which case they are included in this definition. So, pure commodities are not included, but if they are referenced by derivatives or other financial instruments, that is covered in this definition of investment.
Lord Eatwell
That is very helpful. But I still think that the language is not clear. A derivative instrument may essentially be a traded instrument and there is no reason to define it as an investment. An investment is something on which one expects to receive a return either in terms of capital gain or a coupon. But you could easily conceive of a derivative instrument that is simply used as a hedge in a trading operation, which is not then an investment. This is a misuse of the word. I think that it is entirely appropriate that such instruments should be included under the broad definition that could be incorporated into subsequent law by order, but the Government should achieve clarity on this matter by specifying with greater precision exactly what they are doing.
I understand that precision can be a trap—you risk leaving so many things out when you are trying to be too precise. I understand that. But there is a bit of special pleading here, particularly because the Financial Secretary to the Treasury said that financial and other commodities markets were going to be referred to other international bodies and were not in the Government’s acceptance of the Wheatley report. So what did the Financial Secretary mean about referring this on to discussions with international organisations?
I want to press the Minister for clarity here. Take the manipulation of the gas market revealed last week. Would that benchmark be included in consideration under Amendment 71? Would it be accessible to an order made under Amendment 71 or not? Would the benchmark of the manipulation of the California electricity market also be susceptible to being included under an order expressed under Amendment 71?
Lord Sassoon
Again, to an extent the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, pre-empts what I was going to say. First, let me deal with this question about the international situation, which I believe I addressed in my opening remarks. We have identified a clear problem with a critical benchmark, LIBOR. We intend to fix it. Work is going on in the international arena to look at questions of benchmarks more generally. As and when there is a conclusion, that will then be factored in as to whether within this framework there is more to be done to regulate other benchmarks. Of course, if through applicable international rules there were some change to the framework required, which we do not anticipate, we could also change the framework through primary legislation.
In the mean time, having identified LIBOR, we will have a consultation. That will be an opportunity to people to give their views about what other benchmarks, if any, should be regulated. I do not see any contradiction in my remarks with my right honourable friend the Financial Secretary’s remarks at all. We will see what the international community comes up with as IOSCO and the FSB look at these matters.
The noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, is of course right that the definition here is one of the more difficult ones. I will have a look again to see whether anything of the sort that he suggests might be missed out is not covered. Although clear understanding is that the word “investment” as taken sometimes in a common- sense way does not necessarily fit with some of the examples that he gave, I will take it away and have a look at it again to make sure that it does cover everything.
On the series of petroleum-related examples that the noble Lord gave, I am not going to say whether the manipulation of the Californian electricity market would fit within the regulations because that is beyond the scope of what we are talking about, but let me talk about the gas market. I do not want to pre-empt the specifics of the gas market review, but I am quite clear that, between the provisions that we are putting in place in this Bill, and those to which I have already drawn attention and the powers of Ofgem, we will be covered.
Also in this definitional area, one or two questions were asked about GDP and RPI. In particular, the noble Lord, Lord Peston, asked about references to the GDP deflator. Since the GDP deflator is not set by reference to the state of a market but is wholly different, I do not see that coming within the scope of what we are looking at here. GDP is clearly a matter for the ONS; it is not derived from the markets in the sense that we are talking about here.
Lord Peston
The answer is that it is. It is a price index, and all price indexes are derived from markets because markets set prices. There is no question that it is not an index. I think that this is a matter of language and we hope that the Minister will clarify it for us. Will he also point to where in any amendment that he has put down the acronym LIBOR appears?
Lord Sassoon
The definition of “benchmark”, as we have already been through, has a number of legs to it, the first of which is that it is set by reference to the state of the market. Even if for the moment we park that one, we then come to the investment-related test, for which the GDP deflator would not apply. I know that in the example which the noble Lord gave it was part of something else, but the mere fact that it is part of something else does not mean that the GDP deflator is covered by the definition here.
On why LIBOR is not mentioned anywhere, which it is not, it is precisely because we are putting in place a framework. The secondary legislation, which will be preceded by a consultation coming very shortly, will be around what the first regulated benchmark should be. The Government will propose that it should be LIBOR and at this stage only LIBOR, but we will ask whether anything else should be covered. That is why LIBOR is not mentioned in the Bill; it will come in the secondary legislation.
Lord Peston
Am I right, therefore, that anybody looking at the Bill would not know that it had anything to do with LIBOR? I am pretty sure that I must be. They will know now, because the Minister has told us, but why does he not then put it in his amendments? What we are discussing is a badly drafted Bill that could be improved if it merely contained the sentence, “The object of all of this is to deal with the LIBOR problem”, and he could then deal with it via secondary legislation. No one would have known about any of that until we had this debate in your Lordships’ House—which is why we are here, I suppose.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, the problem that we are trying to deal with is that it has been revealed this summer that benchmarks are open to the sorts of abuse that need to be dealt with. We are putting in place a framework that enables abuse or potential abuse of benchmarks to be dealt with. There was never any intention to put in LIBOR. I expended about 1,900 words explaining why we were doing this and I probably mentioned LIBOR a dozen times. I hope that the noble Lord is now clearer. I see that he is; I am grateful. That probably deals with the main definitional and scope questions.
Baroness Noakes
I am sorry to interrupt my noble friend. I know he wants to get on to the rest of the interesting questions that he has been asked but I want to come back to this definition of investment. “Investment” is defined in Amendment 112 for the purposes of the offences but it does not appear to be defined for the purposes of defining “Benchmark” at the beginning of this group. I have spent some of the past 30 minutes or so using my iPad to see whether FiSMA already had an equivalent definition in it and I cannot find it. That does not mean it is not there but I cannot find it.
Lord Sassoon
As I said in response to the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, I will look again. I believe that, as I have set it out, everything that is intended to be covered is covered. I am grateful to my noble friend for pointing out that,
“‘Investment’ includes any asset, right or interest”,
for this purpose. That points to the wide scope of the definition. I will take away these points and make sure that it all knits together in the way intended. If it does not, I will write and seek to put matters right at Third Reading.
Let me move on to some other questions that have been asked. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Peston, that this group of amendments does what Mr Wheatley intended and that he and, on his behalf, his FSA team have rightly crawled all over it. I just want to be clear that it does not go beyond Wheatley except in the sense that we are future-proofing it for other possible benchmarks, which is entirely consistent with what Mr Wheatley wanted. While I am dealing with one or two of these questions, I can also confirm to my noble friend Lady Noakes that the definition of financial crime catches the new offences. The definition in proposed new Section 1H(3) provides that,
“‘Financial crime’ includes any offence”,
and the list of offences is not exhaustive, so the answer to my noble friend is yes.
I see the noble Baroness, Lady Hogg, in her place. It is good to see her here. There were various questions about the process for appointing the administrator. I can assure noble Lords that the noble Baroness, to whom I am very grateful for taking on this responsibility, will be taking this forward in a measured way, as your Lordships would expect. That process will take place over the next few months. My understanding is that considerable interest has already been shown in the opportunity to be the administrator. It would have been inappropriate to have an independent body setting LIBOR. As we know, it has been set by the BBA. That has presented all sorts of difficulties and conflicts of interest. Independence was weak. The BBA is handing over to the new administrator but, critically, the oversight of that new administrator will be the responsibility of the FCA. The behaviour of the new administrator will be regulated, not just the behaviour of the banks supplying the information.
Lord Eatwell
As we are in Committee, it might be helpful to take questions as we go along. It would be enormously helpful to the House to understand how the specified person who will be the administrator will act and what sort of person they might be. Given that there has been considerable interest in the position, perhaps the noble Lord could give us a flavour of the sort of organisations that might be interested—not by naming any names, which I am not suggesting at all. That would help us understand how the system might work.
The Minister said that an independent body is not appropriate. Why not? I referred to the previous advisory committee on the retail prices index, which was entirely independent. It included a number of users of the index, a number of professional statisticians and academics, and representatives of the CBI and the TUC. It was an independent committee which looked at the whole structure of the index. That was a crucial benchmark in British public life. After all, it affects uprating of benefits and all sorts of things, although it is now being superseded by CPI. There was an independent body which did the job and was highly respected. Why, in the Minister’s words, would such a body be inappropriate?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, we risk comparing two totally different sorts of animal here. The measurement of prices, which of course now comes under the Office for National Statistics and is clearly wholly independent of government or anybody else, is an index that is currently under significant review. It relates wholly to UK activity, whereas, as we have seen, the LIBOR index does not. The LIBOR index relates to daily movements in markets, whereas RPI is a different sort of exercise that measures the monthly movement in prices. In comparing a market index such as LIBOR, however important, with the key measurement of retail prices which, under the framework that all countries buy into, should be independently set by a national statistics agency, we are talking about two different animals.
The draft criteria for the administrator of LIBOR were outlined in the Wheatley review. When the committee moves to the next stage of tendering for the role of administrator, it will be for it to set out the detailed criteria. If the noble Lord wants to see the outline criteria, they are set out in the Wheatley review. He can draw his own conclusions as to whether it would be accountants or others who might be interested in doing it. I am not privy to the specific names, nor do I need to be aware of who the people are. However, I have made inquiries, because it is relevant to one of the amendments that I will come to that there has been considerable interest, even at this early stage, before the full rules of the competition have been set out. There will be details of all that to follow.
Lord Barnett
I am sorry to interrupt, but I am trying very hard to understand where we are getting to. I understand that we will finish up with regulations on top of all this, which will finally decide the matter. However, I am still unclear about it. We had the note earlier from the Minister’s officials, which set it out very clearly. We are talking about not trivial sums here but global sums of $300 trillion. These are mind-boggling figures. It is not $300 million or $300 billion but $300 trillion. What we are deciding in considering this Bill clearly has major global interest. Have there been serious discussions on a global scale?
Earlier, my noble friend asked the Minister—wrongly, I think—whether his legal officials had given him a guarantee that they had got the wording right. Nobody is going to give him a guarantee; I assure my noble friend of that. It is a question which cannot be answered, because they will not give it; how can they? How can anyone? The noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, cannot give us a guarantee that the Bill has got it right now. My noble friend Lady Hayter found one lot that was wrong. It would not surprise me if she found something else wrong, if she were to look further, because it is a very complex matter. We will now have complex secondary legislation on top of all this shambles. I very much hope that this will be successful, but I am sorry to say that the way it has all worked out, I certainly could not guarantee it.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, there has been consultation on these clauses already. These clauses, which were published last month, have not been put forward in some huge rush; they have been put forward with due speed to reflect the seriousness of the situation that the LIBOR scandal revealed. Yes, there are hundreds of billions of dollars-worth of contracts relying on LIBOR, but many other very important equity market and other indices, in the UK and around the world, have functioned successfully for many decades. I have no doubt that as well as accounting firms and others, people who provide indices in other contexts—those who provide market data and who support market infrastructure—would be the sorts of entities that would be well suited to be the administrator of this important benchmark. There are many other critical functions of price discovery out there which are wholly run by private sector entities, albeit regulated under FiSMA in the UK, so we should not make a great drama out of this. The FCA will be regulating this activity, including the performance of the specified person.
The noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, asked perfectly reasonably about what happens if somebody is not performing and does not want to give it up. Because the administration is proposed, subject to the secondary legislation passing, the administration of LIBOR will come within regulation. If the administrator is not performing, therefore, the regulator—namely, the FCA—can take regulatory action in appropriate cases, which could include removing permission to act, if appropriate.
Lord Eatwell
That is very helpful and I am grateful to the Minister. What would happen then when the administrator is not performing adequately and the FCA decides that it will take it away? Let me give another example so that I do not have to ask two questions; we can roll these in together. The second example is that the administrator goes bankrupt and is therefore unable to continue the activity. What happens then?
Lord Sassoon
If I ever get to the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, we will get to that point because it is raised by one of them. It is completely clear that the FCA will have the power to act as the administrator of the benchmark in question, if necessary. That is in the FCA’s general powers. It does not need to be written into these amendments, but I will address that when I talk about the noble Lord’s amendments. Within the FCA’s general powers it is absolutely clear that it has the vires to step in and act as the administrator, if that is necessary in a market context.
I should address the scope of the offences. The first question was whether LIBOR should be limited to the UK. What is proposed in these amendments reflects the current approach in Section 397 of FiSMA. It surely must be right that UK authorities can act only where misconduct has some connection with the UK. We have a very clear approach to extraterritoriality in our legislative framework. The amendments take a broad approach within the UK’s normal approach to these matters. There has to be a connection, which may be any of a statement made in or from the UK, a person at whom the statement was targeted being in the UK or a relevant agreement being entered into in the UK. Within the normal constraints about extraterritoriality, in which we would expect certain offences of the sort that the noble Lord postulates to be prosecuted by the US authorities, we have nevertheless drawn the connection with the UK widely as it is currently drawn in Section 397.
The noble Lord, Lord Barnett, is perhaps suggesting that he does not want the offences to be retrospective. I think that raises slightly wider questions, even in the case of LIBOR. We do not need to go into the human rights basics. I am glad if, on reflection, the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, accepts that.
Baroness Kramer
On a point of clarification about the offences, I fully understand that with LIBOR, which is a London-set rate—that is its whole point—it is a UK-originating offence. If, for example, one of the contributors providing a misleading statement was the subsidiary—or who knows what the structure is?—in the structure of a holding company incorporated in another country, I assume that what the Minister has described would enable the UK investigation and prosecution to follow that trail through to the originating parent, if that were the relevant party involved in the misleading statement or impression. Is there an argument that says that because this can be applied to many more benchmarks than just LIBOR, it would be appropriate to give the UK the opportunity, where investors in the UK were disadvantaged by a manipulation happening somewhere else—perhaps relating to oil prices, for example—to be able to follow and fine in the way that the US can follow and fine for offences that originate in the UK and are limited to US residents? I am getting extremely muddled about this entire process, but I think the Minister gets the sense of what I am trying to say.
Lord Sassoon
I would never accuse any noble Lord, least of all my noble friend, of ever getting muddled, other than accusing myself. The basic construct is that we do not as a general principle take the same approach to extraterritoriality as the US does. The US takes a unique approach to extraterritoriality and that has raised a number of extremely difficult cases in recent years where Members of Parliament in both Houses have raised questions about whether the UK should acquiesce to the US approach. I certainly do not think that we should be using this discussion as a way of opening up the question of whether the UK should take a different approach to extraterritoriality. The fact is that the US takes a different approach, and that is how it is.
What we are doing for this benchmark issue is to draw the offence and the connection to the UK in precisely the way in which it is done for the generality of offences under FiSMA, which by UK standards is a pretty broad definition. I shall not read them out again, but I read out the three different conditions that could apply and that is on the record. I suggest that the House would not want to put some special definition of territoriality and extraterritoriality into this offence as opposed to all the other criminal offences within the financial services arena. I hope my noble friend will accept that general principle. For the moment, I think she does.
Lord Eatwell
Before the Minister leaves the issue of offences, I asked a question about the exemptions around price stabilisation rules.
Lord Sassoon
I have some understanding, but I am a non-lawyer and it was a long time ago so it is only slight. Price stabilisation rules go back to pre-1991. They are very specific rules that allow things to be done in markets in very prescribed circumstances that would run against what might be perceived to be the free flow of markets. As the noble Lord knows, they were introduced in the context of ensuring a safe and stable aftermarket following a large share issue. I think they were first used in this country by the Government in the second sale of British Telecom shares, and they relate to that regime. If there is something else going on there, I will write to the noble Lord, but they are not intended to be some carve-out that could be used to get people off a charge of manipulating LIBOR.
Lord Barnett
I asked the Minister whether the criminal sanctions could be used retrospectively against those who may well be criminally responsible for the LIBOR scandal.
Lord Sassoon
Forgive me; I thought I did answer. It is an absolute principle that we do not put in place retrospective criminal offences because that would be, among other things, against human rights legislation. We will certainly not be doing that.
Lord Peston
I take it that the people who have already behaved in a criminal way can be prosecuted under the criminal law as it is. In other words, there is no need for retrospection because there is a criminal law sitting out there waiting. For all we know, it is already dealing with them.
Lord Sassoon
I am grateful to the noble Lord. As I have answered before in Questions on the LIBOR issue and as I said earlier, there are potentially other offences which may have been committed, and the prosecuting authorities and investigators are looking to see whether anybody could be charged under pre-existing law, so I am grateful for that clarification. The point is that it would be much more effective to have a targeted offence, which is what we are putting in place here.
Turning to Amendment 80A, under which the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, would like the FCA to have the ability to refer to codes published by the Financial Reporting Council, as well as the body responsible for setting the benchmark, I believe that Amendment 80 already allows the FCA to make such a reference since it would be able to make,
“reference to any code or other document published by the person responsible for the setting of the benchmark or any other person”.
As Amendment 80 stands, the FCA is able to refer to a code issued by the FRC or any other body.
Having said that, while from time to time the Financial Reporting Council publishes codes and documents relating to standards of corporate governance and so on, it is unlikely that they will be directly relevant to the setting of specific benchmarks. Of course, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hogg, is here, if she would like to correct me I am very happy to be corrected, but I think that is very unlikely. The intention of the provision in the Bill is to allow the FCA to make reference to detailed codes, allowing the detailed instruction of how, when and to whom information should be provided to a benchmark. I certainly do not anticipate that the FRC would publish codes relating to benchmarks in that detailed way. I therefore do not believe that the amendment extends or affects the powers of the FCA to make the rules in any material way, and I cannot accept it.
I spoke earlier of my gratitude—and this has been repeated by other noble Lords—to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, for spotting the small drafting mistake, and confirm my intention to accept her proposed Amendment 80B. I encourage her to move it.
I now turn to Amendment 80C and the recommendation that the BBA transfer responsibility for administrating LIBOR to a successor body. I have already dealt in some detail with aspects of this, but let me go through it again. The nomination for that successor body will be determined through an open and transparent tender process that will be run by an independently chaired committee comprised of respected individuals from the financial services industry and the UK authorities. As I have already said, I am delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Hogg, has agreed to chair that committee. The committee’s work is in its preliminary stages, but further information will of course be published in due course. I acknowledge the noble Lord’s concern that there is a risk that a suitable rate administration will not be willing or able to administer LIBOR; I firmly believe, however, that this risk is of very low probability. As I said, a considerable number of expressions of interest have already been received.
In the unlikely event that there is no appointable administrator, or in the event that we have already discussed that the administrator is appointed and then fails, the FCA will already have power to step in to administer LIBOR, should that be necessary. A disorderly collapse or the unavailability of LIBOR would have severe implications for institutions and financial markets across the globe, as the Wheatley review sets out in detail. It is under the objectives of the FCA, particularly its consumer protection and integrity objectives, that would give it sufficient basis to step in and administer the rate. The FCA therefore would not need any specific legislative power to administer LIBOR, and it is worth reminding ourselves that LIBOR is currently administered by the BBA without a statutory underpinning. We know that this is unsatisfactory, but I am just making the point that the setting of LIBOR itself has never required any statutory powers. I am quite clear that the FCA’s powers, as outlined elsewhere in the Bill, are sufficient for it to undertake such a course of action, although we anticipate that being very unlikely.
