Financial Services and Markets Bill

Andrew Griffith Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 26th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Andrew Griffith)]

I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 7.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss:

Government amendments (a) to (c) in lieu of Lords amendment 7.

Lords amendment 10, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 36, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendment (a) in lieu of Lords amendment 36.

Lords amendments 1 to 6, 8, 9, 11 to 35 and 37 to 86.

[Andrew Griffith]

I am delighted to speak again to the Bill, following its passage through the other place. I thank my colleagues, Baroness Penn and Lord Harlech, for their expert stewardship of the Bill, as well as the Opposition spokespeople for their generally constructive tone.

Hon. and right hon. Members will be aware that the Bill is a crucial next step in delivering the Government’s vision of an open, sustainable and technologically advanced financial services sector. Members will also recall that this sector is one of the crown jewels of our economy, generating 12% of the UK’s economic activity and employing 2.5 million people in financial and related professional services. Few constituencies will be untouched by those jobs and economic benefits. For example, Scotland benefits from £13.9 billion of gross value added and an estimated 136,000 jobs.

The Bill seizes the opportunities of Brexit, tailoring financial services regulation to UK markets to bolster the competitiveness of the UK as a global financial centre and deliver better outcomes for consumers and businesses.

The Bill repeals hundreds of pieces of retained EU law relating to financial services and gives the regulators significant new rule-making responsibilities. These increased responsibilities must be balanced with clear accountability, appropriate democratic input, and transparent oversight. There has been much debate in this House and in the other place about how to get that balance right. As a result of the considered scrutiny, the Government introduced a number of amendments in the Lords that improved the Bill in this regard.

Lords amendments 32 to 34 require the regulators to set out how they have considered representations from Parliament when publishing their final rules. Lords amendments introduced by the Government require the regulators to report annually on their recruitment to the statutory panels, including the new cost-benefit analysis panels created by the Bill. The amendments also require the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority to appoint at least two members of authorised firms to their CBA panels. This will ensure that their work is informed by practical experience of how regulatory requirements impact on firms. My hon. Friends the Members for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller), for North Warwickshire (Craig Tracey) and for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) may recognise that amendment and I thank them for their efforts to ensure that the Bill delivers proper accountability.

Amendments from the Government also provide a power from the Treasury to require statutory panels to produce annual reports. The Treasury intends to use this power in the first instance to direct the publication of annual reports by the CBA panels and the FCA consumer panel. I hope the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) will welcome this as he tabled a similar amendment on Report.

Lords amendment 37 will enhance the role of the Financial Regulators Complaints Commission, which is an important mechanism for raising concerns about how the FCA, the PRA and the Bank of England carry out their functions. The amendment requires the Treasury, rather than the regulators themselves, to appoint the complaints commissioner, significantly strengthening the independence of the role.

In response to a debate in this House, the Government amended the Bill to introduce a power in clause 37 for the Treasury to direct the regulators to report on various performance metrics. On 9 May, I published a call for proposals, seeking views on what additional metrics the regulators should publish to support scrutiny of their work, focused on embedding their new secondary growth and competitiveness objectives. We have already had a number of helpful responses and we will come forward with proposals at pace following the expiry of the deadline next week. To further support that, Lords amendment 6 requires the FCA and the PRA to publish two reports on how they have embedded those new objectives within 12 and 24 months of the objectives coming into force. Taken together, these are a significant package of improvements to hold the regulators to account.

I know that access to cash is an issue of huge importance to many Members on both sides of the House. Representing the rural constituency of Arundel and South Downs, where the constituents are older than the UK average, this has always been at the forefront of my mind during the passage of the Bill. I also pay tribute to the campaigning work done by the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph on behalf of their readers as well as by groups such as Age UK and the Royal National Institute of Blind People.

Let me be clear: the Government’s position is that cash is here to stay for the long term. It provides a reliable back-up to digital payments, can be more convenient in some circumstances, and many, particularly the vulnerable, rely on cash as a means to manage their finances. The Bill already takes significant steps forward in protecting the ability of people and businesses across the UK to access cash deposit and withdrawal facilities for the first time in UK law. I am pleased to report that we have gone even further and introduced Lords amendments 72 to 77, which will protect people’s ability to withdraw and deposit cash for free. The amendments will require the FCA to seek to ensure reasonable provision of free cash access services for current accounts of personal customers. This will be informed by regard to a Government policy statement, which I expect to publish no later than the end of September.

