Greening the Financial System

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Olivia Blake]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention, and I completely agree: deforestation is a massive issue, and finance plays a huge role in it.

As I was saying, we need financial institutions to play their own role in tackling the systemic problems in the sector, alongside the overarching role. The Financial Services and Markets Bill, which is due back in the House next week, was an opportunity to do that, but the Bill has sent the wrong message. Take the priorities that the Bill sets out for regulators: that they should aim to enhance the competitiveness of the sector, but should only “have regard to” the Government’s net zero target.

That undermines the Government’s green finance strategy, which has two objectives:

“To align private sector financial flows with clean, environmentally sustainable and resilient growth…and to strengthen the competitiveness of the UK financial sector.”

A principle does not have the same force as a statutory aim. The Bill, therefore, represents a significant downgrading of the first target of the ambition set out in the green finance strategy.

The Bill was also an opportunity to move more rapidly on instituting mandatory net zero transition plans for financial institutions, but they are so far missing from the legislation. Plans are important, because they move us away from simply reporting and sharing information, to concrete climate action. We should also be doing much more on investor stewardship and fiduciary duty.

We need not only to encourage and incentivise fossil-fuel divestment, but to ensure that investors are engaging with and making demands of companies on climate action. That means raising capital requirements on fossil-fuel investments and raising the bar on stewardship, so that climate and nature form critical points of engagement with companies. That should also mean expanding the concept of fiduciary duty. The purpose of a pension is to provide a standard of living to the beneficiary when they retire. We need to shift the concept of fiduciary duty away from gaining returns at any cost, to thinking about the kind of world beneficiaries will retire to, or the world in which their children will grow up. Pension investors have a duty to their customers to ensure that the world is not wracked by flooding, flash fires, famine and freak weather, all driven by the climate emergency.

It is clear that the Financial Services and Markets Bill does not go far enough; it may even exacerbate some of the results of the climate crisis. Global heating has made our food supply even more insecure. In dumping the MiFID II regulations, the Bill makes speculation on food even more likely, driving up prices and worsening the consequences of the climate emergency.

However, the issue is not just regulation: so much needs to be done to create markets for green investment. In the green finance strategy, the Government set out their approach to leveraging private investment in five key areas: power, homes, transport, environmental land management and business energy use. On power, we have seen an effective ban on onshore wind, blocking of oven-ready new solar and nothing on tidal. On homes, since the Government “cut the green crap”—I am quoting—in 2013, home insulation has flatlined.

On transport, unless we are talking about building more roads for cars, the system is ravaged by underinvestment. In my constituency, people can wait more than an hour for a bus. On environmental land management, the Government appear to have scrapped or delayed environmental and land management schemes, and are now umming and aahing about their replacement. On business energy use, I repeatedly hear of small and medium-sized enterprises that want to do much more about their emissions, but do not feel they have the support to monitor them and cannot afford the upgrades to do anything about them.

I have long argued for a green new deal, and it is obvious from what I have just said that we are desperately in need of one. One way to kick-start that would be to re-examine the mandates of public financial institutions, such as the British Business Bank, offering discounted financial products to SMEs to make green investment in their business.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. There is a real role to play for public finances—contracts for difference and national funding—but we also see private finance coming in. If we had regulation, for instance on carbon offsetting or through the green investment bank, private finance would flow into this area. Even that is not happening with the Government. Would a better regulatory environment create those green financial opportunities?

[Olivia Blake]

I completely agree. The regulatory framework that we have here is really holding us back, when it could offer us real opportunities and help to prevent things from getting worse, which is my fear.

For example, we really need to think about what more we can do to support everything, from the bottom to the top of our financial system. That is why I mentioned SMEs, because they are the backbone of many of our local economies. However, an inability to access the financial products that I am talking about is causing a lot of harm to the future of those businesses. Alternatively, strengthening the climate commitments in the mandate for the UK Green Investment Bank while strengthening its lending power could really help to unlock some of this issue.

We could be doing so much more. I hope that when the Financial Services and Markets Bill returns to the House, Members will support amendments along the lines that I have outlined. I also hope that this debate spurs the Government to greater action, because we certainly need it.