I do not wish to put a specific time limit on how long the FCA could maintain the administration of LIBOR, but neither the Government nor the FCA would want the FCA to administer LIBOR in the long term. We want the regulator to concentrate on regulating the market, not to fill a gap in the market on a permanent basis. I do not consider Amendment 80C is needed.
Lord Eatwell
I thank the Minister; that is very clear and helpful. My only question arising from that is whether the noble Lord is confident that the FCA would have the appropriate range of skills, the intellectual property, to perform the task of administration. Is there going to be a shadow specified person within the FCA, ready to take over? As he pointed out, this may be very unlikely, but if it occurred it would be catastrophic. If there is a collapse or other form of demise of the specified person through inappropriate behaviour, inadequacy or some other reason, is he confident that the FCA would have the appropriate skills to do the job straight away?
Lord Sassoon
Yes, my Lords, I am confident that the FCA, on the risk approach that it takes to preparing itself for a huge range of potential eventualities, will prepare appropriately to step in. I have said, however, that those are a very low-probability set of circumstances.
The last thing that I was going to do, because I think that noble Lords are probably sick of hearing my voice for the moment—
Lord Sassoon
They will have another opportunity very shortly because I am afraid I will be introducing the next group as well, so I am encouraged by that reaction. I was going to go on to Amendment 80D, which is all about the Treasury Select Committee being involved, but I am not sure that the noble Lord said very much about that, so—
Lord Eatwell
I said quite a lot about it, so perhaps I could remind the noble Lord.
Lord Sassoon
It has suddenly come back to me; it was just a momentary lapse. The noble Lord spoke about the merits of the Treasury Select Committee being involved in the process of selecting the person responsible for setting the benchmark. There may be a slight misinterpretation of the process for selecting a successor to the BBA and administrating LIBOR, which was outlined in a government Statement on 17 October. As I have already mentioned, the successor to the BBA will be nominated by an independently chaired committee, convened by Martin Wheatley and the Treasury and at the commission of the British Bankers’ Association, which has publicly relinquished the nomination of a successor to the committee.
Those involved in the process can be called to account by the Treasury Committee. However, the transfer of responsibility for administering LIBOR from the BBA to a successor body is not a legislative matter. I do not think it would be appropriate for Parliament or the Treasury Committee to be directly involved in what is ultimately a process between private sector commercial bodies. For that rather technical reason—but nevertheless constitutionally rather important —I am unable to accept the noble Lord’s proposed amendment. I stress that those involved in the process can and may be called to account—I do not know—by the Treasury Committee.
Lord Eatwell
The noble Lord has completely misinterpreted what I said and apparently has not read Amendment 80D. One of the main points I made was that currently we have this particular conjuncture where the BBA has said that it does not want to continue doing the job. Quite rightly, the Treasury and the FCA have stepped in and set up an entirely appropriate procedure, as far as we can tell. I am sure that it will be appropriate, given that it will be under the chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Hogg.
However, this is not the only potential benchmark covered by this legislation. There may be other specified persons to be appointed with respect to other benchmarks. To achieve the transparency to which the noble Lord said the Government aspire, the rules for determining the identification of a specified person—the objectives and the characteristics that the specified person might have—should be agreed in broad terms with the consent of the Treasury Select Committee. We then would have a procedure which everyone has looked at and has agreed upon. It can be used not as a reactive measure after a crisis but would be in place, ready to be used, at any time the Government deem it appropriate that, by order, a new benchmark is specified, and that there is a need to search for a new specified person to manage and to be responsible for setting that specified benchmark. I hope that the amendment is now clear.
Lord Sassoon
I may not have expressed myself clearly but I was entirely clear that that is the purpose of the amendment. I illustrate the situation by reference to LIBOR but the same considerations would apply in relation to any other benchmark where the process of the transfer would be very dependent on the private sector current administrator of the benchmark. It would be very specific to the nature of the market and the benchmark about which we were talking. I just do not see this as a class of activity that normally ever would be set down in some sort of framework of rules that would be agreed with the consent of the Treasury Select Committee. It is not territory into which that committee gets in terms of setting rules.
However, the noble Lord does not say that: Amendment 80D states:
“The rules determining the identification of the specified person responsible for setting a specified benchmark must be agreed with the consent of the Treasury Select Committee”.
It gets the Treasury Select Committee into vetting rules of a sort which I am not aware that the committee gets anywhere near, particularly because there will be secondary legislation, which case by case needs to deal with what benchmarks come in. The Treasury Select Committee at all stages can call people in to discuss the process. I entirely stand by my remarks on the amendment. This does not work with the nature of the transfers about which we are talking, with the flexibility we need to have, or with the way in which the Treasury Select Committee operates. However, what works very effectively is the committee calling people to account, which it may well do in this area.
The final amendment I wish to cover is Amendment 80CA, which requires that 12 months after Royal Assent,
“the Treasury shall report to Parliament on the progress of the extension of”,
the regulatory regime to cover benchmark activities. Given that the extension of the regulatory perimeter into a new type of activity may well have significant consequences, I agree that there is merit in making an assessment of the efficiency and operation of this new area of regulation.
I can confirm that it is the intention of the Financial Conduct Authority to conduct a thematic review into the system and control procedures of LIBOR-submitting firms and the LIBOR administrator in the first year of the implementation of the LIBOR supervisory regime. The FCA will be accountable to Parliament through the usual procedures, which we have debated at length.
I believe that the suggestion of a review is good but a review by the regulator itself is likely to be far more fruitful than a review by the Treasury. It is the regulator rather than the Treasury which will be best placed to modify and fine tune the regulatory regime to accommodate lessons learnt from the review. Of course, should the review suggest that there are difficulties with matters for which the Treasury is responsible, such as the scope of regulation, the Treasury stands ready to consider and, where appropriate, implement the recommendations made by the review. The underlying point is very good and the FCA will take it on board but I cannot accept the amendment.
I hope that, at some length, I have dealt with as many of the points raised as I could.
Lord Sassoon
“( ) after subsection (5) insert—“(6) “Benchmark” means an index, rate or price that—
(a) is determined from time to time by reference to the state of the market,(b) is made available to the public (whether free of charge or on payment), and(c) is used for reference for purposes that include one or more of the following—(i) determining the interest payable, or other sums due, under loan agreements or under other contracts relating to investments;(ii) determining the price at which investments may be bought or sold or the value of investments;(iii) measuring the performance of investments.””
Lord Sassoon
“Appointed representatives
(1) Section 39 of FSMA 2000 (appointed representatives) is amended as follows.
(2) After subsection (1B) insert—
“(1C) Subsection (1D) applies where an authorised person (“A”)—
(a) has permission under Part 4A, or permission resulting from any other provision of this Act, only in relation to one or more qualifying activities,(b) is a party to a contract with another authorised person (A’s “principal”) which—(i) permits or requires A to carry on business of a prescribed description (“the relevant business”), and(ii) complies with such requirements as may be prescribed, and(c) is someone for whose activities in carrying on the whole or part of the relevant business A’s principal has accepted responsibility in writing.(1D) Sections 20(1) and (1A) and 23(1A) do not apply in relation to the carrying on by A of a relevant additional activity.
(1E) In subsections (1C) and (1D)—
(a) “qualifying activity” means a regulated activity which is of a prescribed kind and relates—(i) to rights under a contract of the kind mentioned in paragraph 23 of Schedule 2, other than one under which the obligation of the borrower to repay is secured on land, or(ii) to rights under a contract of the kind mentioned in paragraph 23B of that Schedule;(b) “relevant additional activity” means a regulated activity which—(i) is not one to which A’s permission relates, and(ii) is comprised in the carrying on of the business for which A’s principal has accepted responsibility.”(3) For subsection (2) substitute—
“(2) In this Act “appointed representative” means—
(a) a person who is exempt as a result of subsection (1), or(b) a person carrying on a regulated activity in circumstances where, as a result of subsection (1D), sections 20(1) and (1A) and 23(1A) do not apply.””
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, noble Lords have to hear me again for just a little longer, although I will not speak at quite such length at least in my opening remarks. This important and substantial group of amendments concerns the regulation of consumer credit, which we considered in quite some detail in Committee.
The government amendments in this group share one overarching goal; namely, to ensure that the transfer of consumer credit regulation from the OFT to the FCA can happen smoothly, and in a manner which is proportionate and offers the right protections to consumers. The move of consumer credit regulation to the FCA, under FiSMA, is a significant step towards better quality regulation and even greater consumer protection for borrowers. That is because FiSMA provides the regulator with substantial and flexible powers to tackle issues quickly and effectively. The interim report by the OFT on its compliance in the pay-day lending sector makes very clear why a move to an FCA regime is the right thing to do.
In the vast majority of cases, it is right that the legislation treats credit-related activities just like any other regulated activities under FiSMA. That is, after all, the rationale for the transfer. But in the course of preparing for the transfer of consumer credit regulation from the OFT to the FCA, the Government have identified a small number of areas where simply applying FiSMA to credit-related activities may have unintended consequences. As my noble friend Lady Kramer has already said, we certainly do not want any unintended consequences, which is what this group of amendments seeks to address.
Amendments 73A and 94C relate to how the appointed representatives regime will operate where firms carry out a credit-related activity. An appointed representative is a firm, or a sole trader, which is not authorised but is allowed under Section 39 of FiSMA to carry on certain regulated activities as agent for an authorised firm or principal under a contract by which the principal accepts responsibility for the regulated activities carried on by its appointed representatives. For example, many insurers act as principals for those brokering insurance for them as appointed representatives.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for one or two focused questions on this. First, I repeat what I think I said before in answer to my noble friend Lord Flight and his concerns. I have nothing new to add in this area, but the question of the transition is an important one. I will say again what I have said before—that the Government will consult on their proposals for the transition in early 2013 and no final decisions have been taken. The Government are very much aware of the need to allow the FCA and firms time to manage a smooth transition. In that context, we are considering options for phasing the implementation of the new FCA rulebook as well as interim arrangements for existing licence holders. So I can only repeat that my noble friend’s concerns are perfectly fair and reasonable, and the Government are reflecting on them as we speak. Well, I am not—but wiser heads than mine are beavering away on this very topic this afternoon.
I come to the issues brought up by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara. The reason why we are coming forward with these amendments now, having already dealt with the substantive matter of the transfer, is that, perfectly properly in the process of scrutinising legislation, the Opposition, Peers on the government Benches and all sorts of interested parties come up with points, reflected in many amendments, which are making this a better Bill as we carry on with our deliberations. These are issues that have been brought to the Government’s attention during the ongoing discussions with stakeholders, so I make no apology for bringing them forward now as an improvement to the legislation, giving better and more seamless protection to consumers but also treating firms in a proportionate way. I assure the noble Lord that the FCA will certainly have the means and resources at its disposal to carry out its new responsibilities in this area.
I do not wish to get too deeply into the general question of debt management and claims management companies, because we are talking about a narrow and specific but important area of the transition here. We could open up a debate that is not directly relevant to these amendments about debt and claims management companies. But I address the specific question about the new criminal offence applying to credit situations and not debt management, because it is right that the new criminal offence should be targeted proportionately at areas where there is the greatest risk of detriment caused by unscrupulous people selling dubious product. In that context, there is a great distinction between the provision of unsuitable credit and debt advice. In any cases where a firm engages in debt activity without the right permission, it would be a breach of FiSMA and the FCA will act.
On the appointed representative regime and the way it will work with the authorisation regime, I do not think that the noble Lord was challenging the basic premise behind the carve-out, but he is quite right that we need to get the way in which the two regimes mesh in together to work appropriately. To that end, as part of the 2013 consultation early next year, we will address that point and specifically ask who those firms should be. However, we will be putting forward a presumption that the firms to which this applies will be low-risk firms and all those whose primary business activity does not relate to consumer credit. The Government think that it is important that legislative provision is made now so that this option is available in the future, and that will help design a proportionate and appropriate regime. Nevertheless, I recognise that we should and will consult to make sure that we draw the line in the right place. Of course, if concerns emerge in future, the Treasury can change the class of people to whom the carve-out applies by order, and may in fact decide not to make it available to any firms at all if it thought it appropriate. I hope that that has addressed the main issues.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, may I press the Minister on the point that I made earlier in my remarks about receiving a number of representations on this issue? Indeed, some of the points that he made reflected the fact that thinking is still going on. He mentioned that people were working on things as he spoke. In the circumstances, will he accept that it might be appropriate to have a further debate on this at Third Reading?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I was referring to people working on the transitional arrangements that come out of this. I have not been made aware of any further concerns or issues that would merit a debate at Third Reading; if I had, I would have brought forward amendments at this stage. So I am not aware of any concerns, but, as the noble Lord was kind enough to say, the Treasury team and I will be open to him and to anybody else if further issues come up. However, I do not anticipate them and I can think of nothing of a Third Reading magnitude—if I may put it that way—that is likely to detain your Lordships.
Lord Sassoon
Lord Flight
My Lords, Amendments 75A to 75G and Amendment 77 relate to Clause 10 and Amendment 77B relates to Clause 13. The amendments to proposed new Section 55 seek to remove the need for the PRA to consult the FCA over authorising a bank or in relation to other regulatory actions, such as variation and cancellation of permission, and imposition of requirements. The effect of the amendment to Clause 13 is that the FCA would have no role in approving an application to act as a bank director.
I raised a similar area of principle at Second Reading. I remain of the view that the double doing of applications for banks and bank directors by the PRA and the FCA is unnecessary and adds to the costs and hassle for new banks trying to emerge and compete. The PRA process for bank applications is more than sufficient. The matters that the FCA deals with, such as good conduct in relation to citizens and consumers, are essentially ongoing rather than being about having a good banking plan and appropriate directors, appropriate capital and appropriate systems in order to be able to start a banking business. I have also recently encountered a situation whereby the new yet-to-be FCA organisation made inquiries of a senior director that related to PRA, not FCA, territory.
The amendments are also in part probing amendments because it is not clearly understood by the industry how the new arrangements are intended to operate. At one level, my understanding is that an application for a banking licence and bank directors will be dealt with by the PRA, which will merely refer to the FCA to see whether it wants to raise any issue. However, in other circumstances, there seem to be two different processes to go through. Therefore, if the Government are not willing to accept my point of principle, which is that it would be much better to leave the approval of banks and bank directors purely to the PRA, it would be helpful for the Minister to set out today exactly how the new dual system is intended to operate in practice. I beg to move.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, Amendments 75A to 75G, tabled by my noble friend Lord Flight, would remove the requirement for the FCA to consent to authorisation decisions taken by the PRA relating to banks and other deposit-takers, including the decision to grant or remove permission. We discussed a similar group of amendments in Committee.
As I previously said, authorisation is a vital tool for the authorities to set and enforce standards for regulated firms efficiently. It is much more costly to address issues within firms following authorisation than it is to do so during the authorisation process. Such costs will fall on regulated firms and, eventually, consumers. Of course, it is far preferable for the FCA to be able to identify and address potential threats to consumer protection or integrity as part of the authorisation process and to prevent consumer detriment or improper behaviour before it happens.
The FCA will have a significant role in the authorisation process—for example, in assessing the range of products being proposed by the applicant, its systems and controls, its processes for treating customers fairly, including dealing with complaints, ensuring the business is not being used for a purpose connected with financial crime, and promoting effective competition in the interests of consumers. It is surely right that all these matters should be carried out up front. To take one clear example, it must be right that the FCA should carry out its anti-money laundering checks as part of the authorisation process. In addition, it is surely right that the FCA should be able to object to an application if it is not satisfied that a firm can comply with its threshold conditions.
Similar points apply in relation to Amendment 77B, which would establish that the FCA should have no role in approval of any person who is to be a director of a deposit-taker. This would mean, for example, that the FCA has no role in approving a director of customer services or a director with responsibility for regulatory compliance.
Let me cut to the chase, because my noble friend made it clear that he is probing around how the system will work. There will be one application, not two. This is the crucial point that people have not fully grasped. I believe that I have said this before in our debates but I say it again clearly. My noble friend is right to say that we want to minimise the inconvenience of the process. There will be a single administrative process for approval of firms and of persons to perform significant-influence functions. It would not be appropriate now for me to go through the detail of how the PRA and FCA will do it, but the key issue for this House and the Government in setting the framework is that there has to be one application. That is what sets the tone of the necessary and appropriate co-operation to make the process as seamless as possible.
On the basis of that further assurance, I ask my noble friend to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Flight
My Lords, it is highly important that it should be absolutely clear that there will be one application and, as I understand it, that means that an application to establish a bank will be dealt with by the PRA, which will then have its own arrangements to deal with the FCA for FCA matters. What really matters in establishing a bank is whether there is enough capital, whether the management and the directors are suitable and whether the business plan is sensible. The bits that the FCA is concerned with are much less relevant up-front and more relevant as the business develops, so the PRA really should be in the driving seat for approving banks.
I would also make the point that I made in a slightly different context the other day. A team from the BIS made an appointment to come and see me to ask whether, in my view, the process of applying for licences for new banks and approval of new directors was anti-competitive. I was pleased to find that the BIS was very focused on that aspect, even if the Treasury was not quite as focused. I am pleased to have the assurance of the Minister that effectively it will be one process with the PRA and the FCA liaising and, on that basis, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Sassoon
Lord Sassoon
“( ) section 87B to 87D;”
Lord Northbrook
I support my noble friend Lord Flight’s amendment. It is important that in this area the FCA should have regard to the international character of capital markets and the desirability of maintaining the competitive position of the United Kingdom.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, Amendments 77A and 79A would reinstate an existing “have regard” that applies to the FSA in its capacity as UK listing authority as a “have regard” applying to the FCA’s listing work. This “have regard” is a requirement to take account of the international character of capital markets and of UK competitiveness. I can assure my noble friend that these amendments are not needed. As we discussed in Committee, the FCA and the PRA will be bound to have regard to the regulatory principle that any burden they impose should be proportionate to the benefits that flow from it. The proportionality principle will apply where a requirement would have an effect on UK competitiveness that would be a burden, and the same need to ensure that the burden was proportionate to the benefits would apply.
