The Economy
George Mudie Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
My hon. Friend the shadow Minister says that the debt has not started dropping. Will he confirm that when we left power, it was £750 billion, whereas today it is in the region of £1.4 trillion?
Chris Leslie
The Prime Minister likes to say—the Tories have said it in party political broadcasts and keep repeating it—that the national debt is somehow falling. The national debt has got larger and larger—[Interruption.] No, let me correct the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier)—there is a difference between the national debt and the deficit. The national debt has got higher and higher and higher. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Mr Mudie) was right to say that it now stands at more than £1.4 trillion. He knows that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have added more to the national debt in their four and a half years in power than the previous Administration did in 13 years.
Priti Patel
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Labour Government consigned people to lifelong dependency, and it is our welfare reforms that have enabled us to ensure that work pays and that people are trained to get back into work. Britain would have been much better off, had we not had the mess of an economy on the brink of collapse, a banking system on its knees and a budget deficit in double figures. The only way to help people in this country is to grow the British economy. When we grow the economy, wages grow and living standards improve. The Governor of the Bank of England said last year that
“ultimately the growth in real wages is going to be determined by recovery in…this economy”.
Mr Mudie
My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) asked the Minister about the unfunded £7 billion of tax cuts. They have been described by the Business Secretary as a “total fantasy”, and by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, her colleague, as a “grand deception” of the public. Does she support the Chief Secretary to the Treasury? Will she withdraw her remarks about the Labour Government’s fiscal irresponsibility and accept that the Business Secretary and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury are accusing the Chancellor of fiscal irresponsibility by suggesting that £7 billion of tax cuts?
Priti Patel
I say to the hon. Gentleman that, by growing the economy, we will see—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Nottingham East is gesticulating with his hands, which is something I know the Labour party likes to do. The Prime Minister was very clear in his party conference speech. We are all about economic growth, growing the economy, getting our budget back on track and sorting out the finances, unlike the Labour party, which just wants to spend, borrow and tax more.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
I will try to be as quick as I can, because I appreciate that Members on both sides of the House take this debate very seriously and wish to participate in it.
Government Members should be reminded that they should not try to rewrite history. I listened to the tirade by the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury over who did what in the lead-up to the current economic situation. It is worth reminding the Government that in 2008 we saw the collapse both of the Lehman Brothers in America—it is always good to remind them of that—and of Fannie Mae. The conservative US President then pumped $260 billion into the American economy and introduced quantitative easing, which shows that the economic situation was international, because many countries depend on America for trade. We should start to set the record straight. Running alongside that is the fact that in the first two years after taking office in 1997, Labour paid off large chunks of our national debt. That is conveniently forgotten by those on the Government Benches. We should also remember that the current US President had to bail out the motor car industry in America. The Conservatives tend to forget that little one as well.
It is also worth reminding the House of what we achieved. We introduced quantitative easing and low interest rates, which facilitated growth and helped mortgage payers. We capitalised the banks for the dead simple reason that people were in danger of losing their savings. The Opposition had only one answer to that matter which was to cut red tape. How many Members of the House remember the Conservatives saying that?
When we left office, the economy had grown by about 1.8%, and we had managed to retain our three star credit rating, which is why we could borrow money to try to rejuvenate the economy and keep people in jobs. The Government must be reminded of those things, because sometimes, rather than giving us the reality of the situation, they sound more like an Administration from North Korea. People often say that politicians do not reflect what is happening to them on the ground. Anybody listening to the Government today would certainly have had that impression.
No matter what the Government say, no one can dispute the fact that people are worse off by £1,600 a year. It is worth saying that the purchasing power of wages has also been reduced by between 5% and 6%. In the public sector, pay increases have been kept at 1%, which means that workers have had a wage cut of something like 5%.
In one of the most astonishing episodes of this Government, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, last week or the week before, rushed off to Europe to get the cap on bankers bonuses lifted—unbelievable! That is how out of touch the Government are with public opinion. The public want us to hold bankers to account for causing the previous recession with their prolific spending. People want something done about the bankers, and we have the Chancellor running around trying to get the cap lifted on their bonuses to reward failure. It is astonishing.
Mr Mudie
Was it not made more unacceptable by the fact that this week midwives were here lobbying for a 1% wage increase that the Government had turned down? That same Government were taking Europe to court because the cap limited bankers’ bonuses to 100% of their pay. At the same time as taking Europe to court for stopping bankers getting bonuses above 100% of their pay, the Government were not allowing midwives a 1% rise, which was recommended by their pay review body. In other words, midwives were considered to be worth nothing.
Mr Cunningham
My hon. Friend confirms what I have just said about the Government being out of touch. That is why the public think that politicians in general are out of touch with their constituents.
Before I reflect on some of my constituents’ concerns, let me talk about food banks, the number of which is at an all-time high under this Government. They were introduced to help asylum seekers; they were never intended to be used in the way that this Government are now using them. We should remind the Government of that, because it shows what is happening outside this House to people in this country.
Let me touch on the issues that affect the people of Coventry. Local government cuts are a concern. Coventry has to find £65 million over the next three years. We will have to lose 1,000 jobs. Services such as libraries and those relating to care could be cut. That is the reality of this Government’s policies; we cannot blame anybody else for the problems. Even the education service in Coventry, which backs up teachers and head teachers and gives advice, will be cut. Care for the elderly is also under threat. At a regional level—I am talking about the west midlands—we have seen cuts to the police force. The fire services have a big problem with pensions. A couple of days ago, we had a dispute in the west midlands in which people withdrew their labour. The whole of our public services has been under attack by this Government. The Government have also squandered between £3 billion and £5 billion on the reorganisation of the national health service—that is how out of touch these people really are.
When we look at the public sector in general, pay increases have been kept at 1% for three or four years, which has reduced the public purchasing power by between 5% and 6%. We have seen large-scale redundancies in the public sector. The Government call it rebalancing the economy, which shows just out of touch they are.
The last figure that I have seen suggests that 75,000 people are waiting to be assessed for the employment and support allowance, which is astonishing. The citizens advice bureau in Coventry has dealt with something like 1,300 inquiries in the past 12 months, with the ESA accounting for about 25% of its inquiries. Some of the time spent on those inquiries could be better spent helping people. There are unacceptable delays in appeals, with 40% having negative decisions overturned. People who wait more than a year to be assessed suffer financial difficulty and stress. Terminally ill people are also facing long delays, and the Government are doing nothing about it. That is how out of touch they are.
