Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Debate between Lord Vaux of Harrowden and Lord Naseby

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th April 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise for not taking part at Second Reading due to other parliamentary commitments. I have a couple of small questions, but one of them is quite important.

First, if we are dealing with micro-companies, they are not likely to have substantial staff. There must be some safeguard so that the authorities do not change the requirements for reporting and leave these poor micro-entities with perhaps two or three months to totally amend their software. That has happened in certain other areas, so there must be some requirement that, while it is quite right that the registrar’s requests should be met, there must be some safeguards and those having to do the returns must be given adequate time to do them.

Secondly, I have one small point in relation to new Section 443A(2) inserted by Clause 54. At the end, it says, “(and any directors’ report”). I assume the directors’ report refers to the accounts, but that is not totally clear.

[Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)]

My Lords, in the light of what we have just heard, I want to touch on the micro-company side of things. Micro-companies may be small but they are not unimportant. They are probably the single biggest sort of company used for VAT fraud, for example. There has been a lot of publicity recently about some poor chap in Cardiff. Several hundred companies were registered at his address, then he started receiving large bills from HMRC. It is precisely this sort of company that is used for that; we should not be too generous to these companies in relation to reporting requirements.

Financial Services and Markets Bill

Debate between Lord Vaux of Harrowden and Lord Naseby

Committee stage
Wednesday 1st March 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment, which in my judgment is absolutely vital. On 8 February, I listened to the chairman of the City of London Corporation’s policy and resources committee; I will quote a couple of points that he made on that evening. He said:

“Faced with increasing global competition”


the UK needs

“a long-term sense of direction, a programme for government, regulators, and industry to act and sustain our global powerhouse status. As a country we need a renewed focus, to adjust our compass, to be the destination that incentivises investment, thrives with talent, and commands the competition. And we need ambition and focus to achieve these goals.”

He finished by saying that we need “the courage to change” in three areas. I will quote two, which are relevant to this amendment:

“Firstly, we need to reduce frictions. That means strengthening UK policy and regulation with an effective and coherent sustainable finance framework. Secondly, we need to nurture innovation. More creativity in the market will inspire better products, which will help attract capital, firms, and customers.”


The City wants confidence in scrutiny and the supervision of the regulator. I hope that my noble friend on the Front Bench will take note of the feelings of the City. I am sure that it would be more than happy to communicate directly with my noble friend and put some flesh on the summary that I have given.

[Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, have added my name to the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bridges. The noble Lord explained in detail the need for the amendments far better than I can, so I will be brief. I support the noble Lord’s every word but, rather than repeating what has been said, I will comment specifically on how this would complement rather than replace the parliamentary scrutiny that is also required.

We have had a lot of discussion so far in Committee about the need for strengthened parliamentary scrutiny and accountability of the performance of the regulators, with an extraordinary level of agreement on all sides— I hope that the Minister listened to that. I strongly supported the idea of creating a bicameral committee specifically for that purpose, as proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. Having an independent office for financial regulatory accountability would greatly assist such a committee in carrying out its work. We heard on a previous day in Committee from the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, who is probably the expert in such matters, and from others about the enormous volume of work that scrutiny of the financial regulators will involve. That is one reason why we need a parliamentary committee focused solely on this subject. Having available independently prepared and, importantly, non-political analysis of both the performance of the regulators and the regulations themselves would make the work of the parliamentary scrutiny committee, or committees, that much more effective, enabling the focus to be on areas where shortcomings were identified, rather than wading through unmanageable volumes of information trying to find those areas.

I therefore make the point that the Minister should not be tempted to see these amendments as an alternative to the enhancements to parliamentary scrutiny that we have already discussed. Rather, she should understand that they are an important element within the three legs required for effective scrutiny and accountability, which the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, has previously explained as being reporting, independent analysis and parliamentary accountability. All three aspects should be embraced. These amendments cover the second, but please do not think that they would replace the others.

Financial Services and Markets Bill

Debate between Lord Vaux of Harrowden and Lord Naseby

Committee stage
Monday 30th January 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest: I am a trustee of the parliamentary pension fund. I am also a former chairman of a financial services organisation, Invesco. I have tried to put myself in the shoes of when I did that, some 15 years ago.

It comes down to what my noble friend has been talking about: the practical side of financial services. There have been major changes in the time since I last chaired an organisation, but the trustees of the parliamentary pension fund have a meeting this Thursday and we always have to balance the objectives of that fund, which is primarily to ensure that there are adequate funds to pay the pensions of our membership—that is the primary purpose of that organisation. Secondly, we have to respond to the laws of the land; indeed, because we are a parliamentary group, we are adamant that we should keep track of what is happening on the green dimensions as they affect financial services.

In her speech, which we have just listened to and which I was certainly listening to, my noble friend Lady Lawlor made it clear that, in her view, the amendments before us—with one exception, which I will come to in a minute—are, frankly, not practical. On Thursday, I will have to be practical. If anything, as matters stand at the moment, the amendments will handicap the financial services world. This worries me even more because it undermines competition. We must remember the primary new dimension that we are talking about in financial services: the requirement for growth. We look for the key kernel of that growth to come from the City of London and financial services in general. For my money, this is a stage too far. Having previously been an RAF jet pilot, I must say that, when I read about planetary limits et cetera in Amendment 69A, I think that that is going too far.

However, although I am not sure that it is ideally written, I think that there is merit in Amendment 240 —particularly proposed new subsection (1), which would require a reporting system on green material—in broad terms. Whether that is the right phraseology, I am not able to judge, but, from a practical point of view, I do not think that the amendments we have before us are appropriate at this point in time.

[Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)]

My Lords, as this is the first time I have spoken in Committee, I should start by declaring my interest in Fidelity National Information Services, which, among other things, owns Worldpay.

I support the amendments in this group—particularly those in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, to which I have added my name. She and other noble Lords have already explained the reasoning for them, so I will try not to be repetitive. I have added my name to them because I think that the climate and nature objective is so important that it deserves at least equal billing with the other secondary objectives of growth and competitiveness. For the record, I wholeheartedly support those growth and competitiveness objectives.

As we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, a few moments ago, some have argued that the climate and nature objectives conflict with the growth and competitiveness objectives. Frankly, I do not believe that that is the case. There are always trade-offs, of course, but, if done well, encouraging and facilitating the financing of the technologies and businesses that will enable the path to net zero will be a substantial driver for growth. I want to see the UK financial market become the global leader in financing and facilitating these exciting technologies. I believe that there is an enormous opportunity for the UK here.

The noble Baroness talked about this being a somewhat parochial objective. I could not disagree more. This is a global opportunity. Just the other day, I was talking to the ambassador from Vietnam, a country that is looking to expand its offshore wind arrangements massively; it has the most perfect coastline for it. That is something that this country could be hugely involved in from both a technology point of view and a financial services point of view—that is, financing this stuff.

Another argument that I hear against the climate and nature objective is that it is a negative objective focused on banning and stopping activities. In my view—this is where I suspect I disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle—a climate and nature objective should not be about, for example, preventing investment in companies that are involved in fossil fuels or other activities.