Financial Services and Markets Bill

Debate between Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted and Baroness Kramer

Committee stage
Monday 30th January 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak on this subject, but I very much agree with everything that has been said, especially by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, just now, about the lost opportunity if we do not take climate change and embedding it in financial services seriously. ESG investing is the big growth area at the moment, and what message are we giving if we say, “Well, we’re not really that interested in the ‘E’”? I am not sure about the “S” and the “G” either. We will potentially lose out.

It is not as if this will be an environmental tax on every business, or as if it has to be woven into every last little bit of financial services, like some chain round their neck. I spend some time looking at the general duties of the regulators, and, if I were to say anything about the positioning of this, I would say that it is not necessarily high enough up in the hierarchy because it is entirely forgettable within the layering that we have. I object to the notion that we are still in an era where we can do damage and compensate; you cannot compensate for a ruined planet. That is very much old thinking. It is almost centuries old in my book.

The FCA’s general duties state:

“In discharging its general functions, the FCA must, so far as is reasonably possible, act in a way which … is compatible with its strategic objective and … advances one or more of its operational objectives.”


What we are talking about here is a secondary operational objective, but the whole thing could be forgotten. If you ask me, it should be in the strategic objective, which is the only thing that cannot be rubbed out, because that is where we are at. We can go through this lovely list. Integrity gets rubbed out when it comes to SMEs—we have been through that debate—so climate things will be rubbed out if you want to be one of the rough-and-tumble financial firms that wants to deal with gas and oil exploration. Money is needed for that to work it all through and make sure that there are no stranded assets.

What is the big problem with what I would call a measly secondary objective? I understand the competitiveness and growth objective, which seems to be liberally sprinkled throughout to try to give it some kind of priority, but you have to balance that with sustainability in its broadest sense. All these things are about balance. We cannot have a Climate Change Act that says we will do things and then just ignore it in our biggest industry. It is the biggest case out there and we need something on it here. I will look at this again on Report and the Minister jolly well knows where I will put it.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, this has been such an enjoyable debate, although I fear that the Government may not be listening as much as they should. When I first looked at this Bill, I was absolutely shocked that the word “sustainable” was not in front of “economic growth”. That seemed quite extraordinary in the era in which we live. It is a very old-fashioned, limited kind of approach that does not recognise the significant intertwining between finance, economic growth, the future of the planet and meeting our targets on climate change and protecting nature. It is extraordinary that it was removed.

I want to pick up the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, in particular. I disagree with her purpose but in one thing she is exactly right: as this Bill is currently written, that international competitiveness objective will largely drive us to try to compete with Asian financial centres that, frankly, could not give a single hoot about climate change and nature. That is why, frankly, the way in which the Bill is currently structured is so weak. As my noble friend Lady Bowles, who knows about this even more than I do, said, we have seen how the FCA deals with secondary operating objectives—I forget the exact phrase—in the past. Occasionally, it might pay attention to them if it suits it but they are certainly not embedded in its culture and do not light the core of its thinking or drive most of the decisions it makes.

I very much support the amendments led by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and joined by others, as well as Amendment 69 in the name of my noble friend Lady Sheehan. However, I will talk in particular to two of the other amendments: first, that from the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, which asks, as the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, said, that we get this green taxonomy in our sustainable disclosure requirements fast because we desperately need that structure and strategic update.

This is in the context that the European Union already has its sustainable financial disclosure regulations; noble Lords may notice that the initials are exactly the same, bar one letter, which is part of my general concern in all this. Financial investors based in the UK are now using that as their template. As far as they are concerned, having to run one regime if they fall under EU regulations and a different one if they fall under UK regulations would be a nightmare. They are now wondering whether they are being pushed to choose between the two.

In its consultation on sustainable disclosure requirements, the FCA very helpfully provides a chart of how you can cope if you are trying to be under what is contemplated for the UK regime while also dealing with the EU regime. I honestly think that that is in there because the FCA thought that it would be helpful, but I recommend that somebody go and look at it, because it is a nightmare. You can see that it will be incredibly difficult and very costly for companies that work in both arenas to deal with these different alignments.

Dormant Assets Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted and Baroness Kramer

Committee stage
Monday 21st June 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD) [V]]

My Lords, it is quite useful to speak relatively late in this debate, because we have had a good flavour of the things that noble Lords are interested in. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, about additional assets, although I disagree with her in that I think there is room, as many other noble Lords have suggested, for a more general review clause. As has been suggested, between us perhaps we can find what shape that should have. There may also be a question over whether to load the review of potential new assets into that repeating review or to have separate reviews. That is something I have not yet resolved on in my own mind.

Amendment 65 in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Kramer concerns the report to Parliament, which is styled in the manner of a report from the Treasury and encompasses many of the features already discussed. It is obviously a probing amendment at this stage and covers a review of how the dormant assets scheme has worked, and then a review every three years.