Employment tribunal fees range from £160 to £250, and a tribunal hearing costs £950, which makes a total of £1,200. That has to be paid by people who cannot afford it. I have constituency cases in which people cannot get proper legal advice because of the cost. The TUC report shows that there has been a fall of 79% in overall claims, which includes an 80% fall in the number of women pursuing sex discrimination cases. That is what is going on under this Government. The CAB has reported that seven out of 10 potentially winnable cases are not being pursued. Then we have the issue of zero-hours contracts. I will not go into any of the details on those now as they have been well and truly rehearsed over the years. I welcome increases in employment, but what we have are jobs that do not even pay a minimum wage. With zero-hour contracts, people cannot plan for a holiday or get a mortgage. That is the reality.
More and more people in this country are in work but on very low wages. What good is work if a person is still in poverty? People should earn enough in their job to be able to live a decent life, and more should be done to make firms pay a living wage.
Office for Budget Responsibility (Manifesto Audits)
George Mudie Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con)
I want to bring a different point of view to this debate, and a point of principle. I am against this motion in principle, and I hope to clearly set out why. First, however, may I gently say that if I were compiling a list of colleagues in this House who had the skills-mix to bring together a cross-party consensus, I am not sure the shadow Chancellor would be top of my list, in the same way as I would not want to invite King Herod to babysit my children. [Interruption.] I apologise if that is a little harsh, but that idea did not ring true on the Government Benches.
This debate is about restoring the British electorate’s lost credibility and trust in the political classes, and certainly after our disastrous decision—as I now see it—in 2003 to go to war on a false premise, and after the expenses scandal of 2009, there is no doubt that credibility and trust do need to be restored. I have to say that I do not think this motion is the way to do it, however, because we will never restore trust in ourselves if we are constantly contracting-out to a third party our credibility and integrity. If we are not careful, we will simply become elected go-betweens buying in ideas and policies from independent sources. We have to build up a track record of trustworthiness in our own right.
The message the motion sends to the British electorate is that we do not trust ourselves in the run-up to next May’s elections to tell them the truth about our financial plans. That is what we are saying; the message we are sending out is that we do not trust ourselves. If we do not trust ourselves to send out a message of credibility and integrity, why on earth should we expect the electorate to have any trust in us? We may have access to the finest brains in the country, who can help to shape our spending plans; none the less, we still cannot be trusted to ensure that those plans are accurate, so we have to get them independently verified. The motion edges us towards accepting that nobody can ever trust a politician on anything without independent verification. I do not want to go there. That is a very slippery slope that I do not want to go down.
The trouble with subcontracting out to independent organisations is that it undermines the very essence of our democracy: accountability. If my electorate do not like me, they can remove me. They might well do so next May—we will see—but at least I am accountable to them. I am afraid that the OBR is not accountable to them. So the answer to the lack of trust in British politics is not to subcontract out our veracity. The answer—it will take a lot of hard work—is simply to tell the truth and stick with it; to make promises and keep them; to check our figures again and again before we set them out, and to make sure they are accurate.
Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
I am listening intently to the hon. Gentleman. He is saying that the House should not subcontract out; is he saying the same of the Government? If he is saying to the Opposition parties that the OBR cannot vet economic policies, presumably, the same goes for the Government. Is he confirming, therefore, that he would do away with the OBR?
Mr Streeter
I was about to make the point that I hope the OBR will be only a temporary institution. I am probably the only person who thinks that. I was first elected to this House in 1992—not a million years after when the hon. Gentleman was first elected—and my recollection is that, 22 years ago, Treasury figures were trusted and taken almost as gospel. I am not pinning the blame on any particular Government, but the history of certain previous Governments massaging figures and forecasts and announcing the same money over and over again as though it was new money has completely undermined confidence in Treasury forecasts and credibility. Of course, we have also had the 2007-08 crash.
There is no doubt that the OBR has helped to restore confidence in and the credibility of Treasury figures, not among our electorate, most of whom have never heard of it—they would not know what it was if it hit them in the face—but among opinion-formers and commentators. However, I hope that it is a temporary solution and that we can in due course work our way back to good old-fashioned professional Treasury trustworthiness, like welcoming back an old friend.
The second reason why I will oppose the motion is that doing this right now would probably mess up the OBR. Changing its mandate would undermine the important work it is already carrying out. Other experienced groups—the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Institute of Economic Affairs—pore over our manifestos in the run-up to an election, and they will communicate their findings to the electorate, as they always have done. Why not ask this question? Why stop at the OBR and our financial plans? If we are to subcontract out our veracity, why stop there? Why not ask the Electoral Commission to verify our constitutional proposals? Why not invite NHS England to review our health policies? Why not invite the United Nations to oversee the section in our manifestos on foreign policy? Where will all this end? There is no point in continuing down this road, unless we are saying that although we are elected to do a certain job—to take decisions and to make ourselves accountable to the electorate for the promises we make and the decisions we take—we do not wish to do it any longer.
If I am saying that this is not the right way to restore lost confidence and trust, what is? Most of us recognise over our lifetimes that when a reputation is lost, it takes a long time to put it right and a long period of penance. But there is no short-cut: it is about doing the right thing and sticking with it. In our case, it is about saying one thing and doing it: delivering on our promises, testing our figures before we release them—transparency is the key to this—and collectively showing our workings and not just the end policy. There is no short-cut. We have to slog our way back to respectability.
I understand the reasons behind the motion, but I really believe that it is ill-conceived and would not help us to restore credibility and lost trust and confidence among the British electorate.
Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
Before Members make their address, they should answer this question for the general public to hear—do they agree to use the OBR to examine the tax and spending policies of the major political parties? If Members are against that, they should tell the public. That is seen by the OBR, the Treasury Committee and the House as the main purpose of the exercise. The hon. Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter) said he would do away with the OBR, but that is what the OBR does for the Government. If Members are moved by the non-existent Chancellor and the speeches from the Government Front Bench, they should ask what they are being talked into. They are being talked into reducing the ability of the general public to take informed decisions on the economic policies of the political parties—all political parties—at general election time.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is speaking with his typical eloquence. Is it not the case that for all the arguments that we have heard about what Mr Chote may or may not have said and all the arguments about timing and what Bills can or cannot be brought before Parliament, Tory Front Benchers do not want the proposal to be implemented because they put Tory party interest ahead of the national interest?
Mr Mudie
I follow my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor in not wishing to inflame matters or become party political. We are speaking about an issue that is very important to the general public and a first step to giving Back-Bench Members an input into Budgets, as the Americans, the Dutch and other Parliaments do, whereas we are simply used as voting fodder when a Chancellor presents a Budget. This is a first step and it is an important step.
It is outrageous that we are turning the motion down to protect the OBR. Members should not allow the Government to hide behind the OBR or to besmirch and lessen the reputation of Robert Chote. Robert Chote and his colleagues have carried out extremely important work. Their forecasts are not always right, but they make them sincerely and within the finite probabilities. The OBR is a very important institution. When it was first established, I thought the Chancellor had taken an extremely significant step, though not a big enough one.