In addition, last week we debated and agreed to make an amendment to the Bill to add a new regulatory principle giving the regulators the duty to have regard to the desirability of sustainable UK economic growth. My noble friend was good enough to welcome that amendment, which I assure him will also encompass international competitiveness in the appropriate way in relation to listing as well as more generally. I think that that answers the direct question he posed to me. My noble friend refers to the London Stock Exchange and my understanding is that, although it was rightly concerned about the removal of the listing authority competitiveness “have regard”, it has welcomed the new regulatory principle. I hope therefore that my noble friend will agree to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Flight
My Lords, I thank the Minister for the comfort on this point. I am aware that the London Stock Exchange has raised this issue and I hope that what he has said will also provide comfort to the Listing Authority Advisory Committee. The only grey area for me is that I am still not entirely clear whether the general burden upon the FCA with regard to competitiveness automatically covers its role as the listing authority. The Listing Authority Advisory Committee seems to think it does not. However, I note that the point has been generally picked up and therefore beg leave to withdraw.
Lord Sassoon
“( ) In section 87A (criteria for approval of prospectus)—
(a) in subsection (1), for “competent authority” substitute ““FCA”,(b) in subsection (7)(a), for “competent authority”, in the first place, substitute “FCA”, and(c) in the heading, for “competent authority” substitute “FCA”.”
Economy: Quantitative Easing
Lord Sassoon Excerpts(12 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon)
My Lords, the Bank of England has estimated that the first round of quantitative easing reduced gilt yields by one percentage point, raised real GDP by around 1.5% to 2%, and increased inflation by around three-quarters to one-and-a-half percentage points. The Bank has also launched the funding for lending scheme to reduce bank funding costs and provide a strong incentive to make loans to companies and households cheaper and more easily available.
Lord Barnett
My Lords, therefore without QE, the recession would have been even worse. Is the Minister aware that since then, the Governor of the Bank of England said that the MPC would have to “think long and hard” before it restarted QE. The deputy governor said that it would be inappropriate to go on with it because there is no appetite to borrow and invest. On top of that, the chief economist of the Bank of England said recently that the economy is stuttering to start. He said that after knowing all that the Government are now proposing. What else are they going to do?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, first, since the noble Lord talks about the state of the economy, we should recognise that employment is at a record high; inflation, for which the MPC has responsibility, has come down very significantly; the trade deficit is down; and the economy is growing again. We really do not need too much unreasonable doom and gloom. I could cite many other recent quotes from the Bank of England, which has made its position completely clear. In October 2012, the governor said that the MPC stands,
“ready to inject more money into the economy”.
As, when and if it thinks the assessment is right, it is free and able to do it.
Lord Low of Dalston
My Lords, what is the Government’s latest estimate of the reduction they have achieved in the deficit since taking office? Is it still a quarter? Will the noble Lord assure the House that that is more than would have been achieved at this point by the previous Government’s deficit reduction strategy, as evidenced by the Office for Budget Responsibility’s pre-Budget forecast in June 2010?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, we are straying a bit from the effect of quantitative easing and on to the Government’s fiscal policy, for which the Bank of England is not responsible. However, the fiscal deficit that we inherited has been cut by over a quarter. We are on track. As to what would have happened under a Labour Government at this point, the independent research shows that the country would have been left with an additional £200 billion of debt on top of the present Government’s plans.
Lord Taverne
My Lords, there is an urgent need in British industry for long-term loans for SMEs. The trouble is that our banks are not very good at this. Banks in Germany, France, the Netherlands and Canada are much better. Will the Government seriously consider following their pattern and setting up an investment bank or institution that specialises in providing such loans, perhaps modelled on the German Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, we are putting together a British business bank in order to bring together the various schemes that SMEs and all companies have access to. I entirely agree with my noble friend that this is an ongoing and very serious issue. We will continue to use the strength of the Government’s balance sheet, which is due to the credible deficit reduction plan, to back up schemes such as the infrastructure guarantee scheme, which goes precisely to one part of the demand and need for long-term bank finance. We will, and have already, come forward with schemes, because I completely agree with my noble friend that this is a critical area.
Lord Peston
My Lords, could the Minister just clarify his Answer a little? Is he saying that the economy is now on a continuous expansion path of a sustainable nature, and therefore that everybody else—all the experts who say that there are nothing but bad times ahead—is mistaken? Is that the Government’s view?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I merely stated that, on the last numbers from the ONS, the economy is growing again. If we bring this back to the subject of the Question—quantitative easing—the Bank of England’s analysis of 23 August is that economic growth would have been lower in the absence of the asset purchases and unemployment would have been higher.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds
My Lords, the Bank of England accepts that quantitative easing has pushed up the value of equities and other assets, so favouring the 5% of households which own 40% of those assets. Have the Government any plans to recoup any of this windfall gain that has accrued to the wealthy?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, what the Bank of England has been doing through the quantitative easing programme has been targeted at 2% inflation but it has been completely clear about the other effects of the policy on the economy, GDP, inflation and equity prices—it says that that was a large but uncertain impact, estimated within the range that the right reverend Prelate gave. It is wrong to see that as a one-off windfall. In that case, was it a one-off disastrous fall in asset prices caused by the banking crisis that preceded it? It is difficult to say what was the one-off windfall.
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, the Treasury announced on Friday that it is to take over part of the Bank of England’s profits from the quantitative easing programme to offset the fiscal deficit. What provision is to be made in the national accounts for those funds to be returned when, as the Governor anticipates in his letter to the Chancellor, interest rate differentials are reversed?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, these were never the profits of the Bank of England, so I am afraid that the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, has got it wrong. They were always profits that would fall to the Treasury—to the taxpayer. All that has been done by the announcement on Friday is very sensible, prudent cash management to make sure that £11 billion—in total, £35 billion—of taxpayers’ cash is not sitting idle at the Bank of England but is used to pay the Government’s bills. That is prudent cash management.
Financial Services Bill
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Lord Naseby
My Lords, I was not intending to take part in this debate. At one time, I was chairman of the Children’s Mutual, which was a friendly society/insurance company. At the weekend, in Northampton, I had discussions with some friends whom I would call middle-class savers. Not a single person, frankly, was the least bit prepared to pay a fee. It goes deeper than that. One’s own children are not prepared to pay fees up front.
There may have been much wrong with the old system in that it was not as closely scrutinised as it should have been in terms of the total cost to the saver. Nevertheless, here we are three and a half years into a major austerity programme and sufficient resources are not available for people who are genuinely wanting to or having to save. I do not know what the minimum fee will be and perhaps my noble friends on this side will be more up to date on that. I cannot see that it can be less than £500, if not considerably more.
I say to my Front Bench that it is all very well ploughing on because this has to happen in January but, as an aside, I reflect on how the FSA took three and a half years to realise that the projections on pensions were totally out of court. We have all been living with a base rate of 0.5% for a couple of years. Here we have projections approved by the FSA at, I think, 5%, 7% and 9%. That was totally out of court and nothing happened from the FSA. There had jolly well better be a plan B somewhere in the hip pocket because I very much fear what will happen. During the first three or four months nothing much will happen but, thereafter, there will be a major crisis unless there is a plan B ready to deal with it.
The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon)
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Flight has spoken eloquently on the issue of the retail distribution review both on this and a number of other occasions, both when we have been discussing this Bill and at other times as well. Clearly, his concerns go to the heart of the RDR. I respect him for the force and strength of his arguments and for the clarity with which he has put them. However, I think that my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, in his short remarks, takes a more realistic and pragmatic view of some of the things that are necessary in the RDR and of the practicalities of where we are now some five or six years into the process which was initiated back then by the FSA.
The RDR certainly goes beyond the requirements of the markets and financial instruments directive; that is true. It is to be implemented at the end of this year. It will, among other things, as we have heard, prevent product providers from offering commissions to advisers. These rules will go beyond the requirements of the directive, which does not prevent product providers paying inducements to intermediaries. I think that it is a bit of a leap from there to say that the EU has taken a positive view that commissions should be paid in the way that they have been to date, as I think my noble friend possibly recognises.
The Government are supportive of the RDR, which is intended to address long-running problems that impact on the quality of advice and consumer outcomes in the UK retail investment market. The financial detriment caused to consumers as a consequence of poor, biased financial advice leading to the mis-selling of products cannot be overstated and has led consumer groups such as Which? to support the measures in the RDR. For example, following the FSA’s pensions review in 2002, 1.7 million consumers received compensation totalling £11.8 billion due to pension mis-selling alone. More recent scandals such as Arch Cru, where between 15,000 and 20,000 people lost out on thousands of pounds because they were told that high-risk investments were low risk, demonstrate the devastating effects of poor financial advice. Indeed the FSA has estimated detriment to consumers to be in the region of £223 million per annum, so we cannot wish the problem away.
To tackle the problem, the RDR will raise the professional standards of investment advisers, address the potential for adviser remuneration to distort consumer outcomes and improve transparency for consumers. As part of this, the rules banning commission payments to advisers will tackle the risk as well as the perception that commission paid by product providers may bias advice, and rules requiring advisers to agree their charges upfront will promote transparency for consumers. Taken as a whole, the Government’s view is that the RDR should improve consumer confidence and trust in investment advice and it fits with the Government’s wider agenda on increasing transparency in the market.
I am not going to repeat all I said in answer to my noble friend’s recent Question, which led into the points about training. Again, while he and my noble friend Lord Naseby are quite right to raise concerns around the transition, I think that my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts is right to point out the need for and desirability of professionalisation, but also that the bar has not been set excessively high. I do not want to trade data, but I think that this is quite important. The FSA’s latest research shows that the proportion of advisers who meet the RDR’s new qualification requirements has increased from 50% in summer 2011 to 71% in spring 2012. The FSA research also shows that 93% of advisers are still on track with their prediction—93%, not 91%. I know that my noble friend challenges that, but the FSA has looked at this very carefully and its advice and research shows that 93% are still on track with its prediction to complete the appropriate qualification in time.
Having said all that, I should just spend a minute on the amendment itself. As we discussed in Committee, the FCA and the PRA will be required to have regard to the principle that any burden they impose should be proportionate to the benefits that flow from it. This proportionality principle will apply to any proposed requirement whether it originates in EU law or purely domestically, so it already covers gold-plating. I would also point the House to government Amendment 44, which we will be debating in due course, and which adds a new regulatory principle giving the regulators the duty to have regard to the desirability of sustainable UK economic growth. That is a principle that will apply also to both the FCA and PRA. I am sure they will take it very seriously when they consider gold-plating. It will also be pointed out to them as a hook, as it should be, to avoid unnecessary gold-plating. So, in short, I do not believe that the amendment is necessary, nor does it fit with the Government’s wider aims in this area. I hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw it.
Lord Barnett
My Lords, I strongly support my noble friend in her amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, seems to be replying for the Minister, telling us why it is not necessary. Is it harmful to have this amendment in the Bill? If so, let him tell us how rather than asking whether it is necessary. As I would have expected, the case has been made very well indeed by my noble friend Lady Hayter and supported elegantly and eloquently by my noble friend Lord Peston. I hope the Minister will not take any notice of the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, when he replies.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I always take a lot of notice of my noble friend Lord Blackwell. However, Amendments 25B and 31A raise a very important issue. The revelations during the summer about the attempts to manipulate LIBOR and Euribor demonstrated, if any demonstration were needed, that perhaps a considerable number of individuals in the banking sector have failed to live up to the most basic standards of professional conduct and that must, of course, be put right. We are tabling our amendments to this Bill to bring the setting of LIBOR within the scope of the regulatory regime and make it a criminal offence to attempt to manipulate benchmark rates, but that is only the first step.
The critical issue here, which I think has been rather forgotten in this debate, is that the Government acted very quickly to establish the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, made a passing reference to it. The noble Lord, Lord Peston, suggested that I may fob the House off by saying I have another version—he would say an inferior version—of this in the Bill. I absolutely will not say this. I will say there is a superior answer to this very big problem coming from the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards. I entirely accept that there is a serious issue to be dealt with but the commission is established, it is doing its work and it will look at precisely what is needed to deal with the challenge.
Lord Peston
I must be a bit thick; I thought that the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards was not due to report until this Bill is passed into law. Where will its recommendations, assuming it makes any, then be passed into law?
Lord Sassoon
I will come on to that if the noble Lord, Lord Peston, will hear me out. Of course it is no good having a commission if its recommendations are not going to be taken seriously or enacted if necessary. We should remind ourselves of how this House is represented on the commission. It is quite striking that I do not see my noble friends Lady Kramer or Lord Lawson of Blaby in their places this afternoon, nor indeed the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham or the noble Lords, Lord McFall of Alcluith and Lord Turnbull. Why are they not here? I believe it is because the commission is at work today looking into these very critical questions. Experience and authority is being brought to bear on these issues in order to identify ways to put the highest standards of ethics and professionalism at the heart of the UK banking system and I believe that we should leave the commission to do its work.
I know, as do other noble Lords, that the commission will examine all possible solutions and of course the introduction of codes of conduct should be one of them. We have heard different views about the effectiveness of codes of conduct, but it is quite right for the commission to look at that. The commission has the membership and the tools it needs to do a very thorough job in this area and I do not think we should pre-empt it. It has the power to interview witnesses under oath and to send for the necessary people and papers. It has already heard evidence from, among others, Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, Martin Wheatley the chief executive designate of the FCA and from various members of the Independent Commission on Banking. The commission has already gathered an impressive range of written evidence from stakeholders, including the major banks, regulators and consumer groups, and that evidence was published last Thursday.
So, given that the commission’s work is ongoing, it is not the right time to make decisions on this very important matter. To do so would be to pre-empt and undermine the conclusions of the commission, which is investigating this issue so thoroughly.
Lord Sassoon
I will give way to the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, in a moment but perhaps I may answer specifically the question of the noble Lord, Lord Peston.
The Government look forward to receiving the commission’s report and recommendations and will consider them with great care. It is due to report by the end of the year. As to when we might legislate, as the House knows, the Government will introduce the banking reform Bill, which was published in draft last month, into Parliament in the new year. That Bill may well provide an appropriate vehicle to implement any of the commission’s recommendations that require legislation. So we certainly will not lack a possible legislative vehicle, in the right timeframe, when the recommendations are made by the commission.
Lord Barnett
My Lords, the noble Lord has not hesitated, quite rightly, to put the LIBOR scandal amendments in this Bill. Now he is saying that he does not want to put in the code of conduct in case the commission comes up with it. In that case, why has he put the LIBOR scandal amendments in the Bill?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, the Government kicked off a number of inquiries and reviews immediately we became aware of the LIBOR scandal. Martin Wheatley, the managing director of the FSA and the chief executive designate of the FCA, carried out one of the reviews which have led directly to the amendments in this Bill. We have acted on his amendments specifically addressing criminal offences and so on around LIBOR in this Bill. We also set up the commission to look at the wider question of professional standards and the way that banking operates and it will report by the end of the year. We will have a legislative vehicle in the new year, if required, to take up its recommendations, which the Government will take very seriously.
It is not that we are dragging our feet or want to stop these issues being addressed. It would just seem foolish to pre-empt a commission of great eminence which is doing enormously important work as we speak. I hope that, on that basis and the confirmation I have given about what is going on, the noble Baroness will be persuaded to withdraw her amendment. While the Government agree with the need to restore public trust in banking, we should not jump to legislate now but do so once the parliamentary commission has had time to do its work.
Lord Peston
I am still a bit lost. As I understand it, the Minister cannot at this point commit the Government to bringing in any specific Bill that they have not brought in yet. However, setting that on one side, the more important point is that all of my remarks, as he will be aware, were addressed to the whole of the financial services sector. Is it possible to have a banking Bill in which amendments will be put down referring to the code of conduct for the whole financial sector? In my view, we will be told that either the short or long Title will not let us do it. That is why I argue that this is the obvious vehicle for this, and nothing the noble Lord has said so far tells me that this is not the obvious vehicle.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, we have published the Bill in draft already, so it is already on the slipway in that sense. I am not equipped to get into questions about what precisely the scope could be in that Bill. I believe it is wide enough. If it is not, the Government will find other legislative vehicles in which to introduce this. However, I am reminded that although I loosely call it the banking reform Bill, it will actually be titled the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill and therefore the scope will be plenty wide enough to bring in a code of conduct right across the piece. I hope that provides further reassurance to the House.
Lord Peston
We can speak for clarification and to ask questions. We cannot make substantive points.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I spoke about the role of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards when discussing the previous group of amendments. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, doubts the seriousness with which the Government intend to take its recommendations. It is a joint commission of the two Houses—something that any Government would take extremely seriously. We acted to initiate the setting up of the commission so I am disappointed that the noble Lord seeks to tweak my tail on this one. When it comes to a legislative vehicle, I could not have made it plainer that we have already published a draft Bill. The Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill is on its way. That provides potentially a perfect legislative vehicle if there are things that come out of the commission, as no doubt there will be, that require legislation. The issues raised by Amendments 25C, 25E and 26C are firmly within the remit of the commission and it would be wholly inappropriate for us to jump the gun in a semi-considered way rather than waiting for the magisterial output of the commission in a short time.
Amendment 26D would add a new paragraph (f) to proposed new Section 1D(2) to be inserted in FiSMA 2000 under this Bill. It refers to,
“the fairness and integrity of policy and conduct of those directing or operating in the financial markets”.
That is on the same theme but seeks to place specific emphasis on issues of integrity and fairness by making changes to the FCA’s objectives. As we have heard from my noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury, Amendment 27A would specify that, in considering the effectiveness of competition, the FCA may have regard to the extent to which the,
“methods or culture of any competition may undermine the integrity objective”.
I sympathise with the amendment to the extent that it is clear that when the FCA considers taking action, it will need to consider all its objectives. Recent events have demonstrated how important it is that the regulator has a mandate to take action to protect and enhance the integrity of the UK financial system.
The Government have given the FCA the three operational objectives, as we have been reminded, of competition, consumer protection and integrity so that it determines the right balance between them in individual cases. The regulator cannot unduly prioritise any one objective and neglect to consider the others. My noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts has already given another construction, which perhaps is more balanced, of proposed new Section 1B(4) and I am grateful to him for that.
This is a complex interaction of provisions. In one case we are talking about a competition objective but also, in the context of proposed new Section 1B(4), a duty designed to ensure that the FCA considers competition as a means to, and in the context of, delivering other objectives. But that needs to happen only as far as it is compatible with the integrity and protection objectives. I believe that it is a keenly balanced series of interlocking provisions here, of which these are only two. Of course, there are further elaborations of just what the integrity objective and the other objectives involve. Further, it is important to “have regard to” under this new section. I believe that the balance is right and that there is no need to adjust the structure of the competition objective to require the FCA to consider integrity in the way proposed here.
Similarly, the FCA’s integrity objective will come into play when the FCA is exercising its general functions in relation to conduct. While it must think about whether competition is working in the interests of consumers, I do not believe that it is for the FCA to police the markets to establish and enforce what fairness is. I do not believe that fairness should form part of the explanation of the term “integrity”. It is a separate issue.