It is probably too long not to have a review until three years from now. I almost want a review now, because an early review makes sense from the perspective of the point of transfer to Treasury responsibility and because there are now several years of experience of how the bank account side of things has progressed over time. That provides a datum against which to measure progression of other assets as they are brought in, and maybe to understand more about the differences as they emerge. I am sure that such monitoring has to be done anyway, but it is a matter of interest to Parliament. I therefore think it is reasonable to have the basis to interest Parliament with a review and to have a few more debates. I have not come across a debate on this before, though obviously I am much newer to this House than some other noble Lords.

I will highlight two specific things from my amendment. The first is the mention in proposed new subsection 1(b) of reviewing

“the effectiveness of the efforts made by financial institutions to secure that those entitled to money in inactive accounts are made aware of the fact.”

It now appears that there have been rather fewer claims on dormant assets than originally provided for—a matter we will return to in later amendments—but that does not explain what the various steps are and when they are taken.

I am curious about this from a recent personal experience when a bank used the notifier on a death certificate to locate the next of kin for one of my husband’s deceased brothers, but it was over 14 years after he died. The notifier had in fact moved, fortunately only once, and a letter eventually got to her and thence onward to my husband. I have absolutely no knowledge as to whether that is a typical time period before using such steps for tracing to take place, but it seems that the chance of success is much greater if tracing happens sooner and does not wait for when transfer to the dormant assets system is possible or imminent.

For pensions, of course, we are hoping that the pensions dashboard and other digital mechanisms will help keep people more attached to their money, but I am interested to know the point at which efforts are made, because it seems that it should not wait until that transfer point. It is thoughts such as that which lie behind seeking review of the effectiveness of efforts made by financial institutions. When things are done is as key to effectiveness as what has been done.

The second thing I want to highlight—it is really a collection rather than an individual point—are the issues in my subsection (2), in particular about the promptness of transfer of funds, their use and the value for money of the scheme. Again, as we will come on to in later amendments, there will have been caution over transfers at the start but by now there should be much more confidence about projections and risk assessments, and that should have flowed through to the efficiency and value for money of the scheme. It will also be important to follow what I would expect to be a similar kind of cautious and then maybe more aware progression for the new assets.

More generally, there seems to be a good case for review of all the matters that have been raised by the amendments in this group, and I hope that the Minister will note the interest in that and look favourably on an amendment on Report. If the Government were so inclined—as they seem to like amendments so far—to bring forward some more as a consequence of our discussion, maybe this is even something we could all work together on.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group touch on quite a wide range of topics. I hope it will be acceptable if I skim over them.

I want to start by picking up the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and even more strongly in the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, which stress the significance of—and make sure that there is capacity for—additional assets to be added to the scheme. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, summed up that particular set of problems exceedingly well. There is absolutely no reason why the Treasury should be sitting on a whole lot of dormant assets. In fact, there is no reason why anybody should be sitting on a whole lot of dormant assets.

I would like an answer to the question about lifetime ISAs that I raised in the first group. I have no idea of the size of the pool of lifetime ISAs that cannot be put into the dormant assets scheme because without amendment that would trigger a taxable event. It would be good to have clarity on whether these are tiny sums or rather big numbers; I fear it is the latter. This would be a good opportunity to put some pressure on the Treasury to sit down and write the two or three clauses needed to amend that particular set of problems.

At Second Reading I mentioned that the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, was considering tabling some amendments which would expand the scheme to include dormant betting accounts. I need to tell the Committee that he has decided not to, for some fairly straightforward reasons. After discussion with the industry, it became clear that it would not agree to participate in the scheme, which is voluntary. This is because under the current arrangements those dormant accounts can be reclassified into the profit lines of the various companies in the industry. Of course, they then pay taxes on those profits and it does impact nominally on the size of their contribution to the voluntary levy they are involved in, but it is still a meaningful source of income for them. I know that there is going to be reform of the gambling industry; this strikes me as an excellent opportunity to deal with that problem, because surely this should not be money for a company’s bottom line—these are dormant accounts, and I think all of us across the Committee would far rather see them put to good use.

I want to pick up a couple of issues raised in Amendment 65 in the name of my noble friend Lady Bowles, to which I have also added my name—particularly the paragraph she discussed on

“the effectiveness of the efforts made by financial institutions to secure that those entitled to money in inactive accounts are made aware of the fact.”

As she said, the right moment for this is as soon as the accounts begin to look dormant, not 14 years later.

I note the memo from the insurance trade body, the ABI, which most of us have probably received. It said that

“a step change in reconnection efforts will only truly be achieved through the use of Government data, which can be used to verify customers’ addresses and would vastly improve industry’s tracing efforts.”

Can the Minister comment on that? If things could be done at government level to greatly enhance reclaim, that would be useful and a comfort to all of us as we become much more aggressive about making sure that more and more assets go into the dormant assets scheme.

I move to the points made by my noble friend Lady Barker on the impact of the dormant assets scheme. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, suggested that it is not something to review, but we have to recognise that this is not a straightforward area. Since we have mandated the scheme, we surely have a responsibility to know what happens with those dormant assets and exactly what they are achieving. I make a gentle point, noting the 9 June report of the Public Accounts Committee in the other place on the distribution of Covid support for charities, which says that it is

“unclear what influence special advisers had over some funding decisions, with some charities awarded government funding despite the Department’s officials initially scoring their bids in the lowest scoring category, including four out of the five lowest scoring applications.”