Sadly, the Minister and some of my colleagues on the Treasury Committee have taken quotes out of Robert Chote’s letter of January and the minutes of the March meeting of the Treasury Committee. That should not be done. Robert Chote was asked by the distinguished Chairman of the Select Committee:
“Can I begin by asking you, do you in principle support the OBR having a role in the costing of political parties’ manifestos in the run-up to an election?”
Robert Chote replied:
“Yes, I do.”
He went on to say that this route
“does offer the prospect of improving the quality of policy development for individual parties and it potentially improves the quality of public debate in the run-up to an election”.
The Chairman, putting his finger on the real issue, which is time, asked Mr Chote:
“Do you think that you could get this job done between now and the general election?”
Mr Chote replied:
“It would be difficult but by no means impossible”
and he spelled out that the decisions to enable the OBR to do that must be taken by this summer.
Mr Mudie
No. I shall finish my point. I have quoted what Mr Chote said, but Back-Bench Members do not necessarily have a full picture of all the details and discussions that have gone on. For the Minister to say to the shadow Chancellor, “I will only believe this if you put it in writing” is quite disgraceful.
Twice, to my knowledge, Robert Chote was asked in the Committee whether he wanted to go ahead with this idea, whether he thinks it would harm his reputation and whether he has time to do it before the election—we have gone through the whole gamut—and the answer on each occasion was yes.
The Minister used the word “insuperable”, which she got from Robert Chote’s January letter, but Mr Chote did not say that the problem was insuperable: he said that the issues that she has spelt out “are certainly not insuperable”. The distinguished Chair of the Treasury Committee lured out of Robert Chote the information that tells us what is going on. He said:
“As you know, Mr Chote, I have been very keen on this idea for 20 years”,
and that was accepted; he has been. He then said:
“Have you…spoken to the Chancellor”
on this, and Robert Chote said that he had, but the Chancellor was not in favour of it for this or that reason. But then—and this goes to the core of why we have a space on the Treasury Bench—the Chair said:
“Given my enthusiasm for this idea, George’s position has been consistent but always unsupportive.”
We are not talking about there being no time to do it this year; the Chancellor of the Exchequer does not want it to happen, full stop. In other words, he does not want the public to go into a general election having the full, objective, independent assessment of all the political parties’ economic policies, and that is a disgrace.
Oral Answers to Questions
George Mudie Excerpts(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Andrea Leadsom
Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the priorities of this Government has been to ensure proper scrutiny of directors’ pay and remuneration, so the changes in the Prudential Regulation Authority guidelines introduced last year, strengthening improvements made by the Labour Government, are designed to do just that—to put us at the forefront of scrutiny and transparency in pay for banking.
Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
May I offer my congratulations to the hon. Lady on her much-deserved promotion? The whole House welcomed the Chancellor’s intervention to stop loss-making RBS paying these bonuses to its investment bankers. However, it has now emerged that RBS intends to pay that money as allowances. What is the Government’s intention on this matter?
Andrea Leadsom
May I first thank the hon. Gentleman for his congratulations and say how very much I enjoyed working with him for several years on the Treasury Committee? As with many Opposition Members, there has been a lot of agreement between us on issues of competition and minimising pay. With regard to allowances, the key point to remember is that bonuses at RBS are down 68% overall since 2009. The figure we want to focus on is the restriction in pay and bonuses across that bank.
Holiday Pricing
George Mudie Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) on securing this debate, but I also congratulate my generous hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), because she chairs the Committee that gave him this debate, which is on a serious problem.
I enjoyed the speech from the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), which was sensible and humorous, as well as logical and grounded, and that is the approach we should take. There is a problem, but two years ago we would not have debated it, because other problems were forcing their way to this place. What on earth has happened? The person in this room who I feel most sorry for is the poor Minister from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. It has been seen as a BIS problem, but it is not; we have been forced here by a problem caused by the great Department for Education. If anyone should be explaining why we are going over all these problems, it is a Minister for Education.
I disagree with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley on the Select Committee point. This matter does not need or deserve a Select Committee inquiry. The Secretary of State for Education should just repeal the regulations that he slipped through when nobody was looking. They have genuinely caused so much pain across the country. I can see that some people are unhappy, so I accept the petition, but I do not accept the remedy. I hope the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley will forgive me for saying this, but it brings back memories of when Shirley Williams—she is Lady Williams now—was the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection. Are we actually suggesting that we could have a cap?
The Guardian took a snapshot of the seasonal price differences. This is free advertising for these institutions, but four nights in lodge accommodation at Center Parcs Woburn Forest, Bedfordshire, has a 51% increase between summer term time and the summer holiday. Disneyland Paris has a 7% increase. It is not about foreign flights and foreign people; it is about business and supply and demand. If we try to regulate prices, we will land ourselves in trouble. A King once said, “Bugger Bognor!” I do not know if I will get into trouble for saying that, but if the King can say it, I think I can say it. Four nights at the Butlin’s resort in Bognor Regis have a 99% increase in cost between the week before schools go off and the week after.
Andy Sawford
I agree that the regulations that the Government created to place fines on parents have exacerbated the problem, but does my hon. Friend share my concern that the Government have effectively strengthened the monopoly in the holiday period by making it increasingly difficult for parents to have any kind of flexibility? Often, we are not talking about parents taking their child out of school for two weeks year in, year out, but children missing a couple of days or even an afternoon to get a slightly cheaper flight. That flexibility has been lost.
Mr Mudie
I will catch the hon. Lady’s eye in a moment, if I may. My wife is a head teacher and has been a teacher since I married her. Every family holiday that we have taken has been at the most expensive time. We were both salaried, so we could afford it, but I understand what happens to families on the breadline or families struggling with their mortgage or short-term unemployment. If they have children and want to take a holiday—the figures show that it does not matter whether it is abroad or in this country—they will face inflated prices in the summer holiday.
We are talking about doing things for schools and how we would work out whether to give kids a week off and whether we would need regulations, but I do not know what regulations we would need to regulate prices. The Labour Government tried that in the 1960s and failed miserably. There are offshoots to the issue, because with railways, we have the choice of travelling at peak times or off-peak. The difference in prices is clear. If someone is booking a hotel in London, a Tuesday will have a different price from a weekend. That is business and supply and demand.
Penny Mordaunt
I thank both hon. Gentlemen for letting me intervene. We are all here because we know that the public are aggrieved by this issue and we want to do something to alleviate that. On the drive to attack the Department for Education, I can point to schools that have no problem exercising discretion under the regulations for members of the armed forces and all sorts of other exceptional cases. The real problem is those who do not have an exceptional case, but might have relatives living in a particular country. They might not have the choice that others have over their holiday destination. That is an issue for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. In particular, it should look at the costs of flights and whether the mark-up is reasonable.