There are other issues about the interrelationship between the two new authorities. Proposed new Section 3D requires the PRA and FCA to co-ordinate their functions in areas of common regulatory interest where one may have relevant expertise or wherever one may have a material adverse impact on the objectives of the other. This means that, while it is right that the PRA must focus on its safety and soundness objective, where its actions may impact adversely on consumer protection it will have to listen to the FCA, which has a strong consumer protection objective.
In summary, I accept the wider point about the importance of these issues. As this short debate has teased out, these issues are very complicated. They are best addressed through the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards. In the light of that, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
I thank noble Lords for their support on the amendment. I actually think that the Minister is wrong. This is not complicated; this is about integrity. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, had it right. We are not talking about how to impose rules. We are talking about something within the people who work in this industry. The problem is that the significant influence function has not worked. Sir Fred Goodwin was appointed under it. It was not working, it has not worked, and we need something different. We need it in the Bill.
The Minister talked about the report of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards and what is going to come out of that, but that was not set up when the Bill was written. Would the Minister have accepted the code and the amendment on professional standards if Libor had not happened and if a banking commission had not been set up? The Bill was intended to mean no more failures and no more of that behaviour. We are talking about integrity. I had not planned to divide the House on this. However, as the Government have just voted against a code of conduct, I am so tempted now to put it to them that we should vote on professional standards to see whether they really want to say that they have a Financial Services Bill to make changes to the way we regulate but they do not want professional standards in that. For once in my life I will resist temptation. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Financial Services Bill
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The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon)
My Lords, this is another group of amendments where we have not only debated the issues at length at previous stages but seen broad agreement across the House on the driving principle behind them. The notion behind the amendments is both clear and unarguable. Firms have and should have responsibilities to their customers. I agree that consumers have, all too often, suffered detriment at the hand of financial services firms because the regulator’s overly broad remit meant that such important matters were not given sufficient attention. The main answer to the challenge of the noble Lord, Lord Peston, is that it is for that very reason that we are creating a focused conduct of business regulator with a new suite of powers to tackle firms that do not take their considerable responsibilities in this area seriously.
Lord Peston
Is the Minister telling your Lordships that the FCA will have the power to intervene with specific firms? On the basis of what information, I wonder.
Lord Sassoon
Yes, I can confirm that. The information may come from a whole range of sources. Obviously, consumer complaints could be one source, but I know that the noble Lord postulated a circumstance in which there was no consumer complaint. It will clearly be going in regularly to review how a firm operates and conducts its business. That will be another source of information. I am sure that it will regularly compare products on offer, one against another, and if there are outlying products, that is another source of information. There is a whole range of sources of information. The key thing here is that we have in the FCA a regulator that does not have to be concerned, as the FSA does, with all the considerations of prudential regulation and supervision and can therefore take a much clearer approach. As we discussed, there are specific product intervention powers, which the FSA does not have.
The noble Lord helpfully raises the general background. We are putting the FCA in a much better position to tackle those issues proactively. Specifically, Amendment 25D would insert a factor that the FCA would have to consider when advancing its consumer protection objective. Namely, it would require the FCA to have regard to,
“the general principle that, where consumers properly repose trust in a firm’s discretion and are vulnerable to the exercise of that discretion, the firm has a duty to act in the consumer’s best interests”.
As I reflected in Committee, this is a cleverly worded amendment and the motivation behind it is noble, but I am still not convinced that it would result in firms acting in the way that the amendment is intended to ensure.
I am clear that the best way for the regulator to ensure that firms act in the best interests of their customers is through detailed, clear and unambiguous rules. Noble Lords have already highlighted the FSA’s “treating customers fairly” principle, under which it has carried out important work to protect consumers. With the renewed focus on consumer protection which I have just highlighted, the FCA will be empowered to go further. The precision attached to rules offers a much more effective shield for consumers than a broad duty, which will be near-impossible for the FCA—or, indeed, firms or consumers—to interpret, given the breadth of interests of different consumers at different times.
Moving to Amendment 26B, we return to the thorny question of fiduciary duty. Amendment 26B is drafted to reflect the recommendations of the Kay review in this area. The Government are in the process of responding formally to the recommendations of the review, and I hope that the House will concede that it would be inappropriate for me to pre-empt that response. I assure my noble friend Lord Stoneham of Droxford that we are taking the Kay review recommendations very seriously and that they will receive a substantive response.
I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, that the regulatory framework that we are establishing will enable the FCA to consider to what extent current regulatory rules in this area support these standards, if they advance its objectives. However, I am concerned that there are aspects of this amendment which would not have the effect that we desire. In particular, the proposal that the regulator gives guidance as to what is the effect of common law, notwithstanding what we have heard, seems very dangerous to me. It risks absolving firms of the duty to consider their role and duty under common law and places the burden on the regulator to outline how the common law applies. Seeking to codify common law in guidance in this way also means that the scope for the common law to develop and adapt to reflect changing circumstances—which is, of course, one of the great virtues of the common law—may be impeded. As a general point of principle, this amendment is unnecessary, because the FCA is empowered to issue such guidance as it sees fit.
The last amendment in this group, Amendment 45A, is another that we have seen before. It would require the FCA and PRA to have regard to,
“the principle that authorised persons should act honestly, fairly and professionally in the best interests of consumers who are their clients”.
Of course firms should act in this way. The right way to ensure that is to empower the FCA, when firms do not act in that way, to act under its consumer protection objective, with strong mechanisms in place to ensure that it co-ordinates effectively with the PRA when it does.
I agree that we want financial services firms to act in a way that puts customers first. It is precisely for this reason that we are creating the FCA as a focused conduct and business regulator. I maintain that the regulatory framework that we are putting in place will lead to better outcomes for consumers, with a focused regulator empowered to act and armed with substantial new powers to ensure that it does. On this understanding, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham of Droxford, and my noble friend Lord Peston for their support. When my noble friend Lord Peston spoke of vacuous statements, it slightly reminded me of the Simon Hoggart test of everything: if one says the opposite of a statement and it is absolutely meaningless, then maybe the statement was not worth saying anyway. If one says the opposite of “firms should act in their clients’ best interests”—that is, “firms should act in their clients’ worst interests”—it shows that this is an important statement and is worth considering.
The uncertain and rather confusing reply from the Minister is not the one he should have given. His reply is not good for the industry, it is certainly not good for consumers, and it is not good for UK plc, which needs this industry to be thriving and therefore trusted. He is not right in saying that detailed rules are the answer; they did not work before. Treating customers fairly—that phrase that some of us know very well—is not the answer either, because it did not work before. A broad duty is needed.
In these amendments we ask for what we believe to be the common law position, and what the Kay report recommended. Why the Government could not have responded to that report by today so that we could have known whether this could be in the Bill I do not know; they have had it since July—I had a holiday, I do not know if the Government did. In these amendments we ask for what every other profession has to offer its clients or patients. It is what consumers, whether savers or borrowers, expect from their providers—that authorised persons, managing other people’s business, have a duty to act in their clients’ best interests. This means avoiding conflicts of interest, acting in good faith, not profiting unreasonably at the expense of customers without their knowledge and consent, and a duty of confidentiality. It is not that painful. This needs to be in the Bill: first, to make sure it happens; and secondly, to empower the FCA. I feel sure that noble Lords will support this move, and I therefore wish to test the opinion of the House.
Financial Services Bill
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Lord Sassoon
The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon)
My Lords, this group of government amendments comprises two straightforward technical concessions, which I signalled in Committee. The first, government Amendment 20, responds to an amendment moved by my noble friend Lady Kramer in Committee. This helpfully highlighted that the legislation does not expressly prohibit the Chancellor from appointing the governor, or one of the deputy governors, of the Bank to be chair or deputy chair of court. As I assured my noble friend at the time, the policy intention—indeed long-standing practice—has always been for non-executives to play these crucial roles. However, Amendment 20 puts this beyond all doubt by explicitly prohibiting the governor and deputy governor from being appointed as chair or deputy chair of court.
The other amendments in the group deal with the terminology around the Court of Directors. In Committee, various noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Philips of Sudbury and the noble Lord, Lord Burns, commented on the oddity of the Court of Directors being comprised of directors, which refers to the non-executive members only, and the executive members, who are not classified as directors at all. I make a commitment to go away and look at options for clarifying this, and the amendments in this group are the result. The amendments would change all references to “director” to “non-executive director”. This means that all the members of court are now directors, with the legislation distinguishing clearly between non-executive and executive directors. As I have said, these are straightforward concessionary amendments, which usefully tidy up the court arrangements, and I hope that the House will support them. I beg to move.
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord on the improvement to the drafting of the Bill that these amendments secure. It is worth pointing out that this is not a mere clarification. A persistent feature in the development of corporate governance in this country in the past several years has been the enhancement of the role and responsibilities of non-executive directors. Clear recognition in the Bill that these are non-executives carries with it the potential for them to play a proper role in the overall oversight of the Bank, a matter which we will come on to later when we discuss the role of the oversight committee. I support the Minister’s amendments.
Lord Sassoon
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, in Committee my noble friend Lady Hayter and I sought to ensure that the body of what we can now comfortably refer to as “non-executives” was suitably diverse to overcome the dangers of groupthink. Groupthink, combined with a persistent failure to challenge the executive, has been all too evident at the Bank of England over the past five years and, indeed, in the years preceding the economic and financial crisis.
We were criticised at the time for the imprecision of the term “diverse”, which we included in our amendment in Committee. We have taken those criticisms on board. We have gone away and thought about them. In particular, we were very struck by the words of the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, in criticising our position:
“As the Committee may be aware, the Treasury’s Select Committee report into the accountability of the Bank of England concluded:
‘The new responsibilities of the Bank will require its governing body to have an enhanced mix of skills’.—[Official Report, Commons, Financial Services Bill Committee, 21/2/12; col. 21.]
The Government agree with this conclusion and in their response to the Treasury Committee they committed to take it into consideration in relation to future appointments”.—[Official Report, 26/6/12; col. 176.]
We have decided to assist the noble Lord in taking it into consideration by using exactly those words, to which he has already agreed, in this amendment.
Let me reiterate the main point. Until now, those involved at the Bank in a non-executive capacity have not shown themselves capable of holding the executive to account. That is a serious failing in corporate governance. Until now, those involved in a non-executive committee at the Bank have been seduced by groupthink or overwhelmed by the power of the governor or deputy governors. This is again a serious failing in corporate governance. It is simply not good enough for the Government to say, “Well, we understand and we’ll do better in future”. It is simply not good enough to provide vague assurances. If we are to create a new Bank of England with new major powers and responsibilities, it should be capable of dealing with those responsibilities in a clear structured way with suitable non-executive scrutiny. That is what Amendment 2A would achieve using the words to which the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, has already agreed.
Amendment 6A, which is also in this group, makes the same point with respect to the mix of skills on the Financial Policy Committee. Of course, the skills mix will be different on the FPC from on the court. There will be a need for more technical expertise. For example, it would be a huge mistake to rely just on people with experience of working in financial services. I notice, for example, that no one appointed to the interim FPC has done any serious economic research into the phenomenon of systemic risk—not a single one. That is exactly the phenomenon on which the FPC is supposed not merely to opine but to take action. Therefore I think that a degree of diversity in the skill set of non-executive directors appointed to the FPC will greatly enhance its effectiveness and indeed its reputation.
I hope, particularly since I used his own words in my amendment, that the Minister will be happy to accept these two constructive amendments. I beg to move.
Lord Sassoon
Noble Lords may be aware that a similar amendment to Amendment 2A was tabled and debated in another place. Then, as now, and as I said in Committee, the Government do not believe that such a legislative provision is necessary or appropriate. Starting with the question of knowledge and experience, the Government have repeatedly confirmed their commitment, as I did in words quoted by the noble Lord, to ensuring the appointment of serious, knowledgeable and experienced candidates who have the appropriate qualifications and skills to carry out the functions of non-executive directors of court. These appointments are fully regulated by the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments, which ensures a fair, transparent and competitive process. The code is binding and the Treasury is responsible for ensuring its compliance, thereby ensuring that appointments to court are made openly, transparently and on the basis of merit.
Even without a prescriptive legislative obligation, in order to build an effective court the Treasury is mindful of the need to seek not only an appropriate depth but breadth of skills and experience. Ministers can and do take this into account in forming their recommendation without the need to further impose a duty on Her Majesty to form a view as to the candidate’s knowledge or experience before she makes the appointment.
I turn to the question of diversity, which I understand to mean not only of gender, geography or ethnic background but also of sectoral experience, insight and knowledge, as is suggested by Amendment 6A. Court and, in future, FPC appointments are advertised openly, and applications are welcomed from candidates from a variety of backgrounds. For example, the role profile for the most recent court vacancies sought people with substantial experience as board members, as head of function of major financial organisations and as senior managers in a relevant area of public policy, or in the voluntary sector or a trade union.
The latest iteration of the Government’s code of good practice for corporate governance in central government departments clearly states that,
“a board should have a balance of skills and experience appropriate to fulfilling its responsibilities. Moreover, it stipulates that the membership of the board should be balanced, diverse and manageable in size”.—[Official Report, Commons, Financial Services Bill Committee, 21/2/12; col. 22.]
However, given the size of the non-executive contingent on court and the number of external members of the FPC, it would simply not be possible to prescribe a set of criteria to ensure full diversity—that is, to ensure that each and every different background and characteristic is represented on the board and committee —without severely limiting the potential field of qualified applicants. It is therefore a question of judgment.
I stand by exactly what I said in Committee, which is that the Government are committed to ensuring an appropriate breadth as well as depth of skills; and this is as true of the FPC as it is of the court. While I agree entirely with the sentiments and principles behind these amendments, I do not believe that it is necessary or appropriate to legislate to achieve these aims.
I hope that I have provided sufficient reassurance to the noble Lord and that he will be able to withdraw his amendments.
Lord Peston
Could the Minister confirm that all these appointments will be advertised in appropriate places? I think that he said it but I am not sure that I caught what he said.
Lord Sassoon
That is what I said, and I am sure that it will be clear on the record when the noble Lord reads it.
Lord Flight
Could I ask the Minister whether he feels that the arrangements as they stand, where these posts are advertised and people apply, have actually delivered the sort of Court of the Bank of England that is appropriate to the needs going forward? There has been, I believe, fair criticism of the court for not being a robust enough body, but the court is assembled by the very arrangements that the Minister is talking about.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, the whole substance of the point here is that we are giving the court a very clear and enhanced mandate, particularly through the oversight committee, which we will come on to. In the context of the new role and mandate for the court, it will increasingly attract the very best people who go with the new mandate. The comparison with the past is not necessarily a fair one.
Lord Eatwell
The Minister in reply says that this amendment is not necessary or appropriate. However, in attempting to substantiate those propositions, he referred to the policy of the Public Appointments Committee, which is not responsible in any way for a mix of skills but simply for the quality of the individuals who come before it. When he referred to the variety of backgrounds, he did exactly the thing that I was afraid he would do: he referred to people with senior board experience in commercial and financial organisations and not to anybody who actually understands systemic risk or how to manage it. If they did, perhaps we would not have got into the mess that we did. So I am surprised—well, I suppose that I am not surprised—but I am disappointed that he finds it neither necessary nor appropriate.
Lord Sassoon
Can I clarify that I was citing the advertisement for the most recent court appointments and not for FPC appointments?
Lord Eatwell
That is very helpful, and I thank the Minister for it, but my point on the FPC is reinforced by what he has just said. I would hope that in FPC appointments some reference would be made to the appropriate skill set, which was not that quoted, although it may be appropriate for the court. Perhaps if I could nudge the Treasury in that direction when making an advertisement, that might be a result. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment 2A withdrawn.
Amendment 2B
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
My Lords, I concur with what the noble Lord, Lord Flight, has said, and I am a bit foxed by the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, introduced this amendment. I think I heard him say that these appointments have become more and more politicised, and that he regretted that. It strikes me that to require a debate to be held in the House of Commons after the appointment has been made is an invitation to the utmost politicisation, especially because, as far as I can see, there would be no consequence to that debate, in that the appointment would already have been made.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, before I turn to the detail of this amendment, I thank the Bill team for dealing with a significant hatful of amendments, this being the first, that turned up from the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, rather late yesterday evening.
Lord Sassoon
I will give way in a moment. I will do my best to engage in constructive and meaningful debate. As I say, I am very grateful to the team because we did not have much notice of a number of these amendments.
Lord Eatwell
I am sure the noble Lord does not want to mislead the House. The amendments were sent to the Bill team on Friday afternoon and I had a long telephone conversation with it to discuss them. I assure the noble Lord that I had that telephone conversation. He says from a sedentary position, “not on all of them”. All the major items were discussed at that time. For him to suggest that they appeared only yesterday is inaccurate.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, Amendments 2B, 2C, 3L, 3M, 6B, 6G and 7F, among others—maybe that is the lot—appeared at the Treasury late yesterday and not all the amendments were discussed in the conversation to which the noble Lord refers. However, there are some important and some not so important matters in these amendments and I will do my best to do them justice.
As we have heard, this amendment relates to the role of Parliament in the appointment of the Governor of the Bank of England and has been the subject of much debate both here and in another place. Specifically, Amendment 2B seeks to secure a debate in another place following the appointment of the governor, something which I do not believe is necessary or appropriate. The Government are committed to maintaining an appointments process that is proportionate and attracts candidates of the highest quality. It is important to ensure the credibility of the candidate and safeguard his or her independence. If the appointment was subject to a debate in another place, I suggest that there is a significant risk of politicising the process and undermining the appointment of the new candidate. Of course, it has been argued that such a debate could enhance the credibility of the candidate but previous governors have achieved credibility without being subject to such a debate. Credibility ultimately stems from effective action to meet the Bank’s objectives. If the appointment were subject to a debate in another place, the candidate would not be present to answer questions or defend him or herself.
The noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, has already quoted me in the previous debate. I quote what he had to say on this matter in Committee on 26 June. He said:
“We do not want to politicise appointments to the extent that has occurred in the United States”.
The suggestion that appointments might end up being considered by the whole House made him “nervous” as it would,
“inevitably be whipped and become very political indeed”.—[Official Report, 26/6/12; col. 165.]
I very much agree with that. Therefore, the Government believe that the pre-commencement hearing held by the Treasury Committee strikes the right balance in terms of scrutiny of this executive appointment and allows for a more constructive debate with the candidate in attendance to satisfy the committee’s concerns about his or her personal integrity and professional competence. The Government welcome the Treasury Committee’s ongoing role in holding such hearings and, importantly, as my noble friend Lord Flight reminded us, holding the governor to account throughout his or her tenure. I hope I have provided sufficient reassurance and that the noble Lord feels able to withdraw this amendment.