This suggests that identifying who should be a recipient is not straightforward. While we hope, of course, that we have chosen the right intermediaries, that they have processes in place and that the oversight is working, I believe that Parliament cannot walk away from this—so it is necessary that a report comes back to us covering this range of issues.

We will address additionality later but, if the Minister is concerned to explain constantly that the dormant assets scheme is entirely independent from the Government, she might want to look at the Government’s own website. I was going to quote it next week and had it in front of me just a moment ago. Anybody reading it would certainly assume that the Government were entirely in control, certainly of the £150 million from dormant assets that was used to support Covid. I have the text before me now. It says:

“The government has pledged £750 million to ensure VCSE can continue their vital work supporting the country … including £200 million for the Coronavirus Community Support Fund, along with an additional £150 million from dormant bank and building society accounts.”


To anybody reading that document, the Government have made clear that this is their decision, direction and influence. If that is not the case, it should not be written in that way; the Government cannot have it both ways. This may be independent and the money distributed on the basis set out in this legislation, but we are moving towards a situation in which the Secretary of State will be able to have a great deal of direct influence over where the money is distributed by changing the uses of the funds, et cetera. All of that brings us back to reporting for clarity, to make sure that everything is transparent—that strikes me as crucial.

I very much support all the measures here which, in various ways and in different clauses, call for proper review and transparency. Many of us coming to this for the first time have been quite shocked at how little anybody seems to know about a scheme that has been controlling £1 billion in assets and will be controlling several billion more in assets, and which surely will have a very significant impact for good, ill or indifference—so we really do need answers to all our questions.

Financial Services Bill

Debate between Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted and Baroness Kramer

Committee stage
Wednesday 10th March 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, for introducing this amendment. I will be brief, because it concerns accountability, which has already been much discussed; and, like the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, I have really only just found out the intentions of the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, regarding the amendment—I was a little blindsided about the formal structure. The accountability debate, as we have progressed through this Bill, has shown more appetite to enhance Parliament’s oversight than to create other bodies. My personal view is well known, that ultimately I think more than Parliament will be needed, but if the route of just Parliament is followed, at least to start, then it is true that some of the functions—or challenges—listed in this amendment for the supervisory board could be pursued that way.

However, the other intention of this amendment is to find a way to prevent regulatory capture from within, which I understand. The mechanism to ensure that the supervisory board itself is not captured includes having public meetings and public documents—bringing in the sunshine, as the noble Lord said. This has some merit as a way to reflect the public interest that supervisors seemingly could not define and to democratise in some way—although I am not sure whether it has been correctly formulated yet. I also share the noble Lord’s concern that press releases, annual reports and even appearances before Select Committees do not give penetration beyond the regulators making assertions. That has to be so, because there is a mismatch between reports and assertions and then what we discover further down the track about what was actually going on at the same time as we received those assertions. We have obtained penetration only through reports such as the Gloucester review.

Some stronger powers would be needed to compel better information than is currently provided by regulators and made public. That will apply to all the ideas about oversight that we have been probing. I am not sure that we have found a perfect solution or combination of solutions yet, and I suspect that we will need more than one stage to do that. However, having a mechanism to prevent regulatory capture and groupthink is necessary—never mind the revolving door between the regulators and industry and the representation of industries within the regulators’ structure. The obligation to consult the public about rules is predominantly served through responses from industry. One thing that we know about consultations is that, broadly, they run on the weighing of the responses. At least that is certainly the way when it comes to government. When you have the weight of responses from industry, the relatively few that go in from public interest bodies do not necessarily hold the weight that they should.

The noble Lord, Lord Sikka, has brought forward some issues that we have to recognise and address. We need to put them into the pot of the matters that we think about as we move forward on accountability. I maintain my view that we probably will not achieve what we want simply by saying “enhance Parliament”. We will find over time that we need something else as well.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, that regulatory capture is a real risk. We certainly saw that prior to the 2008-09 crash, and many people would say that the soft hand of the regulator has ever since reflected an ongoing degree of regulatory capture. I am less focused on the revolving door issue but am much more concerned that the regulator says, “Wait a minute. If we go hard after whichever institution has done wrong, particularly if it is a major one and would involve going after senior people, we will disrupt financial stability. For that greater good, we must go softly and gently”. That approach has not served the industry or the country well.

We have talked extensively about accountability. I see this matter as an extension of that conversation. We have talked about the importance of accountability being extremely well informed in a way in which it is not today, and about the importance of transparency. Numerous ideas have come forward during the process of this Grand Committee. This is another, different approach that essentially tries to get to the same place —a regulator that has to be transparent and which provides genuine, sufficient and high-quality information that can be assessed by people of a relevant skills base, and that is accountable to Parliament. It should not be a regulator that just meets with Parliament and gives it an explanation once or twice a year but one that is actually accountable.