Mr Mudie
I would not challenge the last part, but I still think that we would leave the regulators with a difficult job unless there was a specific factor—the Olympics were mentioned. We would have some difficulty. As has been suggested, we must take the issue in the round.
It is easy to criticise the people running the business, but they have to make a profit to stay afloat. If they are running below capacity in the other 46 weeks of the year, they have to even things out when they hit capacity, just to stay in business. Therefore I see some genuine difficulty in doing that.
I would like to come on to the Department for Education, because that is where I think the problem lies. I thank and congratulate the people who started the e-petition. Interestingly, the individual who is famous for starting the e-petition was not complaining about foreign holidays, but Center Parcs, in this country.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. I want to flag with him another sort of case that has been raised by a parent in my constituency who has an autistic child. They struggle to go on holiday abroad when it is busy and when there are lots of other kids, so they are in a specific position. I am not sure whether that would be deemed to be exceptional, but that example makes the case that there needs to be more flexibility in the education system, as he has said.
Does my hon. Friend agree that, if we are to be proper in our analysis, while we must think of the cost that is lost from the amount being paid for a child’s education, we must also think of the opportunity cost of that child’s time with their parents?
Mr Mudie
I will answer my hon. Friend when I come on to the DFE. I was thanking the people who have signed the petition, because they have performed a great feat in putting the matter in the public consciousness and the political arena. However, we would be making a grave mistake if we chased after the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. From the answer it gave to the e-petition, I am sure that the Department would not bother if we chased after it, because its answer is quite dusty, but I have some sympathy for it, as the people who should be answering are in the DFE.
Dr Julian Lewis
I am slightly conflicted over the whole issue. The hon. Gentleman made the point about people needing to save money. A constituent of mine, Joy Drake, took her children on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday and saved £1,000 on the air fares. Does he not agree that, if the issue is left to individual head teachers and schools, they will be put in an invidious position in deciding which families get to save on the air fares and which families do not? Therefore, should we not look at something that enables the general discretion to be applied—other than, of course, bereavements and similar things—as to when the holiday is taken by everyone, rather than just flexibility on an individual case by an individual head teacher?
[Mrs Annette Brooke in the Chair]
Mr Mudie
That is an important point.
One of the things that has come from this e-petition is a request from the travel and tourism industries to get together with the Government and local authorities to see if they can work something out to alleviate the problem. The option of regional staggering has been mentioned on more than a couple of occasions. That is one thing that the industry has suggested it wishes to talk about. It has asked for talks, and I look to BIS for an acceptance of that invitation and to get the industry around the table as soon as possible to start talks. I say that not because a quick solution would be forthcoming, but because it will take such a time to get a solution that the sooner they start, the better.
[Mr Andrew Turner in the Chair]
Let me return to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern). In this place, roles are reversed at a bewildering speed. If I was standing here giving the education policy of a future Labour Government, I would be told, “You don’t trust the professionals. Leave it to the doctors and teachers”. When the solution—this is coming from a Labour MP—is about trusting head teachers, suddenly that is not enough.
I have discussed this matter—more than anything else this past week—with my wife, who is a head teacher, and all I get is common sense. None of us would be prepared to stand here and say this, particularly as two weeks ago, my wife had Ofsted in at 24 hours’ notice, but head teachers have great discretion, great judgment— on the whole—and great empathy. They have great relations with parents and know them. They can look at the attendance records and do all the things that have been suggested as a matter of common sense and as part of being a good head running a good school. I would be content to leave it at that.
I would like hon. Members to say if they had a problem with kids’ attendance when families could take an in-term holiday. Where were the letters about that? Where were the public complaints? They were not there—it was not a problem. What did the Secretary of State for Education do? I do not want to make the issue political; I have been gently asking him, for once in his life, just to act with a bit of humility and take the measure off the table, and I do not want to make it easy for him not to do it by being political. That is all he needs to do, because the situation was okay.
Due to the fuss that has gone on and the hurt that has happened, why should the Government not just take the measure off the table? The Secretary of State has caused it, so he has in his hands a remedy. If he wants change, he should get together with all the parties. Even the travel trade is saying that it has to lay people off because the measure is affecting its business.
What have the Government done? They have put through the measure without any real consultation. The first bad thing the Secretary of State did was to push through the measure to operate from last September, but people had already made their arrangements for holidays. They had taken the advice of the travel trade and got in quick, seeking the cheapest bookings. Suddenly, it was illegal to do so. There was no consultation. The measure was peremptorily introduced, smuggled through the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.
The second bad thing is that the Secretary of State will fine the parents £60 if they do it, and it could be £120 if they are late in paying.
Mr Mudie
I see you nodding, Mr Turner. It could get worse than that, because both parents could be fined, so the total fine could be £240.
For some of the parents of children in my wife’s school £60 or £120 is more than they have to keep their family fed, clothed and housed. If you think that that is bad, Mr Turner, the Secretary of State has made the action a criminal offence. Not only will parents get fined for taking the chance to bond with their kids on a beach somewhere, they can get a criminal record because of it. It is not just a case of what happens with picking chewing gum up off the floor, and neighbourhood wardens giving people a £60 fine: there is a criminal record. There is no easy solution. We need the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to get talks going, but the measure should also be withdrawn.
What is there to worry about in this? Ofsted inspectors can go into schools—the professionals, no matter how good they are, are frightened stiff of Ofsted—and see all the records. They can go through every one and look at whether the parents of a child with an exemplary attendance record will be fined because, to go away together, they must take the time during term. Ofsted has attendance and performance figures. All the necessary machinery is available to enable a responsible head to take the decisions in the full knowledge of what happens in the school and, most importantly, to be answerable to Ofsted for which youngsters have been given permission. I hope that BIS will get talks going, and that the Secretary of State for Education will withdraw the statutory instrument.
Jenny Willott
I am happy to ask colleagues to write to my hon. Friend, because clearly I haven’t got a clue about that. As a Minister in BIS, I do not know what discussions Ofsted and the Department for Education have had, but I am happy to pass the request on to colleagues in the Department for Education.
Mr Mudie
Could the Minister ask the relevant Education Minister to tell the people who have attended the debate whether a child who has an excellent attendance record can have a holiday with the rest of their family only outside term-time? Can the fact that they have a perfect attendance record and so on be accepted as exceptional? That is the dilemma that heads face: the problem is not exceptional events such as funerals, but the year in, year out problem of those who cannot afford a family holiday unless they take it outside term time. Will the Minister reassure heads that that can be regarded as exceptional?