Many Members are concerned about the separate issue of face-to-face banking. The FCA already has guidance to firms around the closure of bank branches and I hope that they and the industry will listen to the concerns of Members on behalf of their constituents on that issue.

Many Members across the House will have experienced the disproportionate application of rules requiring enhanced due diligence for politically exposed persons— PEPs. They and their families should not face some of the challenges and behaviours by banks that I have heard about. The Government are taking action to ensure that PEPs are treated in a proportionate manner. Lords amendment 38 requires the Treasury to amend the money laundering regulations to explicitly distinguish between domestic and foreign PEPs in law.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Will the Minister be more explicit as to what the close associates of domestic PEPs might include? Will it include, for example, somebody who has been elevated to the Lords by a former Prime Minister against the advice of the security services?

[Andrew Griffith]

In the interests of making progress on this substantial Bill, I shall not be tempted to comment on this further other than to say that I undertake, as I have to many other Members, to look very closely at that issue. For example, if by “associates” we mean either the adult children of people who have no real connection to the business that happens in this House, or family businesses that, again, are not directly connected to those who have put themselves forward for public service, I shall look closely at that. That is why we have tabled the amendments.

Lords amendment 39 requires the FCA to conduct a review into whether financial institutions are adhering to its guidance on the treatment of PEPs, and to assess the appropriateness of its guidance in light of its findings. Together, the amendments will lead to a change in how parliamentarians and their families experience the regime, and I am confident that they will be welcomed by all.

I will now set out the Government’s response to the non-Government amendments made in the Lords. The Bill introduces a new regulatory principle requiring the regulators to have regard to the Government’s net zero emissions target. Lords amendment 7 seeks to add conservation and the enhancement of the natural environment and other targets to this regulatory principle. The Government cannot accept the amendment as drafted, which is very broad and open to interpretation. The regulators must balance their objectives carefully, and they have a very important job to do. At a time when the Bank of England is rightly occupied by getting a grip on inflation, and the FCA is dealing with a range of challenges including working with lenders to ensure that there is support in place for those experiencing increases in mortgage interest rates, we must not overburden them with other considerations, particularly when they are vague or of uncertain relevance.

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a very clear exposition of the Government’s position on the Lords amendments. On replacing Lords amendment 7 with a Government amendment, will he make it clear, for the benefit of the House and the other place, that his proposal is both effective in law and will give effect to the substance of what their lordships were seeking, which is that nature should be a key responsibility under the Bill?

[Andrew Griffith]

I give my right hon. Friend that assurance. This is not about a different destination; the Government have a proud record of action on net zero, on nature and, as we will come on to talk about, on deforestation. This is simply the best mechanism by which we can get from here to there. It builds upon the well-defined targets set in the groundbreaking Environment Act 2021, and in so doing produces something that we think regulators can advance while giving the right clarity to those objectives.

Lords amendment 36 seeks, laudably, to require financial services firms to introduce a due diligence regime to ensure that they do not support illegal deforestation in their activities. I see no fundamental conflict between having a vibrant, competitive, world-leading financial services sector and taking the very toughest approach on deforestation. The House considered a similar amendment from my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) on Report. As I set out then, the Government fully support the intention behind the amendment, but further work is needed to ensure that a practical regulatory framework can adequately address this important topic.

I am grateful for the work of the Global Resource Initiative and in particular for its May 2022 finance report, which directly addresses these issues. The GRI talked about the need to take a staged approach and said that further work would be needed to come forward with a set of detailed standards and due diligence requirements to prevent the financing of forest risk commodities. Any intervention must therefore be scoped in detail and ensure that the UK moves in lockstep with international partners to ensure the true effectiveness of the regime in tackling the scourge of financing illegal deforestation.

The GRI report acknowledged that the well-developed work of the task force for nature-related financial disclosures, TNFD, will be increasingly important, especially as it has now included recommendations on deforestation in its draft standards. That is an organisation that the UK Government support and have provided finance to, and it is supported by the finance leaders of both the G7 and G20.

[Philip Dunne]

My hon. Friend is being very generous with his time. Without wanting to pre-empt the work of the Environmental Audit Committee, which is doing an inquiry into the whole subject of financing deforestation and what this country can do, I congratulate him on the amendment he has tabled in lieu of the Lords amendment. I think his amendment will do precisely what our Committee is likely to call for when we report in a few weeks’ time.