Lord Peston
I wish to make a comment and ask the Minister a question. My comment is that there are no long words in this amendment. I would have thought that the average person who had been at school could just about understand it in a few minutes of reading it. The idea that the Minister cannot address your Lordships’ House without several days, if not weeks, of Treasury back-up seems to me absolutely preposterous. He should stop bellyaching about this sort of thing.
My question to him is: if this debate took place in both your Lordships’ House and the other place, has it not occurred to him that that debate might be devoted mainly to saying what an excellent appointment has been made in this case, what an extremely good person has been chosen and wishing him well in his very arduous task? Why is the Minister taking it for granted that the debate would be mostly about slagging off whoever the appointed person may be?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I am not taking it for granted. I am merely quoting the fears of the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, when he addressed this issue in Committee. “Inevitably be whipped and become very political indeed,” were his words, not mine. However, I agree that this is the way that these things tend to go. The concept of a congratulatory first is not one that sits easily with another place.
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, I am grateful for the comments that have been made—some accurate, some less so. First, with respect to the issue of being politicised, my concern is motivated primarily by the powers being translated from elected persons to an unelected person. That is what is happening in this Bill. This will inevitably make the position of the governor much more of a political focus rather than the markets and technical focus it has been very much in the past—perhaps not in the 1930s with Montagu Norman, but in recent years. That is where the politicisation has come from. We need to recognise that powers have been transferred from the elected to the unelected by giving the elected some role.
The Minister did me the honour of quoting me, although of course out of context. I was referring—as I am sure he would agree—to pre-appointment hearings as are common in the United States. This is not the intention of this amendment at all. However, a series of important issues is going to come up again and again unless the Government take very seriously the very considerable conglomeration of powers in the hands of the governor, given by this Bill, and the fact that powers are being moved from the elected to the unelected. It is vital that Parliament should consider this crucial issue. I hope that the Minister will take some of these considerations away and think very carefully about them. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, as a former member of the court, I feel slightly under attack this afternoon, but I was long gone before the financial crisis. In the context of the previous amendment, my noble friend Lord Flight pointed out that the important way to express accountability is on an ongoing basis, not at the point of appointment. The most important thing, going forward, is whether or not the new oversight committee will do its job and who will make sure that it is held to account. It seems to me that it should be the Treasury Select Committee in another place and it is not something for which we need to legislate. The Treasury Select Committee is well apprised of the need to ensure that there are proper accountability mechanisms to act as a counterweight against significant additional powers for the Governor of the Bank of England; and that there are proper checks and balances within the Bank of England and then from the Bank to Parliament.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McFall of Alcluith, and to my noble friend Lady Noakes. My noble friend was an estimable member of the court and I am sure that she brought great distinction to its deliberations. As she reminds the House by referring to the oversight committee, the noble Lord, Lord McFall is right to say that the court has not always necessarily done everything that Members of Parliament would have wished in recent years. Critically, that is why the oversight committee that we are introducing changes the way that the court and particularly non-executives on the court will operate. I am grateful to be reminded of this critical background to our discussion. The other background point to make is that the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, has made a number of references in this and earlier debates about politicisation and transferring powers from elected politicians to the Bank. This is a red herring. I am sure that I should not say it is nonsense, but I simply do not accept this background analysis.
Powers are not somehow being moved from elected politicians to the Bank. The Bank is being granted a range of powers which are regulatory in nature. Financial regulation has been undertaken by independent regulators for over a decade in the UK and before that, of course, large swathes of it were not in any way carried out by elected politicians or even properly constituted regulators. They were done in a self-regulatory way. So this idea that somehow we are transferring stuff from politicians to the Bank, as if some heinous crime was being committed and that we need lots of belts and braces, is the wrong background.
Let me specifically address the amendments here and the role of Parliament in key appointments. As we have heard, they are different in some respects from the previous amendment about appointing the Governor. The appointments of non-executive directors of the court are not currently subject to a pre-commencement hearing by the Treasury Select Committee. As with the Governor, the appointments of non-executive directors are made by Her Majesty and governed by the OCPA code. As I explained earlier, this stipulates certain practices in terms of a robust and fair appointment process, with appointments made principally on merit. Members of the court are accountable to Parliament and it is right that the Treasury Select Committee can and does invite them to give evidence at the appropriate juncture. However, the non-executive directors are not policymakers. Their role is to oversee the running of the Bank and it would be highly unusual to make such appointments subject to the consent of the Treasury Select Committee. The Government therefore believe that the current appointments process for non-executive directors of the court remains the right one. Similarly, the appointment of external FPC members will be subject to a robust process that seeks qualified and experienced candidates. External members of the FPC will be subject to pre-commencement hearings—as was the case with the appointees to the interim FPC. The FPC will be accountable for its actions to the Bank’s oversight committee and directly to the Treasury Select Committee, which we expect to take regular evidence from the external members of the FPC, as it does already from the MPC and the interim FPC.
As with the roles of governor and external members of the MPC, the market-sensitive nature of these roles means that the combination of pre-commencement hearings and Treasury Select Committee scrutiny in-post offers an appropriate balance in terms of parliamentary scrutiny. Again, the Government welcome the ongoing role played by the Treasury Select Committee. I hope that I have provided sufficient reassurance for the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, I am grateful to everybody who took part in this short debate, and especially for the support of my noble friend Lord McFall, who has such experience in these areas. I always take very seriously indeed the opinions of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. I quite understand her concern that accountability should be a phenomenon that is ongoing and not just on appointment. Why not on appointment, too, so to speak?
I was puzzled by the introduction with which the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, prefaced his remarks. He stated that financial regulation had been going on for a decade. It has been going on at an international level since 1974. The whole point of this legislation is that macroprudential legislation has not been done at all before. That is why the various reports such as the Turner review by the FSA, the report of the US Treasury in 2009, and the report of the high-level committee of the European Union led by Monsieur de Larosière, all identified a new role for financial regulation in dealing with macroeconomic variables, which it had never done before. This is a new area of financial regulation which is specifically the responsibility of the Financial Policy Committee.
The Minister said that there had been no transfer of responsibilities. Was not the control of credit in our economy the responsibility of the Treasury? Has it not been so since the Second World War? Did not the various Acts on the control of credit start as Treasury Bills? Now the availability of credit is predominantly the responsibility of the Financial Policy Committee. That is a transfer of powers. I wonder if the Minister would like to consider that example.
The Minister then said something truly extraordinary. He said that the non-executive members of the court were not policymakers. Perhaps I may refer him to Clause 4 on financial strategy, which states:
“The Court of Directors must … determine the Bank’s strategy in relation to the Financial Stability Objective”.
That sounds to me as if they are policymakers. They must “determine the Bank’s strategy”. Are the non-execs therefore to sit down and keep quiet?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, will the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, concede that that is the responsibility of the Court of Directors as a whole, not of the non-executive directors as a group?
Lord Eatwell
Certainly, but that is not what the Minister said. He said that the non-executive directors were not policymakers—but they are to participate as a nine-member majority of the court, including the chair, as he pointed out. However, we now hear that they are to sit silently while the executive directors determine policy. That is nonsense and the Minister knows it. These individuals are policymakers—and rightly so; they should be. That is why we need the right sort of people, and why it is right that there should be suitable hearings preceding their appointment, as suggested by the amendment.
The Minister is getting into a muddle. He should go away and think hard about what the Financial Policy Committee is required to do, recognise that there has been a transfer of powers and that macroprudential regulation is something entirely new that has not been done before; and try to get some of the legislation right. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Sassoon
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, this is a major amendment that I had the pleasure of discussing with the Bill team on Friday. I was going to preface my remarks by saying that there is a developing consensus that the Government are piling responsibilities on the Bank of England. But I hear that consensus is not developing on the other side of this Chamber, since the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, does not seem to recognise that the Bank and the governor are having these extra responsibilities or indeed that there has been transfer of powers.
Interestingly enough, others do recognise that. Mr Tyrie, just last week, with the oversight committee already in the Bill, referred to the Bank’s defective governance. Then, Mr Bill Winters, a former executive at JP Morgan and author of one of the very tightly constrained reviews into the Bank’s operations that was published last week, concluded that the Bank was too “centralised and hierarchical”. Then Sir John Gieve, a former deputy governor, commented on the same review saying,
“how do you bring more challenge into a hierarchical organisation?”.
That was last week, with the oversight committee in place. Those comments echo criticisms made by a number of former senior Bank of England staff and by serious commentators in the financial press. This is a serious issue.
I have already listed the major issues, but I will list them briefly in the context of this amendment because it may help the House. With respect to the powers assigned to the governor in the Bill, the power of an unelected person will be equivalent almost to that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Indeed, it will exceed the Chancellor’s powers in that the Chancellor is under constant scrutiny from Parliament whereas the governor is under less intense and less constant scrutiny.
We have to remember that the governor will not only chair every financial policy committee in the land with the sole exception of the FCA, but will be the lone high-level interlocutor with the Chancellor. He holds these positions while having no statutory responsibility to consult or involve other senior officials at the Bank or non-execs. He may consult and he may delegate, but it is entirely up to him or her. If they do not wish to do so they can ignore them all.
In Committee, the Government took an important step by creating the oversight committee. But noble Lords will notice that within the designations of the responsibilities of the oversight committee, there is one notable oddity. There is a notable absentee. Nowhere does there appear the verb “to oversee”. We have an oversight committee that does not oversee. In fact, a careful reading of the designated activities of the oversight committee reveals that all its key responsibilities are retrospective. It must keep under review. It must monitor. It must review procedures. It must conduct performance reviews. The only thing that it must not do is oversee. This is not an oversight committee, it is a hindsight committee—a valuable role, no doubt, but hardly an activity to moderate the powers of the “Sun King” governor other than by retrospective embarrassment, and governors of the Bank of England seem to be peculiarly impervious to embarrassment.
The amendment introduces the verb “to oversee”. It gives the oversight committee the power of oversight. This will have a number of beneficial consequences. The governor and the executive will, as in all good governance systems, be accountable to the non-executives for their activities and their policies. As in all well run organisations, the non-executives will not design the strategy or tactics of the Bank—that is the job of the executive—but they will be the advisers and the arbiters. They will oversee.
Instead of being either a glorified review committee in the shape of the noble Lord’s hindsight committee, or creatures of the executive, as in the court, the quality of a person likely to be willing to devote a considerable amount of time and effort to the job of non-executive of the Bank will be significantly enhanced because they are getting a real job. The foundations will be laid for the creation of a modern governance structure within the Bank of England, appropriate to the 21st century and to the major powers now vested in the Bank.
In this group there are also Amendments 3B, 3G and 3H, which are a direct consequence of the recognition of the role of the oversight committee in overseeing the activities of the governor in particular, and of the Bank in general. If the oversight committee is to exercise this role effectively it should have the final sign-off to the policies prepared by the court and by other executive institutions. I should be clear that in all well run firms it is the task of the executive to prepare policy and to execute it, but it is the role of the non-executives—of the oversight committee—to scrutinise and sign off the executive’s proposal. The oversight committee should oversee.
Amendment 3K makes clear that the role of the oversight committee in its task of overseeing is to approve the policy prepared by the court; it is the precise role of non-executives in all well run companies. Amendment 6C makes clear that the oversight committee is not to be confined to the impotent ghetto of reviewing procedures of the FPC but can also review the FPC’s policies. After all, if it cannot review policies what will the performance review be about? If it is given the task of performance review, surely it should review policies and not simply procedures.
I quite understand that the Government have not had long to consider this core idea, although they have had a bit longer than the noble Lord earlier suggested. I give credit to the Bill Committee and I understand the pressures it is under; similar pressures are experienced in my office.
Lord Sassoon
I do not want to labour the point but would the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, accept that I did not list Amendment 3A as one that came late? I fully accept that this is not one of the hatful that I referred to as arriving late. We have indeed had longer to consider this amendment.
Lord Eatwell
Then I am sure that the noble Lord, having given the amendment such mature consideration, will be able to accept it.
I hope that, at the very least, the Government will agree to take this proposal away and think about it. After all, if we are going to have an oversight committee it should oversee; otherwise perhaps the Government should simply change the committee’s name. I beg to move.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I am grateful for this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, started by welcoming the creation of the oversight committee as an important step, but then went a leap too far in getting rather confused about what, in his terms, “modern corporate governance” really means. As so many noble Lords have explained, it means that ultimately the governing body as a whole—the board of directors, the Court of the Bank of England—has to take the key decisions. As the noble Lord, Lord McFall of Alcluith, said, the principal role of the oversight committee is for learning lessons. I completely agree with him, and will go on to explain that the role of the oversight committee, as constructed in the Bill before these amendments, is completely in line with what the Treasury Select Committee envisaged.
My noble friends have explained all these things much more clearly than I could. The noble Lord, Lord Nickson, modestly said that he is out of date. I do not believe that he is out of date at all. He and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, who has great current experience of corporate governance in one of the UK’s largest multinationals, have got this right. I had been puzzled—I wondered whether I had missed something in all this—but I am grateful that the House shares my concerns.
To address the specifics, Amendment 3A would shift the oversight committee’s functions from a more backward-looking, reviewing role—the lesson-learning role that the noble Lord, Lord McFall, referred to—to a real-time overseeing role, which would involve scrutinising and perhaps second-guessing the Bank’s policy decisions while they are being taken. As my noble friends and other noble Lords have made clear, if that role is taken at the board level, it is taken by the board as a whole. I do not believe that this proposed new role would be at all appropriate.
As I have said, we can look to what the Treasury Select Committee in another place said when it recommended the introduction of ex-post reviews of the Bank’s policy performance. This is worth quoting at some length, from the committee’s 21st report of the Session, Accountability of the Bank of England:
“The Governor stressed to us that ‘the decisions that the PRA, FPC and MPC make on policy are not decisions that the Court needs to second guess’. We agree. The Bank’s governing body should place more emphasis on oversight and ex-post scrutiny. This does not require or authorise it to become involved in second guessing immediate policy decisions. But there is a need to analyse and learn lessons from the actions of the Bank on a routine and consistent basis, drawing on expertise from within the Bank. Ex-post review of the Bank’s decisions would, we believe, be in the interests of good governance of the Bank”.
The report went on to recommend that ex-post reviews of the Bank’s performance be carried out,
“not less than a year after the period to be reviewed”
in order to avoid,
“second guessing at the time of the policy decision”.
The current wording describes one of the functions of the oversight committee as,
“keeping under review the Bank’s performance”,
which is entirely consistent with the Treasury Select Committee’s recommendations and strikes the right balance between ensuring effective retrospective scrutiny of the Bank’s policy decisions and avoiding a situation where the non-executive members of the court would be second-guessing the policy decisions taken by the Bank’s expert policy committees and Bank executives. Of course, in this context my noble friend Lord Blackwell is quite right to point out that when these decisions are for the court as a whole, the non-executives are, as one would expect in any good modern corporate governance structure, in a majority.
I am a little puzzled by Amendments 3B, 3G, 3H and 3K, which seek to make the non-executives of the court solely responsible for determining the Bank’s financial stability strategy. Again, this is completely at odds, as the House has been told, with the way in which model corporate governance operates. Surely the reason for making the governing body as a whole, in this case the court of directors, responsible for the strategy is because it is that body, and in particular the executive members of that body, who will be accountable for delivering the strategy. Like other noble Lords, I struggle to see how the process that is proposed in these amendments could possibly work in practice. The oversight committee is made up of the non-executive directors of the court and those non-executives make up the majority of the court, as my noble friend has suggested.
On the role of the non-executives, I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Myners, is right when he says he could not get the Treasury to take concerns seriously back in 2007, but I cannot answer for what happened in the Treasury under the previous Administration. All I can say is that if any member of the court of the Bank, whether executive or non-executive, came to the Treasury now, we would take their concerns extremely seriously.
I do not want to belabour the point, but I am not sure whether the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, is envisaging situations in which the non-executive directors, coming from a court meeting in which they agreed the financial stability strategy, then go into an oversight committee meeting where they decide perhaps that the strategy agreed by the whole court was wrong in some way. We need to distinguish here clearly, as have many noble Lords, between the differing responsibilities of the court and of the non-executives on the court. The court, as the Bank’s governing body, is responsible for setting the Bank’s overall strategy, including its strategy for financial stability. It is the responsibility of the executives of the Bank, with the support of the court, to deliver that strategy. It is the responsibility of the oversight committee to hold the executive to account for how it delivers on the strategy by keeping its performance under review and, again in the words of the noble Lord, Lord McFall, for learning the lessons. This split of responsibilities in the Bill is appropriate and consistent with modern corporate governance.
Finally, Amendment 6C would add policies to the existing requirement in subsection (4) of new Section 9B that the oversight committee keep the procedures of the FPC under review. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, that this amendment is entirely unnecessary. The oversight committee is already responsible for keeping the policy and performance of the FPC under review. Subsection (2)(a) of new Section 3A of the 1998 Act, as inserted by Clause 3 of this Bill, clearly states that the oversight committee is responsible for keeping under review the Bank’s performance in relation to all of its objectives and strategy, including the objectives of the Financial Policy Committee. With the benefit of this useful debate, I hope that the noble Lord will see fit to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Myners
I want to be helpful and pick up one point about the references that have been made by several Peers to models of good corporate governance. The noble Lord, Lord Flight, with considerable experience and great standing in business in the City, has already pointed out one respect in which the court cannot be compared with a conventional board of directors: its ability in the end to remove the executive if it has lost confidence in it.
The point that I raised about our experience in 2007 is another distinct difference from corporate governance; namely, there is no shareholder to whom the non-executives can appeal. What happened in 2007 was that three members of the court had meetings with Treasury officials to raise their concerns about the absence of full challenge and the dominant influence of a single voice in the court. They expressed those views to Treasury officials, who shrugged their shoulders and said that there really was not much that they could do. The governor is ultimately appointed by Her Majesty and members of the court are elected to do their work, and there is nothing that the shareholder—effectively the Treasury—can do. That is another area where we must be very careful not to assume that we are just picking up the corporate model and inserting it into the Bank. The Bank is different by virtue of the very limited powers placed on the court and the absence of a shareholder.
Finally, I question whether the Minister’s constant references to good corporate practice would be reflected in the role of a board in overseeing ex post facto what a company does. My experience of sitting on boards is that boards are very much involved in reviewing the formulation and implementation of strategy on a constant basis, not in carrying out post-implementation exercises. Your Lordships’ House should be careful to recognise that there are limits to the complete applicability of corporate practice to the particular circumstances of the Bank of England, the court and the governor.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I know that the custom of this House on Report is that noble Lords do not make second substantive speeches, so the noble Lord will understand if I do not respond to his points—otherwise we will not make much progress. However, I will clarify one point in answer to the question asked by my noble friend Lord Flight about the removal of the governor and the suggestion by the noble Lord, Lord Myners, that the governor cannot be removed. This is of course wrong, as I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Myners, knows. If he would like to refresh his memory of the Bank of England Act 1998, paragraph 8 of Schedule 1 sets out precisely the conditions under which the governor can be removed.
