Interest Rate Swap Derivatives

David Heath Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Guto Bebb]

That is an important point—that the banks are possibly playing for time—which I think will be touched on in other speeches in this debate. As for the ability of businesses to try to get compensation through litigation, it is important that they take action to protect their positions. The redress scheme is a step forward. It is not working perfectly, but I would still advise businesses to protect their position from a legal point of view.

[Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Guto Bebb]

I will take a final intervention for the time being.

[Mr Heath]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and for his work. He said earlier that he could not name his constituents or the bank involved, but I will certainly name Chris and Angela Hays, whom I am trying to help, and the Royal Bank of Scotland. Is it not the case that we have seen a double whammy? We have seen a big bank using a scam on its customers and then using every device to prevaricate and procrastinate to avoid paying the money that those businesses need to survive.

[Hon. Members]

Hear, hear.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr McFadden]

That is a really important point. Having heard the speech by the hon. Member for Wyre Forest, I wonder how many of the people selling these products would have been in a position to explain the consequences to their customers. I think we know the answer.

Products were being sold, allied to another product, that may or may not have been suitable for the person buying them. The customer may or may not have fully understood what they were buying, but they were left fully with the consequences of having bought it, to the extent that we had the situations highlighted in this debate whereby the banks pursued customers to such a degree that they were put out of business. We should recognise that hedging is not always wrong, and trying to insure against risks is not always wrong, but a degree of understanding is important. People have to understand what they are buying and the product has to be suitable for them. When the lifetime of the hedging product is completely different from that of the loan, there is a serious problem about that product’s suitability.

This issue provides a really important test of the standards and culture in the banks after everything that has happened. They have to show whether they have learned the lessons of previous mis-selling scandals or whether there has been a repeat of the pattern of behaviour that we saw before in which there was first a refusal to face up to responsibility. That was followed by increasing anger among the customer base and the destruction of trust, followed by a redress scheme that might have ended up being more expensive than the one that might have been put in place earlier.

This is also a test of the FCA. We are in the early stages of a new regulatory system, as the FCA has been in existence for only about six months. The system of redress that it has proposed is an important test of whether it is going to be able to do its job in restoring trust between banks and consumers in the face of sometimes increasingly complex financial products;

[Mr Heath]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that restoring trust between customers and banks is a crucial element. Businesses must not only get redress for what they have lost but be put back into the position that they would have been in and that includes the relationship with the bank, credit lines, and everything else that makes small businesses work.

[Mr McFadden]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Culturally, we should be trying to get to a situation in which the banks have a duty of care to their customers instead of marketing and developing products that are driven by a sales and bonus culture that, in effect, says “Buyer beware” and puts all the onus on to the customer.

The proposed system of redress is based heavily on the sophistication test. That leaves a lot to be desired, because unless it is very carefully designed it cannot take account of the wide variety of types of business. Size and sophistication are not the same thing. It cannot take account of the wide variety of circumstances in which these products were sold or the wide variety of difficulties that businesses find themselves in.

Previous mis-selling scandals have been characterised by years of unnecessary delay that have caused incredible grief to those subject to them. If there is one further lesson that should be learned about interest rate swaps, it is that this process should not drag on for years. We need a system of redress that learns the lessons of the past and is implemented as quickly as possible.