Professional Qualifications Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Sikka and Baroness Fookes

2nd reading
Tuesday 25th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sikka (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure and honour to join this debate, and I particularly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for raising the issues that she has.

We are all conditioned to place trust in professionals; after all, no one would willingly let an unqualified surgeon operate on them. However, there is a darker side to professional qualifications and trade in professional services, whether at home or abroad, and the mono- chromatic approach of the Bill pays little attention to that.

Professionally qualified bankers have crashed banks and the economy and are implicated in HBOS, RBS and other frauds. Professionally qualified accountants and lawyers are often the masterminds behind money laundering scams and ingenious tax avoidance schemes that plunder the public purse and condemn millions to go without decent healthcare, housing, education, pensions and social infrastructure. Professionally qualified insolvency practitioners unnecessarily prolong insolvencies to collect mega fees. Too many auditing firms, often licensed by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, are complicit in accounting scandals and tax avoidance. On a number of occasions, the courts have concluded that the tax avoidance schemes marketed by accounting firms are unlawful. Despite that, not a single accounting firm whose scheme has been judged to be unlawful has actually been disciplined by the ICAEW, and that is wrong. So my question is this: through this Bill, what will we actually be exporting and importing through mutual recognition of professional qualifications and work experiences?

The faith in professional qualification and regulation is double-edged; it also blocks the emergence of new professions. The Bill does not establish any universal norms or benchmarks for professional education—for example, the principle that professional qualifications must prioritise public welfare and not promote anti-social practices.

Consider the case of accounting and wealth creation. We all know wealth creation requires co-operation among a variety of stakeholders. Shareholders provide finance and get a return in the form of dividends. Employees provide brains and brawn and get a return in the form of wages and salaries. Society provides education, healthcare, security and a legal system, and gets a return in the form of taxes. However, in professional accounting education, payment of wages and taxes is considered a cost, while payment to finance capital in the form of dividend is considered a reward. The self-serving logic is that efficiency depends on cutting costs, so armies of auditing firms and accountants working in those firms are available to squeeze labour, cut wages and design tax-dodging schemes. No professional is ever hired to advise on how to reduce return-to-finance capital.

Alternatives to conventional accounting logics are available but never find their way on to the professional accounting education syllabus adopted by the ICAEW and other bodies. They continue to inculcate individuals into class warfare. This Bill does not check the worst of professional qualifications by establishing principles of good professional education.

I would welcome some clarity from the Minister about Clause 10, which is headed

“Duty of regulator to provide information to overseas regulator”,


and its link with broader regulatory issues which inevitably arise from reliance placed on professionals. Consider the case of Barings Bank, which collapsed in February 1995. Its audits were conducted by Coopers & Lybrand and Deloitte in the UK and in Singapore. The accounting qualifications of some of the Singapore staff were recognised in the UK and enabled them to become members of the UK bodies. However, this did not give the then banking regulator, the Bank of England, access to that staff and the audit firm’s working papers in Singapore. Paragraphs 15 and 153 of the Bank of England’s 1995 report titled Report of the Board of Banking Supervision Inquiry into the Circumstances of the Collapse of Barings said:

“We have not been permitted access to C&L Singapore’s work papers relating to the 1994 audit of BFS [Baring Futures (Singapore) Pte Limited] or had the opportunity to interview their personnel. C&L Singapore has declined our request for access, stating that its obligation to respect its client confidentiality prevents it assisting us … We have not been permitted either access to the working papers of D&T or the opportunity to interview any of their personnel who performed the audit. We do not know what records and explanations were provided by BFS personnel to them”.


I hope that the Minister will be able to say something about the interaction between mutual recognition of qualifications and regulatory co-operation. Would a foreign national enjoying membership of a UK professional body but not resident in the UK be required to co-operate with the Financial Conduct Authority or equivalent? Under reciprocal arrangements, UK citizens would be required to co-operate with foreign regulators.

The Bill applies to 160 professions that are regulated by legislation and a network of more than 50 regulators. This multiplicity of regulators results in duplication, waste and obfuscation. For example, we have four professional accountancy bodies, known as the recognised supervisory bodies, or RSBs, dealing with external auditing. They are overseen by the Financial Reporting Council, soon to become the audit, reporting and governance authority or ARGA. However, there are five recognised qualifying bodies, the qualifications of which are recognised for auditing purposes. In addition, there are four recognised professional bodies, RPBs, dealing with around 1,300 insolvency practitioners. The Bill does not streamline the regulatory maze and says nothing about the autonomy or powers of various regulators. If a qualification is recognised by just one recognised supervisory body or recognised professional body, would others be forced to do the same? Is there a pecking order of the professional bodies? I strongly urge the Government to streamline the regulatory arrangements and eliminate the powers of all the accountancy bodies and transfer them to the FRC or its replacement, ARGA.