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, I am very grateful for the discussion which I have enjoyed very much. I have been educated and entertained by the remarks made by noble Lords all around the House. The key position that we have to start from is that the Bank of England is different. Its structure is different and the structure of responsibilities is different. When we think about corporate governance, we have to think about the way in which we can maintain a suitable degree of accountability.
In Amendment 3A, I was attempting to nudge the Government a little further on the oversight committee which, as the noble Lord made clear in contradiction to what the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, said, is entirely retrospective at the moment. In those circumstances, the maintenance of accountability is not really enough, given the degree of responsibility and powers that the Bank will have.
It occurred to me that a non-executive committee often has the final say. When things really go wrong, it is the non-executive committee that has to gather together and deal with what is going wrong in a company. Here the non-executive committee, by nudging it a little further and including the word “oversee”—for an oversight committee—would actually nudge the oversight committee, as conceived by the Government, in a direction in which it could hold to account the executive of the Bank to a greater degree than is the case at the moment. I think that the Government are being excessively complacent about this. We have this massive switch of powers, and we are being told that everything will be all right and that this Committee—which, as the noble Lord says, is entirely retrospective—will somehow create an aura of accountability. I just do not see that happening.
I regret that the noble Lord has not taken a constructive view of what we were trying to achieve. I would have been quite happy to accept some recognition by him that there is a degree of a problem in this particular institution and that we need—in this House and, indeed, in Parliament in general—to address this problem if we are to move forward successfully with the structure of financial regulation and oversight in this country. The noble Lord has given no indication of any sympathy whatever. Instead, he wants to keep the oversight committee purely retrospective, with no ability to take a broad view—not on a daily basis, of course not—and he wants the non-executives to have that specific role. Given that he has shown no interest at all and no understanding of the serious issues involved, I would like to seek the opinion of the House.
Lord Peston
My Lords, I support this amendment in substance. The noble Lord will be delighted to hear that I also wish to make a couple of semantic points. My noble friend said that the committee should have its own staff. My view is that it should not only have its own staff but should appoint its own staff, thereby guaranteeing that the staff are its own, work for it and, to use the slang expression, are not “narks” of the governor. Therefore, the noble Lord ought to accept the amendment.
My two semantic points are as follows. First, I find the committee’s name most unattractive. Will the noble Lord ask the Bill team to look up the definition of “oversight” in the dictionary as it has a very definite meaning which I am sure the Government and the Minister do not wish to be associated with this committee. It may not be too late to choose a more felicitous name. I wonder whether I am the only person who has thought what a ridiculous name the committee has.
Secondly, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Eatwell on solving the problem with which, as your Lordships know, the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, and I are obsessed: that is, the “must/may problem”. My noble friend has solved it in a really interesting way. He does not use “must” or “may” but “will”. I would like the Minister to ask the Bill team whether it would consider going down the path of using “will” rather than “must” or “may”.
Lord Sassoon
If the noble Lord, Lord Peston, could persuade his noble friend to rein back to just a couple of amendments a day, I am sure that we could carve out time to look at all sorts of semantics. However, I shall stick to the substance of this amendment, which seeks to place the bank under a statutory duty to ensure that the oversight committee has,
“adequate economic, legal and research support”.
I entirely agree with the sentiment behind this amendment. As we have already discussed this afternoon, the non-executive oversight committee has a very important job to do in reviewing the Bank’s performance and will require access to the information and analytical support that it needs. That is why, for example, the legislation makes it clear that members of the oversight committee have access to the meetings and papers of the MPC and FPC and have a specific remit to commission work and reviews from external bodies and experts.
It is a well established principle that it is the responsibility of the governing body of any organisation to ensure that its members and sub-committees are properly supported. I recognise that the Bank was slow to realise that the external members of the MPC required dedicated resource and support. I am confident that the Bank has learnt its lessons on this. Both the MPC and the FPC members have access to all the analytical and secretariat support that they need. I am wholly confident that the Bank will similarly make support available to the oversight committee to make sure that it is adequately supported without the need for legislation on this point. I hope, therefore, with the further reassurance on that, the noble Lord will see fit to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Eatwell
What the noble Lord has said does not address the important issue here. He said that the oversight committee will have access to papers, be able to commission work and have access to the secretarial and research skills of the Bank. However, the point of this amendment is to give what every non-executive group really needs, which is access to independent advice. Any non-executive group of which I have been a member has always prized its access to independent advice: that is, its ability to seek advice outwith the immediate organisation of which it is a part.
The point has been made around the House this afternoon that the Bank of England is different in a series of ways with respect to its overall organisation. It is also different in terms of the sorts of powers which it will exercise. Therefore, I feel very strongly that it is important that the oversight committee, which is, after all, the committee of non-executives, has access to independent advice. It is regrettable that the Government feel that assurances are enough. I entirely accept that the noble Lord and, indeed, the officials who have looked at this question feel confident in giving their assurances but they cannot bind their successors. The point of this amendment is to ensure that successors who hold this responsibility both within the Treasury and within the Bank recognise the importance of the advice and support that the oversight committee should receive if it is to do its job. I hope that the noble Lord will take that away and think about it although I probably hope in vain. Nevertheless, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Armstrong of Ilminster
My Lords, if I may take the semantic point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Peston, if the word “oversight” is capable of being misinterpreted why not use “supervisory”, which is just the Latin version and means exactly the same without the possible misunderstanding?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I am not at this point going to get sidetracked into semantics, fascinating though I find it, as noble Lords know. Let me echo again, because I had said already what a good job the Bill team was doing, that I completely agree about that. I am very sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Peston, thinks—I am sorry; I meant the noble Lord, Lord Barnett. Do forgive me. The noble Lord, Lord Peston, may think that I am doing an excellent job but I know that the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, does not. Anyway, it is entirely my fault and not the fault of my officials, as the noble Lord recognises.
Let me try to be brief on this one. This is not a question of the governor having a power to overrule the oversight committee, as other noble Lords have said. The construction in the Bill is that it is for the Bank as whole—the court of the Bank—to decide and to make an informed judgment whether damage might be caused by the publication of a report on a public interest test. I understand the starting point of the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, which is some suspicion or concern that the people who commissioned the report—the oversight committee—should be the group of people who decide whether it should be published. However, it is appropriate for the Bank as a whole—that is, the court, with a majority of non-executive directors, as my noble friend has reiterated again—to take the decision.
Lord Sassoon
Perhaps the noble Lord will let me finish. It is a decision of the Bank. The Bank is better placed to make that judgment and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, makes the point that it would be only in exceptional extraordinary circumstances —I cannot remember his exact words—that one would envisage this being overturned somehow on the whim, or rather the view, of the governor, when the Court of the Bank of England looks at it.
Let me make one more point before I give way to the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, because one critical part of this is that the Treasury will receive copies of all reports, regardless of their sensitivity. I would expect the Treasury to come to its own view on whether each report is genuinely unsuitable for publication. If it believes that the public interest carve-out was not justified, it would challenge that decision where appropriate, because the Treasury ultimately has an even wider perspective on the public interest. It is therefore right to remember that there is that further fallback, because the reports in all cases will go to the Treasury. Let me, as well as asking the noble Lord to consider withdrawing his amendment, give way to him.
Lord Eatwell
I just wanted to ask a question of clarification. What particularly disturbed me about subsection (3) of new Section 3D was that it refers to “the Bank”. Can the noble Lord assure me that in that subsection “Bank” means “court”? If he can, I would be happy. That is the point that I was trying to make. I think that I confused the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, slightly in that respect.
Lord Sassoon
Yes, my Lords, the court is the governing authority of the Bank, and that is, I believe, completely the right construction for this particular matter.
Lord Barnett
What the noble Lord said just now seems to provide a new reason to change the name of the oversight committee. We do not need one. He is saying that the governor and the board of the Bank will know better than the oversight committee. Why bother with an oversight committee at all? That would be a simple solution.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I find it is bizarre and slightly disappointing to see this amendment again. My noble friend Lord De Mauley explained in Committee why the FPC requires an express power in statute to make recommendations whereas the Treasury does not. As the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, recognises, I wrote to all interested noble Lords on 2 July setting out that explanation again, so I had rather hoped that the matter was resolved. I fear I should again explain the legal position, which is that the Government are clear that both the Treasury and the FPC should be closely involved in the ongoing development of the Bank’s financial stability strategy. I am happy to put that on the record. I have said a lot of other things which I am happy to be quoted on, such as comparing the practice under the old tripartite regime of people not talking to each other on a regular basis with what I now observe, which is much more regular communication. However, by amending this part of the Bill, I suggest we will not do anything more on that front. The Government are clear on that, which is why subsection (2) of new Section 9A of the Bank of England Act, as inserted by Clause 4 of the Bill, requires the court to consult both the FPC and the Treasury before determining or revising the Bank’s financial stability strategy. We do not need to overlabour the point, but it is a critically important one that the noble Lord raises and it is in there.
Moreover, the Government’s view is that neither the FPC nor the Treasury should have to wait to be formally consulted on the strategy. This should be part of the normal ongoing dialogue. If either body wishes proactively to suggest changes or amendments to the Bank’s strategy for financial stability, it should and will be able to do so. In order to ensure that this is the case, it is necessary to create an express power for the FPC to make recommendations to the court regarding the Bank’s strategy. As I have said before, this is because the FPC is a creation of statute, which means that the FPC’s main functions need to be set out in the legislation. That is why new Section 9A gives the FPC a power to make recommendations to the court on the financial stability strategy. If the provision did not exist, it would be unclear whether the FPC had the power to do so. In contrast, it is not necessary to create specific statutory provision to allow the Treasury to make recommendations. The Treasury already has a common-law power to make recommendations at any time to whoever it wishes.
Of course, the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, does not challenge that underlying basis, but he makes a huge drama out of European authorities and overseas bodies needing to understand whether the Treasury has authority to do this, that or the other. I find it very unlikely that European bodies would need to do that, but if they did, their lawyers would understand very clearly the common-law construction, which would be explained to them. If we went down the line of not relying on the common law in legislation, I hate to think how a Bill like this would grow like Topsy.
I am genuinely puzzled by all this, but I hope that the explanation of the common-law position is clear and that it can be explained in these unlikely situations that the noble Lord postulates. Of course, these European authorities will have the benefit of reading Hansard as well. It is an important point that the interaction is much better than in some respects it has been in the past. We expect that to be the case. I would like to think that perhaps we have finally put this point to rest and I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, it would be easier to withdraw the amendment if the noble Lord had actually answered the points. Essentially, all he has done is reiterate the common-law point and make the rather bold assumption that European-trained lawyers on the European Systemic Risk Board would understand the common law. However, if he is confident that that is the case and that a suitable number of British-trained lawyers, or the equivalent, can be seconded to that body, then perhaps things will work out in a satisfactory manner. I am glad to hear that he is confident that the interrelationship between the Bank, the Financial Policy Committee and the Treasury is ongoing and regular today as it was not in the past. That is a considerable improvement and I am pleased to have that assurance. However, there is an important element in financial legislation which the noble Lord overlooks. Financial legislation in a global financial market has to be really clear to all those around that market who read it. Simply saying, “We know because we are trained in the common law,” is really not good enough. I was trying not to change the relationship but to make it clearer. However, given that the Government are apparently not interested in doing that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Myners
My Lords, I will pick up on a term in the final sentence of the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. He referred to relying on the judgment of the non-executives. Many issues around the court will depend on the quality of the people appointed, and how they conduct themselves. A slightly less than perfect structure, superbly implemented, is likely to give a better outcome than a perfect structure that is poorly implemented. The Minister on a number of occasions referred to best corporate practice. Can he envisage any situation in which a corporate board performing effectively would not carry out an annual review of strategy? Every board of which I have been a member has had an annual strategy session to look again at past strategy and in many cases endorse or modify it in the light of circumstances. Regardless of what we say here, court directors seized by their legal responsibilities would almost certainly want to carry out an annual review. Does the Minister agree with that observation?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I certainly agree with the construction of my noble friends Lord Phillips of Sudbury and Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts. I think that essentially they are agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Myners, that boards will take sensible views on these matters, and that we do not need to require the court to review the Bank’s stability strategy on an annual basis because a perfectly sensible arrangement will emerge that will to some extent involve a strategy that is set for a longer period than a year. Clearly, to some extent, a strategy needs to look out further—as the noble Lord, Lord Myners, agreed. Equally, of course a board will look to see how a strategy is going on a more frequent basis.
I have not changed my view since Committee on the lack of need for the provision proposed in the amendment. The interventions in this discussion reinforced my view. The legislation does not set out how regularly the Bank’s strategy should be reviewed. In practice the court has revised the financial stability strategy on an annual basis. That is understandable, given the sheer volume of legislative and other changes that there have been in the system of financial regulation in the past three years. On the other hand, as the noble Lord, Lord Myners, agreed, a strategy needs also to be a longer-term, forward-looking document. We do not need to hardwire in an annual review and suggest in any way that we require a short-term, business-plan view to be taken rather than a genuine strategy. That is why new Section 9A will require the court in future to revise the strategy at least every three years—so that it is a longer-term document—but there will also be flexibility for the court to revise the strategy earlier. I continue to believe that a three-year timeframe is the correct requirement for the Bill. It leaves plenty of flexibility.
I will add that I am conscious that in talking about this matter I use “court” and “Bank” to mean different things. I did not want to prolong the earlier debate, but I did not say then that court equals Bank. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, did not believe that to be the case, or that I suggested it. What I suggested in the earlier context was that there were certain critical issues on which the court would take a decision. The matter that we talked about—the public interest test in connection with publishing reports—was one. Here is a clear example of a case where we are talking about the court setting a strategy for the Bank. There will be many more examples as we go through the Bill of cases where “court” and “Bank” mean different things. We need to look at each instance as it comes up. With that slight digression, I hope that the noble Lord has been comforted by this further discussion of the strategy timeframe issue.
Lord Eatwell
I am sorry that I did not make myself clear. I was referring to a review taking place other than at three years and the effect that that might have on the confidence of the markets. They might feel that the Bank is not sticking to its usual three-year timetable but is bringing things forward because something is going badly wrong that it knows about and perhaps the markets are not fully informed about. An annual review is embedded in so many companies. The annual away-day where everybody goes off and does the annual review is such a standard procedure that I think the three-year business is a mistake.
I want to return to the noble Lord’s revisionist comments on the position that he took on the earlier amendment when we were referring to the business of the oversight committee and the public interest notion of publication. I asked the noble Lord whether in this section Bank meant court. I think that I made clear that if it did mean court, the best option would be for it to say so. Therefore, the best option would be for him to come back at Third Reading and say, “Look, the word Bank occurs all the way through the Bill. It is used in different contexts in different places and let us be absolutely clear who is responsible. We will amend this clause at Third Reading to say ‘court’ because that is what I mean. It is not what I say; it is what I mean”. Let us now say that the noble Lord means court.
I was quite deliberately saying that if the noble Lord really wants the word Bank to mean court throughout the Bill I would read through it. I was confident that I would have no difficulty finding a number of cases where he did not want it to mean court. That is why he has now stood up, having received the advice of his officials, to correct what he said earlier.
Lord Eatwell
I am just finishing.
With respect to new Section 3D, it is important that we are clear that Bank means court there. We will take on advisement what the word Bank means elsewhere in the Bill.
Lord Sassoon
I merely wanted to say that I was not standing up to correct anything I said before: I stand exactly by everything that I said before. I wanted to head off the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, from wasting a lot of time by going through and analysing the precise meaning and the underlined way in which the powers of the Bank would be exercised situation by situation in the Bill. It is up to the court as the governing body of the Bank as to what it takes unto itself and what it delegates to the executive of the Bank. I was merely trying to make a helpful suggestion that perhaps the noble Lord would find himself doing quite a lot of wasted work if we went too literally down this path.
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, I am sorry to prolong this, but now we are told that the court can delegate to the executive of the Bank. Is that the case in new Section 3D, which we discussed before? I am sorry to prolong this but I thought that the noble Lord made absolutely clear that in that section, Bank meant court—not a delegation to the executive or the governor or anyone else. He actually said himself, if I recollect accurately, that the court contains the nine members of the oversight committee, they would be sitting there and therefore they would not contradict themselves. There was no notion of delegation. They had a role. It is very important that legislation, particularly in financial policy, is clear. Can we please be clear on this particular element?
Lord Sassoon
I do think that the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, is trying to get into semantic games. There is an important point. I was completely clear before and I think it is understood. It would be complete nonsense if a recommendation on such an important matter of the oversight committee, which is a committee of the court of the Bank, was taken by anything other than the court itself. That is plain and completely clear. That is what I said before and that is what I stand by. It would be absurd to suggest that the court would delegate such a matter. That is what I said and that is clear. But there are plenty of other matters throughout the Bill on what the Bank does where, equally, it would be ridiculous to suggest that the court did something itself and did not delegate.
Lord Eatwell
Well I rest on the proposition that I made earlier. If that is what the noble Lord means, why does he not say so instead of leaving this ambiguity on the face of the Bill?
However, returning to the issue of three years, I think that it is unfortunate for the reasons that I have spelt out. Annual reviews are completely usual and normal in the corporate and financial worlds. Everyone knows what they are. Three years leaves too much of a gap for unfortunate and disturbing events to occur that could then be exacerbated by the Bank’s seeming need to change tack at that time.
I hope people go away and think a little about this. I know that I almost certainly hope in vain, but hope springs eternal. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, I have added my name, as has my noble friend Lady Hayter, to Amendment 5, which is the second-best amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. However, even in this second-best version, achieving what the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, referred to as “a bit more challenge” is an excellent and desirable objective.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, this is an interesting and important area. The balance of the FPC’s members between the Bank and non-Bank executives is an issue that has been raised a number of times in this House, in another place and in the committees that have scrutinised the Bill. My noble friends who have spoken to this issue have done so with characteristic clarity and eloquence.
There is clearly an important argument about the possibility of rebalancing the membership of the committee away from the Bank executives and towards the external members. The external members will need to provide an outside perspective and challenge function to the deliberations of the FPC and, crucially, Amendment 4 achieves the important objective of enhancing the role of the non-Bank members while avoiding creating a situation where the Bank would be in a minority on the committee, which would make it virtually impossible to hold the Bank accountable for the FPC’s actions.