Jenny Willott
When we contact colleagues in the Department for Education, I am sure that we can send them a copy of Hansard so that they can respond to the hon. Gentleman and others who have raised that point. When head teachers decide whether to grant absence, they must be able to take into account individual circumstances such as the examples raised today of parents in the military or the police, or cases in which a close relative has died. We cannot legislate for such instances; they must be left to the head teacher’s discretion.
Several hon. Members have asked for head teachers to be given clearer guidance on what constitutes exceptional circumstances, and the point has been made that it is difficult to balance the provision of clearer guidance with allowing head teachers discretion and trusting them to make the right call. I will refer that matter to colleagues in the Department for Education.
Oral Answers to Questions
George Mudie Excerpts(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Sajid Javid
I congratulate the Church Commissioners on their role and the expertise that they bring. Given that my hon. Friend is a commissioner, I take this opportunity to congratulate him too. He is right to highlight the fact that the previous Government’s changes to financial regulation contributed significantly to the banking crisis in 2008. That caused misery and hardship for millions of hard-working families, yet I notice that the Opposition have yet to apologise.
Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
The Minister will agree that a level playing field is important for competition. Why, then, did the Chancellor make the misguided offer to the Chinese Government to give light-touch regulation to Chinese banks operating in this country? If we are going to have competition, will that approach be extended to all other banks?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Gentleman will know that such decisions are made by the independent regulators—in this case, the Prudential Regulation Authority, which has made the reasons for the decision absolutely clear.
Oral Answers to Questions
George Mudie Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Gauke
My hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right to raise this issue, which the Government have focused on extensively in recent months. We have consulted on what we can do in this area, and I hope that we will be able to report back on that shortly. We have also strengthened the disclosure of tax avoidance schemes regime, making it increasingly difficult for people to peddle these artificial, contrived schemes that involve people not paying their fair share. We do not think that that is right and we are doing something about it.
Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
Two years ago Christine Lagarde gave the Treasury 6,000 names of UK nationals using Swiss bank HSBC to avoid paying tax. Two years later, one of them has been convicted. Is the case closed on the other 5,999, and if so, why?
Mr Gauke
I am not going to get drawn into individual cases, but I will say that under this Government the number of prosecutions will increase fivefold. We are giving additional resources to HMRC to help to deal with prosecutions, and we have strengthened its offshore team. Our record on dealing with tax evasion—dealing with those who have cheated the system—is one of which we are proud, and it compares very favourably with the record that we inherited.
Financial Services and Markets
George Mudie Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
I rise to put two points to the House. First, I object to the statutory instrument on a matter of principle, which I will outline. Secondly, I want to ask the Minister why he included residential property among the first prudential tools. Some of the tools make sense—including commercial, and, obviously, investment and financial services—but the residential property one does not.
Specifically, I object to how we are dealing with discussion, debate and decisions on the macro-prudential tools. I have constantly raised the matter in the Treasury Committee and the Independent Commission on Banking, and I have raised it on the Floor of the House with the Chancellor. As my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) said, these can be seen as boring matters, but it is accepted that they could lead to decisions that affect the standard of living of many of our constituents; affect the future of industries such as the construction industry; and affect the economy. The decisions will be taken by non-elected individuals and tonight appears to be the House’s only opportunity to debate and challenge the measures.
The matter is being dealt with by statutory instrument. In other words, we have 90 minutes to discuss the measures and cannot amend them. We can only vote against the whole measure if we disagree with it or feel strongly about any part of it. The measures are proposed by the Government. If Opposition Members have strong feelings, they have only one chance to influence the decision, and they must turn down the whole order. That is a nonsensical procedure.
I have raised the matter with the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Chamber. He indicated that he understood the measure’s sensitivity and importance and that he had an open mind. He accepted that the usual channels would deal with it. I pay tribute to him for placing the order on the Chamber’s agenda rather than dealing with it upstairs in Committee in the normal way. That is a step forward. The FPC is made up of unelected individuals, but they set policy, so the statutory instrument is a pretty disgraceful way to deal with the matter. Statutory instruments and secondary legislation are not supposed to deal with policy or principle—they deal with measures that need to be adjusted as time passes. They are not a way to decide things of such importance.
The Treasury Committee raised the matter with the Minister when they discussed macro-economics. He seemed to accept what we said and I have a quote if he challenges me. However, his approach to the question—sadly, because he is a well regarded Minister—was this: “We’ve appointed these individuals and should not second-guess them.” That is a recipe for disaster.
The Treasury Committee yesterday heard evidence from the Monetary Policy Committee, including officers and non-executives from the Bank of England. It was a hairy meeting, because those individuals take decisions, but there was no sign that the battle of inflation is definitely winning the argument against the battle for growth. If we read the words of the former Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), and see the present Chancellor, we can see the difficulty they have had in getting so-called independent bodies to accept the sensitivity of some of their decisions. It is an impossible task. The bodies shelter under their independence. Both Chancellors have experienced this, and if they want bodies to do something they feel is necessary, the issue of independence is thrown back in their face: “You gave us independence and therefore you should not interfere”. I am worried about this issue, which is why I am taking the opportunity to put it on the record.
On residential matters, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East referred, one of the macro-prudential tools discussed in the Financial Policy Committee and dropped was loan-to-value mortgages. Most of us were pleased when that was dropped, but it was a runner and was being discussed in Financial Services Authority circles for some 18 months. I am certain, from watching the industry, that that had a great effect on the industry’s decisions—it was trying to second-guess the FSA. The business of 90% and 80% mortgages had a devastating effect on individuals and couples who were trying to buy a house and begin family life. They were unable to take that step because the regulator was signalling to the regulated that they should be going in the direction of 90% and 80% at a time when the economy was dying for the construction industry to pick up and start building houses, which would have had a roll-on effect of people buying carpets, furniture, curtains and so on. The regulator was conditioning the decisions and behaviour of the regulated—it is that sensitive.
On a higher level, we are going through this business with the Monetary Policy Committee. As someone said—maybe in a crowded House this might have an effect—when an individual or a couple cannot get a mortgage, they do not blame the building society. When the building societies say it is the Monetary Policy Committee, they come to see us and we say it is the Monetary Policy Committee. The ordinary person in the street will ask, “Who set up the Monetary Policy Committee? Who is it answerable to?” It is answerable to us, but it is not really answerable to us because there is no real opportunity to make things happen. A yearly remit from the Chancellor is hardly a procedure for democratic accountability, and we are prevented from dealing with these matters on the Floor of the House in order to indicate our displeasure and unhappiness. I see the Treasurer of Her Majesty’s Household, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Mr Randall), a very prominent member of the usual channels sitting in the Chamber. I hope he is listening to this debate and gets people to think about it.
