Banking Reform

Debate between Lord Sassoon and Lord Bates

Thursday 14th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

The noble Lord, Lord Desai, as always, brings up important points. Of course, living wills are an integral part of the whole construct for better resolution of banks than we had before. Indeed, the FSA has been leading the project for a couple of years or more to make sure that all the arrangements are in place. The noble Lord draws attention to another important part of the construct.

[Lord Bates]

But can my noble friend confirm that the banking crisis actually cost the taxpayer, in direct cash, loans and guarantees, close to £500 billion—£465 billion pounds? Therefore, it behoves the Government to take some action to protect savers and the interests of the taxpayer in this regard. The introduction of the leveraging ratio is therefore welcome, particularly as it follows international norms rather than putting our industry at a competitive disadvantage.

I have one small, technical point. The Minister has an incredible grasp of the detail, but does my noble friend have understanding of whether there will be any implications of introducing that leverage ratio for the Government’s holdings in Lloyds Banking Group and RBS?

[Lord Sassoon]

I am grateful to my noble friend for pointing out the extraordinary cost of the banking crisis. He cites one figure; I think that the estimates ranged from £140 billion upwards. They are extraordinary figures, which, as I said at the outset, the then Government did not seem to think required any response. I completely agree with my noble friend Lord Bates that something needed to be done, and that is what we have brought forward.

As for the effect on the Government’s holdings in RBS and Lloyds, I am sure that your Lordships like reading, as I do, the fine detail of impact assessments. At the back of the White Paper, the impact assessment contains several paragraphs analysing the effect. It gives a number on a rather theoretical comparison of what the effect might be, but then points out that this is probably already priced into the market so that the price of the holdings today takes account of what is proposed.

Sunday Trading (London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Sassoon and Lord Bates

Thursday 26th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, that makes the point that Germany had a much more restrictive regime than the UK, and that country freed it up much more significantly compared with the normal regime for the 2006 World Cup to give everyone the sort of experience that we want for the Olympics here. Then it reverted to what it was before. I am grateful to the noble Lord for bringing up that point.

[Lord Bates]

In the debate at Second Reading views were expressed on the broader issue of Sunday trading. The position that I stated in that debate was that I did not think that the economic case was at all convincing and that it did not manage to clear the retail growth review from the Treasury or clear the recent red tape review. A number of respondents did not say that this was something that they wanted to go ahead. The noble Lord, Lord Myners, who has very significant experience in this whole area, looked at the case and said that it was at least questionable, certainly ordinarily. I agree that we are talking about exceptional times. Normally the restriction on larger stores is not just a restriction on them but is to protect the smaller stores.

The noble Lord, Lord Myners, referred to Justin King from Sainsbury’s serving on LOCOG and asked whether the position was different given that Mayor Boris Johnson had put him forward. Like others on this side of the House, I am spending a fair bit of time campaigning for Boris Johnson at the moment. He has made a great priority of strengthening the high streets and supporting small business. That is essentially what this measure is about.

That point made, I turn to the amendment, which I welcome. Let us be clear what we are talking about on the date, which as it stood in the Bill was at 24 April. We were effectively going to say that the minimum notice period that had to be given under the Bill was that, two days ago, before this legislation had been passed, somebody would have had to give notice to their employer that they did not want to work on 22 July. On that point it is obvious and the Minister, who is wise in these things, has brought forward this amendment, which is very simple in its present form. I do not buy in any sense the idea that Amendment 1E, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, simplifies the thing. If anything, it makes it more complicated because you almost go back to the potential for three months, with a two-month notice period then a one-month response period to come back in. You are potentially going back into this very difficult situation.

It is also worth noting a little more about which Sundays we are talking about, because we know where this argument is coming from. It is from the big stores, particularly the London-based stores and development companies that sponsored the research pointing to the benefit, to which my noble friend Lady Browning referred. In fairness, I did not mean that as a jibe. We are in a recession and we want to make money. When we have people actually coming here, we want jobs so they absolutely ought to try to make the case. I am simply pointing to the fact that there is an element of that. The impact assessment refers to the fact that there will be 450,000 visitors, but they are not going to stay for the whole period. They will predominantly be clustered around the summer Olympics rather than the Paralympics. I would wish it to be the other way round, because the Paralympics espouse to me more of what the Olympic spirit is all about, but the reality is that most of the attention will come from 27 July, when the opening ceremony takes place. Therefore, the first Sunday on which there will be the desire to celebrate sporting achievements by visiting shops for more hours, for which we accept the case because the cake will be larger, will be 29 July and not 22 July. Moreover, the Games will be going on until 12 August, which happens to be a Sunday in my diary, while on Sunday 19 August, for which liberalisation is being made, nothing will be taking place—other than a lot of people working very hard to get the site ready for the Paralympic Games to start. However, those Games do not start on 26 August; they actually start on 29 August. To add insult to injury, the dates finish on the closing date of the Paralympics themselves, 9 September. That part is absolutely right.

This is a simple adjustment. The opposition amendment makes this not simpler but more complex. Most of the visitors and the economic activity will be early on, which again is the reason for giving maximum notice to people. If they have problems, we need to make sure that that happens as quickly as possible and therefore the adjustment to two months, as proposed in my noble friend’s amendment, would seem sensible in this case.

[Lord Elton]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Myners, greatly underestimates my noble friend Lord Sassoon’s ability if he thinks that my noble friend’s excellent speech—I agree about that—at Second Reading is anything like the high point of his parliamentary career, as the noble Lord said it would be. My noble friend has a long way to go. Now he is looking at me as if he is wondering what is coming next, which is quite right.

I simply want assurance on what I think are called Pepper v Hart terms—in other words, for the guidance of people trying to work out what this law is meant to mean when they come to examine it in court. I am concerned rather along the lines that the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, put forward. I am an inveterate opponent of Sunday opening in principle, but the House has given a Second Reading to the Bill. I accept that so what we are discussing are the means of exempting on grounds of conscience those who do not wish to be ruled by it—and of course I am in favour of that. However, throughout the Second Reading debate and in conversations thereafter, everybody has been seeking reassurance that this is not to be used as a precedent. The phrase actually used was “stalking horse”; I take it that that means a precedent. When the noble Lord, Lord Graham, made that point forcefully he got a reply from my noble friend with some information in it, but not an avowal again that this is not to be used as a precedent or that that is not the Government’s intention. All I ask is that my noble friend reiterates that assurance, so that it will be on the record in this debate as well as at Second Reading.

Inflation

Debate between Lord Sassoon and Lord Bates

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, I could not agree more with the starting premise of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham. The Government are concerned about the hard-pressed, hard-saving, hard-working low earners in this country. That is why, in April this year, 880,000 people will be taken out of taxation altogether. That is also why 23 million taxpayers will each receive back £170 compared with the plans of the previous Government. That is an absolute recognition of the fact that the Government understand how low-income families are suffering and are doing something about it.

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, will my noble friend also comment on the consequences for inflation of the reductions in corporation tax, the reductions in national insurance contributions, the freezing of council tax and business rates and, most importantly, the tackling of the deficit that have all been announced?

[Lord Sassoon]

I agree absolutely with my noble friend that these are all critical policies to ensure that growth gets going again. It is precisely by the Government both reducing the deficit and ensuring growth that the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England will have a firm policy background against which to make its decisions that bear on the inflation target.