The 160 professions covered by the Bill need to be seen in a broader light. The reason is that each profession erects barriers to entry, which erodes competition and the quest for higher quality. For example, UK law requires that only an entity under the control of individuals licensed to carry out an audit can conduct audits, so 51% of the partners of a firm or 51% of shareholders of a company conducting the audit must hold a licence to audit. This is unlike any other market. For example, there is no requirement that a pharmaceutical business must be under the control of qualified pharmacists. The recognition of professional qualifications and the monopolies built around them prevent others, such as technology companies, from entering the audit market to facilitate much-needed change. So the recognition of professional qualifications has consequences, leading to monopolies, lack of competition and inevitable failures. The Government’s impact assessment shows no awareness of such impacts or how the social closure around predetermined qualifications facilitates failure and prevents the emergence of new professions.

The protection of the audit market also has implications for which qualifications get mutual recognition. Many IT qualifications will not be recognised, even though they are useful for audit purposes.

Mutual recognition of qualifications is part of a brain drain which encourages doctors, nurses, engineers and others to migrate from developing and emerging economies to the UK. Despite making a huge investment in social infrastructure and individuals, the home countries will not be in a position to receive the benefits of that investment. This is a huge transfer in not only skills but wealth from poorer nations to the UK. Will the Government compensate poorer countries for the loss of their wealth and human resources, and on what scale? If the UK continues to entice people from poorer countries, what incentives will it have to develop its own education and related infrastructure?

Can the Minister explain the link between mutual recognition and the Government’s immigration policy? Will anyone holding a recognised qualification get priority in securing a work permit and possible settlement in the UK, even if they earn less than £25,600 a year? Also, the Bill does not put any time limit on mutual recognition of qualifications. How will that be addressed? Will it be a once-and-for-all decision?

Finally, the Bill permits specified regulators to recognise foreign qualifications. Thus, the regulators have a clear statutory and public role. Despite this, the Bill does not place all regulators and relevant professional bodies within the framework of freedom of information legislation; these are public bodies and should be within its scope so that ordinary people can ask questions and hold the bodies to account.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

I understand that the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill.

Financial Services Bill

Debate between Lord Sikka and Baroness Fookes

Committee stage
Monday 1st March 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Sikka (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baronesses, Lady Bowles of Berkhamsted and Lady Kramer. I am delighted to support their suggestion for reform.

Last week, a number of proposals for arresting regulatory failures were put forward, each offering to help the regulator—what I call “acting as a guide dog for the watchdog”. This is another proposal which has considerable merit. It builds on the notion of an independent skilled person review, a practice that is already well established to some extent. However, in the details of the amendment, it differs from the conventional notion of a skilled person review in focusing on systemic factors rather than individual cases. These include matters relating to internal controls and operations, regulatory parameters, effectiveness, treatment of whistleblowers, public policy objectives and, more importantly, matters of public concern.

Although the amendment does not explicitly say so, I am sure that the noble Baronesses, Lady Bowles and Lady Kramer, would not be opposed to the independent skilled person review being conducted by a panel of retired judges; that could be feasible. The review in any case should be in the open, take evidence on oath and require the production of key documents from producers, consumers, intermediaries and other key parties in the finance industry. The panel could travel to different parts of the UK to take evidence and report within a specified period, like the Australian royal commission that we heard about earlier.

The main aim of the inquiry would be to focus on systemic problems, get to the bottom of the recurring and unresolved scandals in the industry, enable consumers to share their experiences with the industry and its regulators, and facilitate the legislative changes needed to secure confidence in the industry. The proposed review would be a necessary step to bring about a much-needed change in organisational culture and a sense of personal responsibility and accountability in the regulatory bodies, as well as the industry.

The proposed review and its specified headings of “regulatory perimeters”, “public concerns” and “effectiveness of relevant legislation” can also focus on neglected and emerging issues. A good example of issues totally neglected in the Bill, and by the FCA and PRA, are those about the impact of shadow banking. The shadow banking sector is intertwined with retail and investment banks, insurance companies, pension funds and others, and any crisis there is bound to have a huge impact on the rest of the economy. The sector could be worth nearly $117 trillion, far bigger than the world’s GDP; it is lightly regulated, and normal prudential rules do not apply to it. I remind the Committee that the 2007-08 financial crash was triggered not by mass withdrawals of bank deposits by savers but by the inability of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, key players in the shadow banking system, to meet their contractual obligations arising out of speculative gambles. So there is an urgent need for an independent review; that is what we should be aiming for.