I want to ask the Minister why on earth residential property was placed in the initial order. This is 2013. The Minister is as anxious as I am—probably more than I am—to see houses being built and sold and the whole procedure started. There is no question of any systemic risk in the foreseeable future. Even when the problems were at their worst, there was no systemic risk, just an industry with problems. I accept that some banks that had over-extended on their loans had real problems. I accept the point about the commercial side and the likes of RBS and HBOS—it was on a greater scale and of greater concern than on the residential side—and the point about investment and financial houses. However, for the MPC to start worrying—in shades of the FSA—about systemic risk in the construction industry spreads unnecessary alarm.
Mr Mudie
I see the Minister nodding. I am sure that he will explain, but that is the sort of thing I am talking about. If the loan-to-value ratio had been in this statutory instrument—if the interim FPC had stuck at it—I think this place would have been full and the Minister would have had little choice but to allow the thing through. None of us could have tabled an amendment stating how important it was that the rest of it went through; as politicians and constituency MPs, we would have had to vote against the whole thing to prevent it from happening. I hope that the Minister will consider both those issues.
Greg Clark
Let me respond to the points made by the hon. Members for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) and for Leeds East (Mr Mudie). They made some thoughtful points about the House’s ability to scrutinise the powers that will be available to the FPC, particularly those relating to residential mortgages. Their comments went to the heart of the dilemma behind the setting up of these institutions and powers. The purpose of macro-prudential policy is—to adopt the analogy often used—to take the punch bowl away from the party just when the guests are getting over-exuberant. For the first time, there will be a group of people with the explicit task of monitoring conditions and taking a considered view of what is in the interests of financial stability but which might not be at the forefront of the minds of the people participating, either as practitioners, commercial players or politicians.
The hon. Member for Nottingham East acknowledged the consensus on the need to set up these institutions of macro-prudential policy, but that does not take away from the fact that their establishment is designed deliberately to introduce a necessary tension into the debates. The question arises, then, of whether these powers can be exercised appropriately—for example, whether the House has appropriate scrutiny and discretion over them.
One reason why we have initially given the FPC a minimal—I think he will agree—set of powers through a statutory instrument being debated on the Floor of the House is that these things should be properly scrutinised. We timed this debate so that it could follow the hearing of the Treasury Select Committee, of which the hon. Member for Leeds East is a member and which has considered this matter in recent days. Our intention is that these things should be properly scrutinised and well considered. It is for the Government to bring forward proposals about what the tools should be. Future proposals will be put before the House, and Ministers will be accountable to the Committee and the House. Indeed, the statutory instrument is available for debate. As the hon. Members would acknowledge, we have not loaded it with so many different provisions as to give the House a Hobson’s choice.
Mr Mudie
As a member of the Treasury Committee, I hear it said all the time that we have the ability to scrutinise, and that people are accountable to us. That carries little weight with me; it does not impress me. This is ultimately a question of who takes the decisions when a Minister or a Chancellor—such as the last Chancellor—going through a crisis meets an unelected Governor and asks him to do something in the interests of the economy and the future of the country, and the Governor says no. That is what we are talking about.
Greg Clark
Let me go on to describe some of the other elements involved. I said that we had committed to bringing to the House particular measures that could be debated. The hon. Gentleman has anticipated one such possibility. He was correct in suggesting that, if we had been proposing a power over the loan-to-value rate, the House would have been substantially more occupied than it is at the moment, that such a matter would engage Members and that there would have been a fuller debate on the matter. However, this is not the only mechanism by which scrutiny can take place.
The secondary objective of the Financial Policy Committee has been mentioned. Through the scrutiny of the House and of the hon. Gentleman’s Committee, that objective has been set up, and it means that the FPC’s duty to support the court of the Bank of England in achieving its financial stability objective is subject to supporting the policy of Her Majesty’s Government, including their objectives for growth and employment. That is significant. That power is there for a reason, and we expect it to be used. It requires the Chancellor of the day to write annually to the FPC to set out what he expects it to have regard to in making its decisions. The House will have the ability through that mechanism to scrutinise and take a view on whether Ministers—in this case, the Chancellor—are giving the right directions to the Committee in terms of what it should understand the Government’s economic objectives to be. I believe that the mention of growth and employment will address one of the concerns that has been raised.
It is worth noting that the measures we are talking about relate to peacetime; they are not for use in a crisis. The Chancellor will retain the ability to give directions to the Bank in a time of financial crisis, for example, when that is in the public interest. The measures before us are for use in the normal course of events.
There will also be a requirement on the FPC to account for its decisions. It will appear before the Treasury Committee after it has held its meetings and published its reports, and it will have to explain the basis of its recommendations and directions. It has made a commitment to setting out in advance the types of indicators that it will bring to bear on those questions, so there will be no arbitrary use of discretionary powers. The committee will seek to be predictable in regard to the types of instrument that it will use.
On the format of statutory instruments, the parliamentary Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee will take a view on whether the choice of procedure is appropriate. I think that the hon. Gentleman will approve of the fact that the affirmative resolution procedure is to be used in these circumstances.
Let me address the hon. Gentleman’s point about residential property, which is of course a matter of interest to our constituents. It has been pointed out that all these matters have a bearing on our constituents. I think he would acknowledge that any review of the recent financial crisis—and, indeed, of financial crises around the world—would note that housing bubbles are often associated with the kind of over-exuberance and excess that contributes to financial instability, which the arrangements that we have in place are designed to address. It is appropriate for the powers to be there. These sectors have been debated at the European level, and this is one of a limited number of sectors for which it is anticipated that the national regulators should have a sectoral power.
I think it important to note that the power to make recommendations and give directions is available to the FPC, but that there is no requirement that it should get in the business of micro-managing these sectors. It seems to make sense, on the basis of history, for this initial set of sectors to be included. The powers are there, as I say, but there has been some debate about whether they should be more specific in respect of loan-to-value powers, which is not part of the proposals. It is no part of the Government’s purpose, as the hon. Gentleman rightly anticipates, to prevent what we hope will be an increase in home ownership and house building as a result of the order.
Let me deal with some points raised by the hon. Member for Nottingham East. He forcefully made the point that we need an explanation from the Financial Policy Committee of why it is using its powers. This should not take place in a vacuum or in secret. I completely agree, and this is provided for in the Financial Services Act, as the hon. Gentleman, a veteran of the Committee, knows. Section 9S requires the FPC to give an explanation of the reasons for its use of direction powers, and the explanation needs to be published in the financial stability report and it needs to account to Parliament for its use of the powers.
Let me pick up one of the hon. Gentleman’s earlier points, which was not quite right. He mentioned credit card repayments, for example. The powers provided for in the statutory instrument do not go into that level of detail, and the FPC will not have those powers and they are certainly not in this order—and neither are the loan-to-value powers available.
