Financial Services and Markets Bill

Debate between Lord Sharkey and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

Report stage
Tuesday 13th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, it is exactly three months ago today that we debated this issue in Committee, when the Minister heard many examples of what had been going on. She has done rather more than any of her predecessors in acknowledging that there is a problem with how the AML rules are applied to PEPs and that change needs to happen—but she has gone even further and done something about it. I will not say that it is simply because she is a woman and that is what we do, but it is interesting that she has done it. As we heard, she has tabled Amendments 96, 97, 118 and 119, which she has outlined.

I have added my name, as the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said, to Amendment 105, which goes a bit further and is more specific than the Government’s amendment. Ideally, they might have accepted it and made a carve-out for our family members; as we have heard, we may be guilty because we are here, but they have done nothing wrong and it is awful that they are caught by it. So I welcome the Minister saying in her introduction that the review will specifically look at whether it is possible to tweak that somewhat.

As I said in Committee, this has been going on for rather a long time. The noble Lord, Lord Flight, was the first noble Lord to raise it that I could find, in 2013, and I have been on about it since 2015, as the House knows. We have had Written Questions, Oral Questions, meetings, press coverage and all of that. In addition to the inconvenience for us, this has also meant that all these banks and others are wasting their time looking at our business instead of, as we have heard, at some other people. It is not just Amex and others; it is car purchase firms and everybody else inconveniencing us and wasting their time.

The Minister has acknowledged that it is time for legislation. The key part of her proposal is distinguishing between domestic and foreign PEPs and a requirement both on HMT and the FCA to do something. What the Government have done may not be perfect, but it is a real step forward. I think the Minister is well aware that we will keep a rather beady eye on what is happening, and we will be back here if nothing changes.

In the meantime, we should thank the Minister for what she has done. We have made a big step forward and I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, will not be pressing his amendment. It is right that we accept where we have got to with the Minister, and we will watch that being implemented.

[Lord Sharkey (LD)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 105 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and I congratulate him on his determination and persistence. I do not quite understand his dislike of Turkish barbers, but we can deal with that some other time.

His amendment’s simplicity and its direct modification of the regulation is an appealing approach, as is the absence of the word “review”. I was very pleased to see the government amendments in this group, chiefly because, of course, they are government amendments. I am very grateful for the Minister’s clear and long-standing commitment to resolving, or at least ameliorating, the problem. I have only a couple of observations about the government amendments.

The explanatory statement to Amendment 96 says that UK PEPs

“should be treated as representing a lower risk than a person so entrusted by a country other than the UK, and have lesser enhanced due diligence measures applied to them”.

The amendment itself, in proposed new subsection (3)(b), states that

“if no enhanced risk factors are present, the extent of enhanced customer due diligence measures to be applied in relation to that customer is less than the extent to be applied in the case of a non-domestic PEP”.

Neither of those offers a definition or sets an upper limit to what this lesser form of due diligence should be. Is that decision to be left entirely to the financial services companies? If it is, can we reasonably expect uniformity of definition and behaviour?

Why would we expect the banks to significantly change their current behaviour? Would it not be more likely that they will simply water down some minor aspect of the diligence they currently feel is due and carry on otherwise much as they do now? In a way, that is what is happening anyway. The banks mostly ignore the FCA’s current guidance, as set out in paragraph 2.35 of FG17/6. The FCA, in response to that, applies no sanctions. Nowhere in the government amendments is there mention of sanctions for non-compliance with the new arrangements.

Given the rather cavalier disregard some banks have displayed towards the current guidance, do we not need some sanction for future non-compliance, or a way of making the FCA properly enforce its own guide- lines? What use are guidelines if they are not enforced? I would be very grateful if the Minister could say how a workable definition of “lesser due diligence” is to be arrived at and how the new regime may be enforced.

Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Sharkey and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

Monday 22nd April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I welcome and support Motion E. I pay tribute to a number of key players who have brought us to this happy position. First, there is the coalition of those interested in the well-being of tenants and landlords, as the Minister has mentioned, such as Which?, Shelter and RICS, which have given me a lot of help not only in drafting but in the persuasion, if I may say, of this House and then the Government, who perhaps were a little reluctant to start with but have made a very large step forward. The coalition that came together included representatives of tenants and landlords, as has been mentioned, but also the British Property Federation, the Mayor of London and various London councils, as well as the professional organisations to which some of these bodies belong.

The amendments in lieu are not exactly the whole of what the House asked for in passing my original amendment, in that they do not include a role for the OFT in debarring agents who go seriously astray. However, I am confident that with the build-up of intelligence by the various redress schemes, evidence will come to light on which the OFT or Trading Standards will be able to take action.

Furthermore, as happened with estate agents and as has been suggested in the consultation, ombudsmen will develop codes of conduct for letting and managing agents—based, no doubt, on the professional codes that they have in place now—to give member agents guidance as to how an ombudsman will decide a case. That is perhaps a backdoor way to the adoption of a code, but is very welcome for all that.

In due course, I and consumer groups will no doubt be asking for further regulation of letting and management agents if this measure proves insufficient to protect landlords and tenants, and I have a feeling that the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, is not about to let this wider issue drop.

For the moment, I conclude by thanking our Lords PLP staff, Beth Gardiner-Smith, Sophie Davis and Ian Parker, for their help, and saying a very genuine thank you to both the Ministers who are with us this evening. They took a lot of trouble to listen to our concerns very carefully and—I am sure at some personal risk to themselves—battled with their colleagues at the other end to win through. This House has brought some good home sense to an issue that is of great importance to thousands of our fellow citizens.

[Lord Sharkey]

My Lords, I want to say two things. First, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, on her determination and persistence in pursuing the case for a redress system for letting and managing agents, and I thank the Government for agreeing to act.

Secondly, I want to ask the Government about timing. The Minister knows that the amendments are couched in terms of “may” rather than “must”, but I am sure that in this case that means “will”. The question really is: when do the Government expect to be able to bring forward the appropriate orders? As we have all said in discussions on this issue, the matter is urgent; people are suffering now. Can the Minister give some indication at least of the expecting timing of the orders?

If it were not getting on for midnight, I would also ask what on earth Commons Amendment 40A(6) actually means. But it is getting on for midnight, so I will not.

Financial Services Bill

Debate between Lord Sharkey and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

Monday 12th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I am delighted, nay honoured, to see my name alongside that of the future Archbishop of Canterbury, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham. If his contribution today is anything to go by, we can look forward to a thoughtful, progressive and determined ministry, which will serve this House and this country well. Like all my colleagues, I warmly welcome his appointment and congratulate the right reverend Prelate. I wish him well in the challenges ahead, which may be a little more demanding than getting an amendment accepted by the Government.

As has been said, there is a real lack of transparency in the financial sector, which is a key problem, given our reliance on competition to make the market work. Without information, choices of customers or of policy-makers are hampered. We know a few things but not enough; we know that one-third of a million small and medium-sized businesses could not get access to finance from mainstream banks in 2011. Indeed, only half of the young, fast-growing, small businesses had their loans fully met last year compared with 90% in 2007, so it is no wonder that our economy has stalled. But regulators and others cannot take action until we have these better, more precise and locally based data. Banks have to made to be more open about what and where they are lending. They are too important to work in the shadow. I am delighted that the Government have accepted this amendment, although I note that the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill is potentially growing larger by the amendment. I think that this is the third reference today to something that may be in the Bill. Nevertheless, we welcome the Government’s move on this matter.

[Lord Sharkey]

I would like to thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this brief debate, particularly my noble friend Lord Newby for his commitment to the publication of disaggregated, postcode-level data in this important area and also, in a way, for helping us to look forward to a slightly more varied Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill than we might have expected in the new year.

Last week it was the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, who told us what the correct technical response was to this kind of government commitment: she said it was “bingo”. I would like to echo that. I finish by saying that, although I hope we will be able to get a satisfactory voluntary agreement on this, I am enormously encouraged by the Government’s firm commitment to legislate should this not be the case. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.