[Andrew Griffith]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his work and the work of his Committee, and for being so kind as to suggest that we may be anticipating his conclusions—not that I had prior knowledge of them. The important thing, a point made well by my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell, is that we get on and do this from a practical perspective. We have committed to convening a series of roundtables during the remainder of 2023, which will form the basis of a taskforce to drive forward the work of that important review and support the development of clear due diligence standards.

[Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell) (Con)]

I am grateful for how my hon. Friend the Minister has picked up the agenda and moved forward, following pressure both in this House and in the other place. The key to the taskforce that he is establishing is that it delivers not just a direction of travel but tangible recommendations on monitoring a system of due diligence, in a form that is actionable by the Government and by Parliament. Will he give that mandate to those he puts in to the taskforce for the job that he expects them to do?

[Andrew Griffith]

I would love if it “Action” were my middle name. Certainly, my right hon. Friend has that commitment from me and from Baroness Penn, who leads on green finance. The whole purpose of the taskforce is to drive forward action and support the development of clear due diligence standards. That is the important unlocking that we seek. We commit to doing that against a genuinely ambitious timeframe of just nine months following the first relevant regulations under the Environment Act 2021 being made. Those are important, as they are the starting point, but we will not sit idly by; once the Bill receives Royal Assent, that work can happen quickly. I pay tribute to him for his consistent work in this area and for raising the matter throughout these debates, and I hope he recognises the Government’s dedication to tackling illegal deforestation through our amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

The cash system is an essential piece of infrastructure, like utilities such as the post and broadband. These Lords amendments will help not only millions of citizens of all ages who risk otherwise being excluded if cash is allowed to die, but businesses, charities and many residents in Southend West.

[Andrew Griffith]

I am grateful to all hon. and right hon. Members who have contributed to this debate. I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller), who together with my right hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) started this Bill’s progress through the House. I spoke at length and tried to cover as many topics as possible in my opening remarks, so I will be brief.

I extend my thoughts to the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh). I have never actually made it to the cash machine promised in her constituency, but her words echo whenever we talk about access to cash. I did make it to the constituency of the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq), one of the lucky constituencies to have one of the six hubs, of which we seek to see many more.

I welcome hon. Members’ acknowledgement of the substantial steps that the Government have taken to further enhance regulatory accountability through the passage of the Bill. The hon. Members for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) and for Glenrothes (Peter Grant), my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) and my right hon. Friends the Members for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom) and for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) all talked about that.

The largest part of the debate was about the importance of access to cash, and the Government have introduced Lords amendments for precisely that. I wish my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Sara Britcliffe) good luck with procuring a hub for Great Harwood. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar) spoke about access to cash, as did the Member with the most formidable knowledge of the important role played by the Post Office, my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker), and my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Anna Firth). I and, I hope, the banks have heard the debate. It is important that they have been listening to the strong points made about not just access to cash but access to face-to-face branch facilities.

We heard from the hon. Member for Glenrothes about why Lords amendment 7 does not cover the devolved Administrations. I understand that this is not necessarily his desired outcome, but financial services legislation is a reserved matter. As an outcome, I hope to deliver a Brexit dividend—he may not particularly welcome that—for citizens in all parts of the country to protect those 140,000 jobs that, as we heard, Scotland relies on.

[Peter Grant]

Just to be clear, the Minister is saying that if the Scottish Government set a higher target for something than the UK Government do on behalf of England, the regulators will go with the UK Government’s low target, and if the UK Government set a higher target than the Scottish Government feel comfortable with, the regulator will go with the UK Government’s higher target, even in areas where an activity is devolved.

[Andrew Griffith]

We are always happy to listen to the hon. Member, but we are in danger of repeating ourselves.

Let me briefly give my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) the assurance he seeks that we will not just have another review. We seek action. We will be looking for a framework for due diligence and for how we can hold the financial sector to account. Both he and my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire talked about how we can make the UK financial sector an exemplar on deforestation and support for nature. That is my aspiration, and I believe that it is shared across the House. The Government’s amendment in lieu of Lords amendment 36 will do that.

Government amendments made throughout the passage of the Bill reflect the comprehensive scrutiny and engagement of both sides of the House, just as we have heard tonight, and the Bill is the better for it as a result. I hope that their lordships will listen to the voice of this House. It is now time to pass the Bill and begin the really important work of tailoring our financial services regulation to serve the interests of the UK, bolster our competitiveness as a global financial centre, power growth in every part of the country and every part of the economy and, above all else, deliver better outcomes for the consumers and residents we represent.

Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 7.