I want to reply to a couple of comments made earlier. The noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, and the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, referred to the issue of costs. As the noble Lord, Lord Desai, pointed out, the biggest cost is associated with the status quo, which has never been cost free. Over the months and years I have spoken to many victims of bank frauds who have lost their homes, businesses, savings, investments and pensions. All that any review panel or committee has to do is talk to them, and they will soon understand that there is a cost associated with the status quo.

The second point was the question of where on earth we would find these skilled persons. It is a sobering thought that it is not the skilled persons who told the world about any of the frauds or scandals. Journalists and ordinary people have been far more aware of what is wrong, and I am quite happy to trust their judgment to tell us what is wrong with the system, rather than having a very legalistic explanation.

I hope that in his response the Minister will now tell us how the Government have weighed up the evidence of systemic failures of the FCA and what assessment they have made of the impact of such failures on people’s lives. So far, Ministers have not supported any proposals for assisting the regulators or put forward any suggestions. Maybe the Government plan to appoint a royal commission or an independent public inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005, or something else. It would be very helpful to know whether the Government are content or not content with the current state of affairs in the finance industry.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

I understand that the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, has withdrawn, so I now call the noble Lord, Lord Naseby.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

My Lords, I understand that the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, has withdrawn, so I now call the noble Lord, Lord Sikka.

[Lord Sikka (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I draw attention to my interests as set out in the register: I am an unpaid adviser to the Tax Justice Network. I strongly support Amendment 46 and congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans for providing the moral lead in securing tax justice and transparency.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, just pointed out, Gibraltar is one of the most secretive jurisdictions on this planet; indeed, it is among the top 30 most secretive, and inflicts tax losses on many nations including the UK. We all know that secrecy is an essential ingredient for tax avoidance and illicit financial flows. Over the years, Transparency International has reported that Gibraltar-based companies have been used to purchase properties in the UK, possibly with dirty money. Gibraltar has a population of around 33,000 but it has over 60,000 registered companies: that is, nearly two for every person living on the Rock. Many of these are just shell companies and little is really known about their authentic beneficial owners.

Gibraltar-based companies pop up in smuggling and bribery scandals all over the world. Unsurprisingly, a headline in the Guardian on 9 April 2017 said:

“Defend Gibraltar? Better Condemn it as a Dodgy Tax Haven”.


Little has changed. In February 2020, a report by the Council of Europe’s anti-money laundering body, MONEYVAL, called on Gibraltar to improve its efforts to combat, money-laundering and financing for terrorism.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans has already drawn attention to the tax haven aspects of Gibraltar. Unsurprisingly, many UK insurance and gambling companies are headquartered there because it is considerably more profitable to run UK operations from there by dodging UK taxes and increasing profit-related executive pay.

Research by TaxWatch shows that Gibraltar is indeed a hub for tax-avoidance: some 55% of the remote gambling services provided to UK-based customers are provided by companies based in Gibraltar. Most of the big companies, including William Hill, Ladbrokes and Bet365, have links to the Rock. Unibet’s website states that its servers are based in Malta, Alderney and Gibraltar and that it is registered and licensed in Gibraltar. The company is also listed on the New York Stock Exchange. This organisational maze provides opacity and tax avoidance and obfuscates accountability and the regulators’ ability to investigate.

William Hill has six subsidiaries in Gibraltar and is expected to pay around 12% in corporation tax for 2020, compared with the headline rate of just 19%. One of Ladbrokes Coral’s two licences to operate in the UK is registered in Gibraltar. On 9 August 2019, the Daily Mail reported that 32Red, which is based in Gibraltar,

“paid just £812,000 in corporation tax over ten years—an effective tax rate of just three per cent.”

The company is obviously not in Gibraltar just for the sunshine and the good climate. On 7 August 2020, the Daily Mail reported:

“Over the past two years, Bet 365 paid an effective tax rate of 12.7 percent on profits of £1.4 billion.”


Bet365’s accounts for the period 2015-19 show that the company’s corporation tax bill was £176 million lower because it has various operations in tax havens, including Gibraltar. Adjusting for inflation, Bet365 avoided around £182 million of UK corporation tax for the period 2015-19.

Ministers continue to tell us that companies should be taxed where sales and profits are made, but then we have this Bill, which will enable companies to book their profits in Gibraltar, even though they will have their sales and profits in the UK. The Government’s briefings on the Bill have not stated how much of the profits made in the UK are booked in Gibraltar and what the effect the Financial Services Bill will have on that.

The Government have a legal and moral duty for the good governance of Gibraltar and other jurisdictions to ensure that they do not continue to be what I call the world’s fiddle factories. Through this Bill, the Government are showering more gifts upon Gibraltar but without any quid pro quo; what exactly is it that we are getting in return? Can the Minister explain how these gifts aid tax justice in the UK? I strongly support Amendment 46 because it provides the basis for tax justice and transparency.