I see a great deal of sense in the alternative ways of doing this, but in the Amendment 4 approach rather than the Amendment 5 approach—the second best approach, as we now know it. I could not talk in the language of cognitive limits and other good stuff but, in a practical sense, I understand why having only nine voting members, which is comparable with the MPC, is better than having 11 members with a Treasury observer. Making the FPC larger by creating additional members would risk making the group unwieldy, and I now understand—which I did not before—that the Tavistock Institute provides a theoretical underpinning to what I see as a practical argument.
On balance, the proposal put forward by my noble friends to rebalance the committee by removing a Bank member is not only preferable to the one of adding an external member but has some attractions. The tone of my noble friend Lord Deben’s remarks was to assume that of course I would dismiss all this out of hand. However, this is a serious point and the committee has come back to it. We have been here before in a number of respects and it is important.
Amendment 6 would ensure that it is the executive director with responsibility for the analysis of markets who would be removed from the FPC. Although the person in this position may have an important role in providing information relating to financial markets to the committee, it is true that this role could be achieved without that person being a voting member. The executive director who would remain as a voting member on the FPC would be the director with responsibility within the Bank for financial stability, and I agree that that executive director would seem to be the appropriate person.
The remaining amendments are consequential in nature and simply remove a later reference to the executive director with responsibility for the analysis of markets and reduce the quorum of the FPC from seven to six, reflecting its reduced size.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I recall that when the previous Government set up the Monetary Policy Committee, they formulated its secondary policy objective in precisely this form, “Subject to that”. Can the Benches opposite explain when they had a damascene conversion on this topic?
Lord Eatwell
I am sorry, I will say something. The Monetary Policy Committee has had a damascene conversion. You can see it in the quantitative easing policy. Indeed, the Treasury continuously encourages the Bank to take a more aggressive monetary policy with respect to growth and employment and to ignore the high rate of inflation.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, first, this is well trodden ground for the House so I will be brief. In any case, my noble friends have all made extremely telling points, which knock this one pretty comprehensively on the head. The FPC’s primary focus must be financial stability. That is its primary purpose, in the same way that the MPC’s primary focus must be price stability. Both financial and monetary stability are necessary prerequisites for stable and sustainable growth, so both committees already contribute to growth by achieving their primary purposes. Subject to doing so, they should act to support the Government’s economic objectives. The result of giving the FPC dual, equally weighted objectives for financial stability and economic growth would be to allow the FPC to take action that would damage financial stability with the aim of encouraging growth. This would take the FPC outside its remit and expertise, and frustrate its primary purpose—which has got to be financial stability.
I do not believe that the model proposed in this amendment is appropriate or workable and I ask the noble Lord to withdraw it.
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, this has been an intriguing discussion, since it appears to ignore the economic history of the last two years. I was struck by the comment from the noble Lord, Lord Deben, that nobody would possibly accept the notion that financial stability was important when growth was absent. He should come more often and listen to the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, justifying the current policies of the Government. The Minister continuously says it is vital that the policy which has produced zero growth over a year, and leaves us with a level of output about 3.5% lower than the peak in 2008, is entirely justified by the need to secure financial stability. He refers to low interest rates and financial stability all the time. If the noble Lord would like to hear someone justify that position, he can just turn up and listen to the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, justifying the Government’s policy. He will get that straightaway.
Lord Deben
The noble Lord really must not interpret what I said in a way that is convenient for his argument and then blame the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, for speeches that I have certainly heard and with which I agree. All I am saying is that the noble Lord’s idea that somehow or other, unless this is in here, nobody will take any notice of growth at all and that everyone will want a kind of sterile system is just not true. Nor is it sensible.
Lord Sassoon
I really do not want to prolong this too long, but the idea that somehow financial stability is the same as a sustainable fiscal position is really stretching the concepts a bit far. However, there we are.
Lord Eatwell
I was merely describing the way that the noble Lord continuously justifies the current squeeze that the Government wish to exert on the economy. The other really intriguing point is that it is the Government’s amendment that has introduced the growth and employment objective here, but he now tells us that it is outwith the committee’s expertise. So he has now introduced an amendment that is outwith the expertise of the committee that he has asked to consider it, even if as a secondary objective. I have been very struck by the debate, which has also failed to recognise, as I suggested earlier, the dramatic change in policy by the Monetary Policy Committee, urged on by the Government. This amendment simply attempted to believe, perhaps naively, that the Government might recognise what is happening in the policy-making of their institutions at the moment might give the FPC some credit for being able to make a mature and balanced judgment, given its overall responsibility for financial stability. However, I was no doubt overly naive there. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, again, this was an issue on which there was a comprehensive debate in Committee. As set out in subsections (1) and (2) of proposed new Section 9C of the Bank of England Act, the FPC is tasked with contributing to the Bank’s financial stability objective by identifying and monitoring systemic risks and taking action to reduce or remove those risks.
Subsection (5) defines “systemic risk” to mean,
“a risk to the stability of the UK financial system as a whole or of a significant part of that system”.
That means that any risk to UK financial stability is captured within the FPC’s remit. At the prompting of the Joint Committee that scrutinised the Bill in draft, we added subsection (6) to underline the fact that,
“it is immaterial whether the risk arises in the United Kingdom or elsewhere”.
Let me be clear: the FPC must identify and address any risk that could compromise the stability of the UK financial system regardless of its origin.
The purpose of subsection (3) is to specify certain types of systemic risk which the FPC should look for. This does not limit or restrict the FPC’s remit in any way. In other words, just because a systemic risk is not listed in subsection (3) does not mean that the FPC has any less of an obligation to identify, monitor and address it. There could perhaps be a temptation to continue adding to subsection (3) in an attempt to try to define all possible sources of systemic risk. But this would be a fruitless, and potentially counterproductive, endeavour.
Amendment 6E seeks to add,
“factors likely to lead to a loss of confidence in the financial system as a whole”,
to the list. I agree that a loss of confidence can magnify cross-sectional or structural risks captured in the financial system. But I do not believe it would be appropriate to expand subsection (3) in this way. As I have said, the list is not intended to be exhaustive, rather it is designed to highlight the broad categories of systemic risk that have been identified by academic research, something which the noble Lord is rightly keen that we should factor in. Subsection (3) as it stands already serves this purpose by describing the main categories of cross-sectional and cyclical risk. I hope that, on the basis of this explanation, the noble Lord will withdraw what I continue to see as an unnecessary amendment.
Lord Eatwell
Before the noble Lord sits down, I heard but one argument against the case that I was making, which was that it was not appropriate. Will he explain why it is not appropriate?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I thought that was what I had done in the last three minutes. I explained that this is not an exhaustive list. Yes, the factor that the noble Lord identifies is an important consideration, but we have included the much more specific categories of systemic risk which are identified in the research. If we started putting looser considerations in there, it would be difficult to know where the list should stop. Indeed, as one extends lists like this, it risks by implication leaving out other important factors. I do believe that subsection (3) and the whole of proposed new Section 9C as drafted completely embrace the ability and the requirement for the FPC to pick up what the noble Lord is getting at, but does not run the risk of us trying to draft in some of the other things that we all might be able to think of.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
Before my noble friend sits down, will he comment on the essential point made by the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, about the risks defined in subsection (3) covering only “micro” rather than “macro” risks? It does seem that the language is actually “macro”. It talks about systemic risks, structural features and so on. Does the Minister agree?
Lord Eatwell
Well, yes, my Lords, the logic of the noble Lord’s argument is either to accept my amendment or delete proposed new subsection (3) altogether, because one has to ask: what does it do? It says:
“Those systemic risks include, in particular”.
In particular, this is what the committee should be looking at. That is misleading in that it focuses on structural issues of the economy, which are microeconomic —on leverage and on debt, which are microeconomic, and on credit growth, which is moving into the more macroeconomic area. What it fails to do is to take in the general point of the loss of confidence which can come from other sources.
As I pointed out when I introduced this amendment, I deliberately constructed it so as not to get into the trap of attempting to produce a detailed list. It certainly does not do that. It simply alerts the committee. If the committee is to be alerted to deal with a number of factors in particular, it seems that it should also be looking in particular at those factors which might lead to a general loss of confidence in the economy as a whole.
So if the Government really wish to ask the committee to focus in particular on some things, I would like my amendment to be accepted. If, on the other hand, it is quite happy to rely on subsections (5) and (6), I suggest that subsection (3) be deleted, so as not to create this spurious concentration on a particular list of points.
However, given that the argument has made little progress, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, of course, this is another issue that was discussed at some length in Committee. The Government recognise the importance of proper public and parliamentary scrutiny and accountability for macroprudential tools. That is why the Bill requires that macroprudential orders be subject to the affirmative procedure.
The Government have given a number of undertakings to further demonstrate our commitment to ensure transparency and effective scrutiny of macroprudential orders. In another place the previous Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Mark Hoban, clearly stated the importance that the Treasury places on taking a consultative approach to policy-making, and that he expected this to apply to macroprudential tools. In addition, my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said that he would be happy for debates on tools to take place on the Floor of the House, subject to arrangement through the usual channels.
The Government have also committed to consult on their proposals for the FPC’s initial toolkit. I note that my noble friend has no complaint on that score. Nevertheless it is important to recognise that the consultation document containing the Government’s proposals, a draft order and an impact assessment on those proposals was published on 18 September. The consultation will run for a full 12 weeks. In Committee a number of noble Lords highlighted the 90-minute restriction on debates and the inability for orders to be amended. However, I believe that consultation and the statement made by the Chancellor address these concerns effectively. I encourage noble Lords to read the consultation and respond if they feel able to improve the drafting of the order. I also hope that the relevant parliamentary committees will make their views on the Government’s proposals known.
Importantly, the Government’s stance on the parliamentary control of these macroprudential orders has been endorsed by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. Maybe I did not notice it, but I do not think that my noble friend referred to the DPRRC. I know that she regards the committee, in her words, as an early warning system of problems for Parliament to address. In this instance, it has considered our proposed procedure and determined that there is not a problem to address.
As I suspect my noble friend knows, the DPRRC has stated:
“The importance of the power is recognised by the application of the draft affirmative procedure or, in urgent cases, the 28-day ‘made affirmative’ procedure … The Joint Committee on the Draft Bill and the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee have recommended an enhanced affirmative procedure for the non-urgent orders, based on that in the Public Bodies Act 2011. But the affirmative procedure provided for in the Bill should be a sufficient safeguard against inappropriate use of these powers”.
It is also important to remember that orders made under new Section 9K will not always be major pieces of legislation. It could be the case that minor technical amendments need to be made to the tools over time. Under such circumstances, requiring the super-affirmative procedure would be a disproportionate use of parliamentary resources. I note that my noble friend has made some adjustments to the super-affirmative procedure that would make it less onerous, and she has addressed those at some length in her remarks. I still feel that her proposal would require a disproportionate amount of parliamentary time and resource.
The bare minimum amount of time to pass an order under these proposals is 40 days, which can be increased to 60 days by resolution of either House or by recommendation of a committee of either House. The time taken to make an order where the consultation process shows that substantial changes are required is even greater. Even once the 60-day period has elapsed, this amendment would require the Treasury to obtain prior approval to the amended instrument before it could be made. This would introduce a significant amount of uncertainty around the time it would take to amend the FPC’s macroprudential toolkit.
I have stated many times that the Government place great importance on public and parliamentary scrutiny of the macroprudential tools. Given the steps already in the Bill and the commitments made by this Government, I ask my noble friend to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I am disappointed with my noble friend’s response on this. He has repeated that in the other place there can be a debate on the Floor of the House, but the location of a debate on a statutory instrument is completely irrelevant. The outcome is exactly the same. He has rested on the full process for the early order but, as I said, those ones, with a high degree of international agreement on what the early phase of macroprudential tools should be, were easy to do. That is not really an issue. My noble friend rightly raises the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, for which I have the highest respect. I have equally the highest respect for the Joint Committee which scrutinised the draft Bill, and high regard in particular for the Treasury Select Committee in another place, which has been tireless in its scrutiny of this legislation. I have two committees to play one.
The best parliamentary procedure would in this instance be the super-affirmative. I can only say that I am extremely disappointed with my Government for hiding behind the easiest option of parliamentary procedure, but I will accede to my noble friend’s request and beg leave to withdraw.
Financial Services Bill
Lord Sassoon Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Lord Eatwell
My Lords, noble Lords will notice that this group includes Amendments 6M and 6Q. I apologise to the House for not moving those amendments at the appropriate time, but as noble Lords may recall, there was considerable confusion between the Deputy Chairman and the clerks and everyone here. The noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, was not confused. He never is. But in the confusion I inadvertently failed to move these amendments. I also apologise that at that time I failed to support the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, when she presented her arguments for Amendment 7, which I wholeheartedly support, as indicated by the fact that I added my name to hers. With the leave of the House, I will proceed with the remaining amendments in group 19, namely Amendments 7A, 7B and 7C.
The purpose of this group of amendments is to ensure that there is regular consultation between the Treasury and the FPC over the FPC’s directions and its recommendations. Leaving aside—since the time has passed—the question of directions, even though they are more important, Amendments 7A, 7B and 7C serve to emphasise the interest that we all have in requiring that regular consultation takes place. The idea is simply that in making a recommendation the FPC would have a discussion with the Treasury about that to ensure that both sides are, if you like, singing from the same hymn sheet.
This is part of the endeavour that we have on this side of the House to ensure that the whole development of the financial stability analysis, the financial stability strategy and the financial stability actions is co-ordinated effectively between the FPC and the Bank as a whole—whether Bank means court or Bank or whatever—and the Treasury. I beg to move.
The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon)
My Lords, this group of amendments seeks to require the FPC to consult with the Treasury before issuing a recommendation, directing the PRA or FCA to take action or revoking an existing direction. I am certain that not only are these amendments unnecessary, they would damage the independence of the FPC.
As I am sure noble Lords are aware, the Bill provides for a non-voting representative of the Treasury to be a member of the FPC. This Treasury representative will be able to ensure that the views of the Treasury are available to the committee if required. This renders these amendments unnecessary.
Let me explain why, more seriously, I feel that the amendments could be harmful to the work of the FPC. The Government have drafted the Bill so that the FPC will be housed within the independent Bank of England. It is paramount that macroprudential policy decisions are insulated from political considerations. The purpose of the FPC is to “take the punchbowl away” when the party is getting too raucous, something that politicians of any affiliation may be reluctant to do.
By insulating the decisions of the FPC from political considerations, it will be much easier for the committee to be a credible and effective policy-making body. The amendments would risk that credibility by requiring the FPC to consult the Treasury before it makes any policy decision. For that combination of reasons, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, what the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, has said is entirely sensible. I cannot see the distinction between those directions which have been made and continue in force and those which have been made and revoked. This is about public communication, the directions being made and their effect. The information that we gain from a revocation must be at least as good as from the making of a direction.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, the amendment reflects a slight misunderstanding of the purpose of the reviews that we are talking about in new Section 9T of the Bank of England Act, as inserted by Clause 4. The purpose of these reviews centres around live actions and requiring the FPC regularly to look again at all live actions—in other words, at the directions and recommendations that still have effect—and to review whether or not the action is still needed. That is a rather different matter from the admittedly important question of reviewing past actions and learning lessons, which is not the subject of the clause.
The idea behind the new section is to ensure that FPC actions do not remain in place if the circumstances which originally merited them have disappeared or changed substantially. Of course, we would expect the FPC as a matter of course to keep its past actions under review and revoke them once they are no longer needed, but new Section 9T ensures that this will be the case by creating a formal requirement for the FPC to review regularly all of its live directions and recommendations.
Amendment 7D seeks to remove the wording in subsection (1)(a) which provides that the FPC need not review directions that have already been revoked. The provision is appropriate because once a direction has been revoked there is no need for the FPC to review it to determine whether it is still needed; the direction is already defunct. It is as simple as that.
The concern of the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, lies clearly in the importance of the FPC evaluating the impact of its actions. I can reassure him that mechanisms already exist elsewhere in the clause to address this issue. First, new Section 9S requires the FPC to set out for each of its actions an explanation of its reasons for believing that the action is compatible with its objectives and associated “have regards”, including where practicable an estimate of the costs and benefits of the action. Secondly, subsection (4)(b) of new Section 9W requires the FPC to include in each financial stability report an assessment of how its actions have succeeded in achieving its objectives. Finally, the new oversight committee of the court has an explicit remit to oversee the FPC’s performance and can undertake or commission a more comprehensive review of the FPC’s past actions or approach where appropriate.
I am confident that the FPC’s actions are already subject to extensive mechanisms of oversight and evaluation and, as I said at the outset, that the amendment reflects, perhaps, a slight misunderstanding of what the purpose of the specific provisions in new Section 9T is all about. I hope that on the basis of that explanation the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, my immediate reaction is that if that is what the new section meant, why did it not say so? We persistently have a point where there is a lack of clarity in the Bill and, time and again, the noble Lord says, “That is what we said but it is not what we really meant”. It is truly unsatisfactory.
On the areas which he says cover the issues that I raised, proposed new Section 9S specifically refers, I think—although of course it may not mean this—to a prior explanation of specified purposes. It provides for an explanation of why the FPC is doing something, which seems to be a prior requirement, not an assessment of effect.
The Minister is on stronger ground on new Section 9W(4)(b), which refers to whether the functions of the FPC have succeeded, but it refers generally to its functions rather than to the specific issue in new Section 9T, which refers to the very sensitive and important area of directions.
There is another important point. It is quite possible that a direction would be introduced to deal with a particular set of circumstances and revoked because those circumstances have been mitigated, but then reintroduced some time later because the problem reappears. In those circumstances, all this stuff about live actions is irrelevant. We need to learn from both those actions that are contemporaneous and those that may be introduced from time to time to deal with specific circumstances. I really feel that this is a very unsatisfactory approach to the general issue of review.
I will keep talking so that the Minister can get his note and say why I have got it wrong; he has it now. The issue of keeping matters under review should include those matters that only last for a period within the relevant 12 months, as well as those that go forward. Shall I sit down? No, the Minister did not get a good reply in that note. This is an issue that I want people to think about: either the clause is badly drafted and not clear, or the amendment should be considered appropriate. However, for the moment I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Eatwell
I assure the House that this is going to stop soon. First, I draw attention to a drafting error in the amendment as tabled. It refers to the “Chairman of the PRA”, who is of course the Governor of the Bank of England, rather than the chief executive. The objective of the amendment is to widen the group who meet to assess the importance of the Financial Stability Report, a very important document that has been one of the most interesting and creative documents published by the Bank for some years, not least because of the major intellectual influence of the executive responsible for financial stability. Since the FCA and the PRA are the vehicles through which the FPC—I apologise, everything is just three letters—exercises its influence, it is important that informed discussion and assessment between the Treasury and the Bank should include the chief executives of those two bodies and not simply be between the governor and the Chancellor.