The secondary objective addresses the hon. Gentleman’s point about the necessary symmetry of these arrangements. Macro-prudential regulation is certainly about damping down excessive exuberance when it takes place, but on the other side of the cycle, by retreating from some of the provisions by varying requirements downwards, it also has the power to reverse the dampening of those sectors.
Financial Services
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Greg Clark
I do agree with that. The work that my hon. Friend’s commission is continuing to do on the culture of banking is important and will inform the further reforms that we need to make. I do not think that we should be shy of setting high standards in this country; in fact, it is necessary to do so. At a time when trust is in flight across the world, there is an opportunity for the City of London to establish itself as a haven of probity and safety in a volatile world. High standards, far from being a threat or a danger to our financial institutions, are necessary for their continued prosperity, which I and the whole House want to see flourish.
Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
The Minister has referred to a need for cultural change. One culture that it is necessary to change is the banks’ unwillingness to lend to small businesses. The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills has spoken today about RBS and the lack of lending to small businesses, even with the recent initiatives. Have the Government given any thought to using the 350 RBS branches that they have to dispose of for the business bank, thereby giving it a regional and local presence so that small businesses can go to it, discuss loans and hopefully agree them?
Greg Clark
I very much agree with the hon. Gentleman that we should have more local, business-focused banks in this country. I hope that we can recover the personal knowledge, service and understanding of the needs of business that branches used to have in abundance. RBS is not nationalised, so we cannot direct it in the way that he suggests. However, the reforms that we are making, particularly in the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill, emphasise the importance of increasing competition and of having new entrants. As he knows, some of the divestments that have been required recently have brought entrants into the market that have concentrated on lending to small and medium-sized businesses. That is a force for good, but we need—and I want to see—much more of it.
HM Revenue and Customs
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Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that closing offices is a false and unfair economy, because it limits the opportunity for face-to-face discussion in settling complex tax matters, which now have to be decided by either calling a call centre, going online or writing?
John McDonnell
That is both frustrating for the person who is trying to identify what they should properly pay and counter-productive given the lost revenue to the HMRC.
Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) on securing this important debate. I want to start by asking why it is necessary to deal with some of the problems. In an age of austerity, particularly, every pound matters and every pound not collected means front-line cuts in operating Departments, such as the Department for Education, the Home Office and so on. It is important to get all the money in. In this country, people respect taxpayers and the need to pay tax, but they demand that the system is fair and efficient.
The system is failing in two ways. I do not think, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (John Robertson) said, that it is a question of management. People from HMRC have appeared before the Treasury Committee, and they are largely hard-working and trying to do their best, but that is difficult because of cuts imposed on the department by the last Government and the present one. There is total disregard for the fact that, when money is cut, 10 times the revenue is cut. The problem is to face up to money.
On efficiency, the withdrawal of finance affects HMRC’s efficiency and ordinary people’s perception of how it treats them. The effect of staff cuts is self-evident and disastrous on a scale that is totally unacceptable. On paper, it may seem that office cuts involve just a bit of money and a bit of real estate, but that is not so. For many people—the elderly, those with complicated problems, or those who just have trouble filling in forms—in many towns and regions, offices provide their only chance to meet face to face, and that is the point. Because of those savings and staff cuts, the department is taking the decision for ordinary people that they either go online, telephone, or write, and they never get a face-to-face explanation of complicated tax matters. Call centres are fine, but people do not know who they are talking to. Once people think about what has been said and want to go back, they are starting the conversation afresh.
It is a criticism of the department and the chief executive that when she went to the Public Accounts Committee last week, she said that an HMRC review showed that customers believed a five-minute wait was acceptable. I do not know of any politician in this Chamber who would hang on a phone for five minutes to get an answer, especially when it is an automated answer that goes through information and costs money, and when people do get through, they are asked the same questions. That is about efficiency, and it is putting people off. Some money would put that right.
Many Members have referred to the unfairness in tax avoidance and tax evasion—and tax evasion by rich people and large multinational and British companies. In the minute I have left, I would like to put two questions to the Minister. The first is straightforward. The Chancellor of the Exchequer put in £174 million for an army of investigators to deal with such companies. Is that fresh money, or is it part of the £900 million that was included in the spending review?
The second question relates to unfairness. Two and a half years ago, Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, gave the British Government the names and addresses of 2,000 people who had Swiss bank accounts. A number of them—I think 500—were being looked at for serious fraud. To date, two years later, only one has been charged. Is that the end of it? With the Swiss tax deal, is that issue now being dropped, as those people are being treated under the terms of the tax deal? If so, it would be totally unacceptable.
Financial Services Bill
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Chris Leslie
Indeed, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for taking the time to participate in this debate. A string of amendments that we will discuss later cover consumer credit and the interests of consumers, and we will talk about ease of access to financial services when we consider them. He is right, as the Bank of England is a key player in this regard.
That point neatly takes me on to our amendment (a) to Lords amendment 16. It tries to ensure that under the new arrangements the Bank of England—in particular, the new powerful committee that is being established, called the Financial Policy Committee—will, when it explains the decisions it is taking, also have to include an assessment of the impact of its decisions on economic growth. I know that the whole question of jobs and growth is somewhat of a blind spot for Treasury Ministers, but notwithstanding their rather peculiar inability to see the importance of these issues, we feel that it is important to put that requirement in the Bill.
We are delighted and overjoyed that the Government finally relented and granted a concession in the other place, after months of labour in Committee in this place, by agreeing to Lords amendment 10. It was a major victory for the Opposition when the Government were forced to change the Bill to ensure that the FPC would not only contribute to the financial stability objective but, subject to that, support the economic policies of Her Majesty’s Government, including their objectives for growth and employment. That concession was made because of the amendments we tabled and the evidence heard in Committee from a wide number of organisations, including the British Bankers Association, the CBI, the London stock exchange and others. They all said in submissions to Parliament that the new regulators should have regard to growth, so we are glad that the FPC has that general backstop requirement on its shoulders. However, we do not think it goes far enough.
As I said earlier, the powers the Bank of England will take—that rather opaquely described set of macro-prudential tools—will be very wide ranging. Each time it pulls one of those levers, each time it makes a particular decision, it should explain the impact of that change. The Bank of England will be able to affect a number of key areas. Perhaps the Minister will tell us when the draft order at the back of the Treasury’s consultation document is likely to find its way on to the Floor of the House for debate, because I know that a number of hon. Members will be interested in that.
The Bank will have powers called counter-cyclical capital buffers. I know that the Treasury Bench has a difficulty with the concept of counter-cyclicality, but it essentially means that banks will be required to build up capital when times are rather exuberant and things are going well in the economy, but to unwind those capital buffers in a downturn. The Bank will say that there should be sectoral capital requirements. In other words, the FPC can make the residential mortgage sector have a certain amount of capital or structure its business in a particular way. The commercial property sector will have to do the same. This is a Bank of England decision, not the result of parliamentary or legislative changes. Consumer credit decisions will be made. If my hon. Friends have constituents who pay off their credit card, perhaps currently a 2% or 5% minimum repayment on a monthly basis, at the flick of a switch the Bank of England will be able to say, “No, you have to pay off 10% each month,” or perhaps even more. That is the sort of power that the Bank of England will have.
Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
The situation with mortgages will be similar. I am certain that the FSA’s and the Bank’s insistence on a higher deposit will harm the construction industry. The average price of a two or three-bedroom house is £160,000, and 10% of that is £16,000 and 20% £32,000. We are getting more and more tales of young couples who simply cannot get on to the housing ladder because they are paying excessive rents and cannot save that deposit.
Greg Clark
This has been a short but interesting debate, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) and to my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) for contributing to it. I think that my hon. Friend does himself a disservice. If anyone can follow, and indeed have imprinted in his mind, every clause of FSMA, and be able to relate it to any future amendment, I know that he is capable of it. Let me first respond to some of the points made in the debate, including his.
The Bank of England is obviously at the heart of the financial system, and the changes are among the important reforms of its powers in history, alongside nationalisation in 1946 and independence in matters of monetary policy in 1998. Notwithstanding the few remaining issues of debate, I think that the whole House would agree that the changes made in the Lords represent a significant improvement in this part of the Bill. The amendments will strengthen the governance and accountability of the Bank. They will give the Financial Policy Committee a more positive and proactive mandate around economic growth and shift its membership to reduce the influence of the Bank’s executives. In addition, there are clarifications to simplify the drafting and terminology, if perhaps not going as far as my hon. Friend would wish to go. The name “court” is retained, despite his preferences.
On the Opposition amendments, I do not think that there is, in practice, a huge degree of difference between us. As the hon. Member for Nottingham East said, amendment (a) to Lords amendment 1 would add the word “overseeing” to subsection (2) of new section 3A of the Bank of England Act 1998. That was well debated in the House of Lords, as he will know. Some clarity was achieved there, in that the kind of oversight in which the oversight committee is expected to engage is common to non-executive directors elsewhere. Baroness Noakes made particular reference to that. The opportunity to review decisions and to consider how they are made is well understood in the context of the term “oversight”. The hon. Gentleman is proposing something that goes beyond that: that oversight should contain a more real-time role as well as a backwards-looking role. That could involve second-guessing the Bank’s policy decisions while they are being taken, which would not be appropriate. Indeed, it would go against the recommendations of the Treasury Committee, which said in its report that it agreed with the Governor that the Bank’s governing body should place more emphasis on oversight and ex-post scrutiny that would not authorise it to become involved in second-guessing immediate policy decisions. That is the advice that we have taken.
Greg Clark
The hon. Gentleman has more experience of questioning the Governor than I have. The Joint Committee on the draft Financial Services Bill, of which he was a member, volunteered to agree with the Governor on that assessment, at least. We followed the Committee’s advice on that, as was recognised in the other place.
Greg Clark
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s clarification. We should bear it in mind that the Bill requires the Treasury to lay the MOU before Parliament and to publish it. It will be subject to full transparency. For example, I would be very surprised if my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester did not call the Chancellor or the Governor to explain it. The oversight committee will be responsible for overseeing the Bank’s performance and, clearly, the MOU is a key part of its work in bringing to bear the Bank’s financial stability work. The committee will, therefore, consider from time to time whether it is working well and Parliament will itself have every opportunity to address the issue.
Amendment (a) to Lords amendment 16 would require the Financial Policy Committee to produce explanations of its decisions to exercise its recommendation and direction powers. Proposed new section 9QA(1) of the Bank of England Act makes it clear that the FPC’s explanations must set out how its decisions are compatible with its objectives, including the new objective to support the Government’s objectives for growth. It is clear that it has an explicit responsibility to do that. The FPC’s explanations will have to set out publicly how it has considered the impact on economic growth when deciding to take action and its reasons for believing that the action is compatible with its obligations in relation to economic growth.
Lords amendment 16—specifically subsection (3) of proposed new section 9QA of the 1998 Act—already requires the FPC to produce estimates of the costs and benefits of the decisions, including those areas to which the hon. Member for Leeds East (Mr Mudie) has referred. This will cover the impact on financial stability, both directly and indirectly, and the impact, both positive and negative, on economic growth.
I reassure the House that the FPC is giving considerable care and thought to the impact of these tools. The Bill requires the committee to produce and maintain policy statements for its direction tools. The statements will discuss the likely impact on both financial stability and economic growth. The Bank is preparing a draft of the statements, to be published early next year, so that they can be considered alongside the secondary legislation that will set out the FPC’s direction powers. We do not, therefore, think that amendment (a) to Lords amendment 16 is necessary.
Mr Mudie
Both the Treasury Committee and the Joint Committee on the draft Financial Services Bill were concerned about the important parts of the Bill that will be delivered through statutory instruments. That means a discussion in Committee for an hour and a half, with no provision for amendment. We would either have to accept the whole instrument or vote against it, and we would not have a majority on such a Committee. We pressed the Chancellor for a different, more flexible structure of decision making on secondary legislation so that the House or the Treasury Committee could debate it with the prospect of convincing the Chancellor, at some stage, to amend his direction of travel.
Greg Clark
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s point. I am not able to produce a novel parliamentary procedure, but I can certainly tell him and the Chairman of the Treasury Committee that when the time comes to publish the statutory instruments, if they or their Committee would like to consider and advise on the discharge of the commitments, I would be happy to engage with them in good faith and take on board any suggestions.
Greg Clark
I give the hon. Gentleman an inch and he takes a mile. I will not commit to a different procedure but, as I have said, I will certainly commit, in good faith, to considering personally any points that are made. [Interruption.]
Greg Clark
They may be fresh instructions, but I have decided not to read them. I may be countermanded, but I will not retract my statement.
I will conclude by addressing what the Chairman of the Treasury Committee has said. I am reliably informed by my predecessors that this Bill, though complex and voluminous, has been well considered in numerous Committee sittings in this House, and I think that most people will conclude that their lordships have done a good job in their scrutiny. The Bill is important and it is right that it has been scrutinised to the extent that I think it now commands the broad support of the House, as evidenced by the relatively few amendments that have been tabled to their lordships’ amendments.
As I said in response to an earlier intervention, opportunities will be presented to the House in the years ahead—new Bills are already gathering speed on the runway—to accommodate further changes, should they be necessary. If so, I am sure we will have further conversations about them.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chichester issued me a challenge to rewrite the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and anticipated that I would be besieged by objections from officials and others.