The amendments have the added advantage that, should we have a governor who wishes to delegate responsibilities in order to reduce the excessive load placed on his or her shoulders by this Bill, this would in no way reduce the value of the Bank-Treasury meeting and the quality of the assessment of the Financial Stability Report. It seems enormously valuable to have these two individuals—the chief executives of the FCA and PRA—there, because they are the people who implement the proposals of the Financial Policy Committee and will help in the general assessment of the Financial Stability Report. I beg to move.
Lord Sassoon
So it is chief executive. I am not sure whether I heard chairman or chief executive but it should have said, “Chief Executive of the PRA”.
In responding to Amendment 7E it may help if I explain the purpose of the meetings set out in new Section 9X of the 1998 Act. The success of the new regulatory structure will rely heavily on the relationship between the Treasury and the Bank of England. As has already been noted this evening, one of the major problems leading up to the financial crisis was that the tripartite committee established under the previous Government’s regime did not meet at the principals’ level for a decade. The Chancellor and the governor simply did not meet often enough to discuss financial stability. When the crisis hit—I am sorry the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, thinks this is an amusing matter. Unfortunately, this was one of the most serious issues when it came to handling the crisis.
Lord Eatwell
I agree with the Minister. It is a terribly serious matter. When he adds the phrase “for a decade”, it is such desperately bad news that some degree of amusement is the only relief to the depression that one feels at the failure of this mechanism.
Lord Sassoon
Believe you me, I was on the standing committee of deputies for three years and I saw it at first hand. There we are—we understand the difficulty. At a personal level and in terms of institutional arrangements and practices, the absence of meetings clearly has a very significant impact when it comes to handling a crisis. However, everything is now different and as it should be. The Chancellor and the governor now meet often. Indeed, under the previous Government, once the crisis hit, of course that was also the case. But it was not always the case, as I have said, and as we understand. Without the requirement in new Section 9X, there would be no guarantee that the regular meetings would happen in the future, once the individuals concerned change and memories of the current crisis have faded.
New Section 9X therefore places a legal requirement on the Chancellor and the governor, in his capacity as chair of both the FPC and the PRA, to meet formally at least twice a year, shortly after the publication of the FPC’s twice-yearly Financial Stability Report. I agree that it is a truly creative, in the best sense of the word—which I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, meant—and important document.
Of course, both the Chancellor and the governor may invite others to attend the meeting. For example, the Treasury’s Permanent Secretary or another senior official may attend. The Chancellor’s private secretary may also be in the room. On the Bank’s side, the governor may well choose to invite another deputy governor or the executive director responsible for financial stability to attend the meeting with him. However, I believe the approach taken in the Bill—for the legal requirement to meet to be on the Chancellor and governor only, leaving it up to each attendee to decide if others should be present—is the correct one. The governor will be best placed to decide, based on the content particularly of the Financial Stability Report and the wider financial stability context, which, if any, of his senior executives should attend the meeting.
If the chief executive of the PRA were required by statute to attend every meeting, surely there would be an argument for all the other senior Bank officials who had some responsibility for financial stability to also be added to the list. Equally, if the CEO of the FCA were required by legislation to attend every meeting, would there not be an equal argument for the external members of the FPC also to be required in the room? This could go off in all sorts of directions. A small, personal meeting between the Chancellor and governor could easily turn into a large committee if we were to take that approach.
This is an important opportunity to restate our common objective: to make sure that the principals meet. It should not be necessary to have such a meeting in legislation, but regrettably history has shown that it is. That is the purpose of the requirement, as a backstop for those meetings to happen, but it continues to be the Government’s view that the attendance of others should be left to the discretion of the principals. On the basis of that explanation I again ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Eatwell
Before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps we could probe the discretion of the principals a little. Supposing the governor wants to turn up alone and the Chancellor wishes the chief executive of the PRA to attend, would that be possible?
Lord Sassoon
That is not then a question of legislation but a question of common sense and how the parties get on with each other, and I am sure that common sense would prevail. For that sort of circumstance, no amount of legislation is going to get around people behaving sensibly. If we put a particular attendee or two into these meetings the same question arises about others who one side or the other might believe would be sensible to have at a particular meeting given the topics that might be under discussion. We have to rely on the good sense of the principals here.
Lord Eatwell
Yes, well, we hoped that we could rely on the good sense of the principals to run the Financial Stability Committee, but they did not meet for a decade so they were not very sensible, were they?
If I may respond to the noble Lord, I feel that his vision of the committee extending to indefinite size is really excessive. We are identifying the chairman of the Financial Policy Committee, namely the governor, and the two operational figures—the chief executive of the FCA and the chief executive of the PRA—to be in this meeting to assess the financial stability position in the light of the financial stability report. I think that would be valuable. I quite understand that others can be invited in but, as we have seen in the past, these matters are not necessarily as well handled as, in retrospect, we would like. I hope that this matter might be reconsidered in due course, but for the moment I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, we do not need to hardwire this into legislation. If the FPC thinks that it needs some form of advice from other parties in relation to most of the matters mentioned in subsection (3) of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, it can arrange it. Similarly, if the oversight committee thinks that it needs any assistance from outside parties in relation to matters mentioned in paragraph (e) of subsection (3) of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, it can arrange it. I do not see why these matters need to be enshrined in law. If there are gaps within the resources available to the Bank, it can supplement them, or it may have them sufficiently internally. The statute does not need to deal with these matters.
Lord Sassoon
I completely agree with my noble friend Lady Noakes. This amendment was debated in Committee, as the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell says. The gremlins seem to have been getting into one or two of these amendments. He has already pointed out that this has been retabled in the previous form that it was in and should refer to the oversight committee and not the supervisory panel.
Putting that aside, the nub of this is that I am puzzled and disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, does not agree that the oversight committee that we have already created will have responsibility for carrying out the function of performance evaluation referred to in this amendment, and that the oversight committee will have a wider-reaching role looking over the entirety of the Bank’s financial stability remit. That is surely better than an advisory panel with rather limited and specific terms of reference.
I am also disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, feels that an independent oversight committee led by non-executives would be either inadequate or insufficient to hold the Bank to account. I cannot see how it is better to create a committee chaired by an executive of the Bank who would simultaneously be a member of the FPC, responsible for providing advice to the FPC and expected to assess its performance.
Of course, the Bill already creates in the FPC a committee on which the deputy governor for financial stability sits, together with external members, some of whom may indeed be academics. As we have discussed before, there is plenty of provision for either the FPC or the oversight committee to take on any additional expert, academic or other advice that it requires at any point. The FPC will have a statutory responsibility to assess risks to financial stability and to take action to mitigate them. If it wants to take advice it is entirely able to do so, but it should have the autonomy to do so on its own terms if it is to be properly responsible for financial stability.
In conclusion, the effect of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, would be to create duplication of responsibilities, to blur accountabilities and to diminish focus. As such, there is no way that I could accept such an amendment and I hope that, on reflection, he will withdraw it.
Lord Eatwell
Before the noble Lord sits down, if the FPC wished to seek external advice, would it be suitably resourced to do so?
Lord Eatwell
In that case, I am far more content than I thought I would be, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Sassoon
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, this is a group of minor and technical amendments. They update the Bill in the light of changes to EU law that have been made since the Bill was introduced to Parliament to reflect the effect of existing law by providing expressly that requirements imposed on firms may have indefinite duration, and to clarify the drafting of some sections of FiSMA. I am happy to discuss in more detail any particular amendment, but I beg to move.
Lord Sassoon
“(a) for “director” substitute “non-executive director”, and(b) ”
Lord Sassoon
“(1) Section 244 of the Banking Act 2009 (immunity) is amended as follows.”
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, like the FSA, the PRA and FCA have statutory immunity from liability in damages for anything done in pursuit of their statutory functions. The Bank has a similar immunity in its capacity as the monetary authority which includes its regulatory functions. This is necessary because it would be very difficult for the regulators to take effective regulatory action if they thought that at any moment they could be bogged down in litigation resulting in multimillion pound awards of damages.
These amendments modify the immunity to ensure that where one regulator or a member of its staff carries out an investigation or produces a formal report for another regulator, that person is also covered by the immunity. This is being done to ensure that, where necessary and appropriate, the PRA can outsource the operational element of its enforcement activities to the FCA—in particular, the work of carrying out investigations into firms.
Prudential regulation involves far less enforcement work than conduct regulation, as it primarily involves the setting and monitoring of prudential standards, rather than, for example, detailed investigations into possible money laundering. It is therefore likely to be a far more efficient approach for the PRA to outsource these functions to the FCA, rather than maintain its own standing expertise. This approach is also likely to ensure that these investigations are well co-ordinated.
Enforcement is a highly litigious area in which the subject of an investigation is likely to cast around for any possible chink in the armour of the regulators’ statutory immunity. There is a risk that vexatious litigation could slow down or undermine the progress of an investigation. These amendments are therefore intended to ensure that when investigations are contracted out to another regulator, they can be undertaken without risk of litigation.
Government Amendments 22 and 23 provide that the Bank of England has statutory immunity if it is appointed to carry out an investigation or to produce a report on behalf of the PRA or the FCA under Sections 97, 166 to 169 and 284 of FiSMA. Government Amendment 63 provides that if the FCA or a member of the FCA’s staff is appointed to carry out an investigation or produce a report, their actions and omissions are treated as actions and omissions of the FCA for the purposes of the immunity. Amendment 69 makes the same provision for the PRA.
I trust that the House will agree that these are sensible provisions which will allow the regulators to take an efficient approach. I beg to move.
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, I agree that these are indeed sensible measures. I have just one question. These days many actions and investigations by regulators are taken on behalf of what are truly other regulators—that is, regulators in other jurisdictions—and that exchange of information and co-operation is a hugely important activity. When the British regulators are taking very sensitive information in an area where there is a great deal of legal activity—for example, the relationship between the FSA and the regulator in Austria is a particular case—would they have immunity in that case as well?
Lord Sassoon
If the situation that the noble Lord is suggesting is one in which the FSA or a successor body was taking an action at the request of the Austrian authorities, I can confirm that in that case the immunity provisions would apply to the actions of the UK regulators.
Lord Sassoon
“( ) After subsection (2) insert—
“(2A) The Bank’s functions under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 are to be taken to include any functions that it may exercise as a result of an appointment under any of sections 97, 166 to 169 and 284 of that Act.””
Financial Services Bill
Lord Sassoon Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Lord Sassoon
That the amendments for the Report stage be marshalled and considered in the following order:
Clauses 1 to 4, Schedule 1, Clause 5, Schedule 2, Clause 6, Schedule 3, Clauses 7 to 11, Schedule 4, Clauses 12 to 14, Schedule 5, Clauses 15 to 21, Schedule 6, Clauses 22 to 28, Schedule 7, Clauses 29 to 34, Schedule 8, Clauses 35 and 36, Schedule 9, Clause 37, Schedule 10, Clause 38, Schedule 11, Clauses 39 and 40, Schedule 12, Clause 41, Schedule 13, Clauses 42 and 43, Schedule 14, Clause 44, Schedule 15, Clause 45, Schedule 16, Clauses 46 to 97, Schedule 17, Clauses 98 to 103, Schedules 18 and 19, Clauses 104 to 108, Schedules 20 and 21, Clauses 109 to 112.
Child Benefit
Lord Sassoon Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Lord McKenzie of Luton
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have plans further to restrict child benefit.
The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon)
My Lords, the Government are exploring further options for making the welfare system fairer and more affordable. Details will be announced in due course.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply, but I am not particularly comforted by it. We are, of course, among the shambles that is engulfing the introduction of the current change to child benefit policy for higher rate taxpayers—evidence, if we needed it, that policy should not be made on the hoof. Hundreds of thousands of people have been brought into the self-assessment process at a time when HMRC staff numbers are being savagely reduced. But my question for the Minister on the matter of evidence-based policy-making is to ask how he justifies the proposals aired by the right honourable Iain Duncan Smith, a fellow Minister, that child support for those unemployed should be restricted to just two children because, he asserts:
“Large numbers of families on welfare are having more children because they believe taxpayers will support them”.
Will the Minister give us the evidence for that assertion? Should such a policy ever be introduced, what impact does he think that there would be on child poverty in this country, which is already on the rise under this Government?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, first, I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, was not comforted in his terms by my answer. Does he disagree with the idea that the system should be fairer and more affordable? We know that the previous Government’s system was unaffordable, and we are putting that right. As to his question about some of the ideas that are being floated at the moment, it is simply not fair that it is possible for someone to be better off on benefits than they would be in work. How can we justify a system in which people in work have to make decisions about having a child or having another child based on what they can afford, whereas those out of work know that their benefits will just increase?
Lord German
My Lords, could the Minister help the House to understand the reasoning behind the statement by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Mr Iain Duncan Smith, that the number of children in a family would be capped at two, which seems a strange way of doing family structure in this country? Was Mr Duncan Smith pitching for the 2015 general election manifesto or was he pitching for a change in expenditure of this current coalition’s policy? If it was the latter, what response did he get?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, this idea, which is one of a number of ideas to meet the very big affordability and fairness challenge that we have, responds to concerns that, while working families have to consider affordability before having another child, those who are out of work do not, for the reason that I have already given—that their benefits will increase. My right honourable friends, the Chancellor and the Work and Pensions Secretary, are working together on ideas, of which this is but one.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Leaving aside issues of decency—and there are real questions behind that—how does the Minister reconcile two apparently conflicting government views? The first will come from his department; no doubt, with the arrival of the Pensions Bill in this place, he will say that we need more, younger workers to help to support an increasingly elderly population. But he will also say, no doubt, in support of his right honourable friend Iain Duncan Smith, that extra children are for the poor a luxury while for the rest of us they are a burden. How does he reconcile these two statements—that we need more young people to support pensioners but we cannot afford to have them as taxpayers?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, that is a complete misrepresentation of the position of my right honourable friend the Work and Pensions Secretary, so the question becomes completely redundant.
Baroness Afshar
My Lords, are the Government aware that for many minority families, particularly women working in the informal, “black”, sector, it is not easy to fill the forms required or meet the criteria established? Yet for those people family allowance is the only means to enable them to continue working.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, what we are talking about principally this afternoon is the restriction of child benefit. The restriction starts to come in only where one taxpayer in the family is earning more than £50,000. In those circumstances, clearly there will generally be a capability for dealing with the forms. I went on to the website this morning and while I could be highly critical of some of HMRC’s forms, I found that the guidance on the changes to child benefit was remarkably clear and easy.
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has indicated that under present government welfare cuts 80,000 children each year will be reduced to poverty. Have the Government ambitions to increase that number?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, the changes to child benefit affect only the 15% of highest earning families in this country. This Government believe that those with the broadest shoulders should share the pain of the massive deficit consolidation and reduction programme that we inherited from the previous Government. That is what we will continue to do.
EU: UK Net Contributions
Lord Sassoon Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Vinson
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how the rise in the UK’s net annual contributions to the EU budget to over £10 billion per annum (as set out in the Pink Book 2012) relates to public sector cuts in other areas.
The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon)
My Lords, the UK’s net contributions to the European Union have indeed increased over recent years. This is mainly the result of unacceptable increases in the annual EU budget and to changes to the calculation of the UK abatement, agreed by the previous Administration. This Government’s top priority is budgetary restraint, thereby ensuring that the EU budget contributes to domestic fiscal consolidation.
Lord Vinson
I thank the Minister for his considered reply. Does he appreciate that while we practise austerity here in the UK, our net contribution to the EU has doubled since 2006 to over £10 billion a year? The UK has to borrow every penny of it from others, thus increasing our national indebtedness. As our Government were outvoted in their attempt to reduce the 2013 budget, will the Minister strive to get a better deal in the forthcoming negotiations, not least by withholding our £5 billion a year contribution to the structural funds? If invested here in our infrastructure, it would help to create over 250,000 badly-needed jobs.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, as the House is aware, we are coming up to the negotiations of the multi-year financial perspective. That agreement requires unanimity of member states. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister has made it clear in a statement, jointly with other European colleagues, that the maximum acceptable expenditure increase through that period is a real freeze in payments. That continues to be the Government’s position. As for structural funds, we cannot just opt out of any particular area of EU expenditure, although I agree that in the area of structural and cohesion funds, it is absurd that so much money is recycled from wealthy member states back into other wealthy regions of Europe. That is one of the many issues that need to be addressed.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, to put this question into everyday perspective, do the Government accept that £10 billion per annum equates to the annual salaries of 91,320 nurses being thrown away down the Brussels drain—or policemen, soldiers, or any other public servants at £30,000 per annum? Does this Question not remind us that there is no such thing as EU aid to the United Kingdom? For every pound that Brussels sends us, we have sent them £2.20.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, the UK benefits from its membership of the EU. The UK should make a proper contribution to the net EU budget, but we have to see that the completely unacceptable proposals from the European Commission for the next multi-year period are reined back. The Commission’s proposals, as opposed to a real freeze, would mean an increased UK contribution of £10 billion, or £1.4 billion a year. That is indeed many nurses, policemen and other front-line public servants.
Lord Wigley
My Lords, the Minister said that the UK benefited from membership of the EU, and I think that many people will be glad to hear him say that. However, will he confirm that it is not just the rich regions of Europe that benefit from the structural funds? In fact, Wales, with the lowest GVA per head of any country or region in the UK, gets considerable benefit. If there were to be changes in this direction, can he give a guarantee that those sums will still come to Wales?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I certainly accept that money should be targeted at the regions where it is most needed. I merely say that recycling money into the wealthiest regions seems like wasteful activity.
Lord Dykes
Can my noble friend reassure the House that there will be a friendly compromise on this matter when the full negotiations take place?
Lord Sassoon
I would love to see that happen. Of course, I cannot give any assurances about how it will play out.
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, of course we agree that the European budget needs to be tightly controlled and, if possible, redirected towards jobs and growth. We are not too confident that this Government will produce the same priorities. However, can the Minister confirm that the Prime Minister will be calling on his many friends among the leaders in Europe in this negotiation?
Lord Sassoon
What I can confirm is that the UK’s priorities for expenditure include the following: substantial cuts to the common agricultural policy. However, I agree with the noble Lord that priorities for the UK include growth and competitiveness, climate change and external action. I am not going to speculate on how the negotiations will play out.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom
Will my noble friend confirm that, in the absence of any compromise, what is being asked for by the European Commission is a 6.8% increase in the budget? Is this not an extraordinarily high figure which shows an unbelievable insensitivity to the problems that Governments are facing across the EU as they try to rein back their deficits?
Lord Tebbit
My Lords, did my noble friend say—did I hear him correctly—that this proposal requires unanimity? If so then surely there is no need to negotiate. All one has to do is simply say no.