Bank of England
George Mudie Excerpts(11 years, 12 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
The father of the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) is a distinguished constituent of mine. I do not know what he would make of it if I allowed her to jump up and down in the Chamber. It scarcely warrants contemplation.
Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
The present Governor has commented on the dire state of the economy. The new Governor has international commitments, will face European commitments, and new regulations going through the other House give him many other responsibilities. Will the Chancellor please genuinely reconsider the number of posts that the new Governor will be forced to hold under the new arrangements? The grimness of the economic situation demands his full attention, and the posts are far too many for one person.
Mr Osborne
The one thing that we have learned is that regulation of banks and managing of demand in our economy cannot be separated; they are part of a continuum and that is one of the things that went wrong. Of course the Bank of England takes on heavy responsibilities, and the new Governor will have to manage the Bank in a very effective way to manage those new responsibilities. Mervyn King has already said that there needs to be a chief operating officer in the Bank, and there will be three deputy governors: for macro-prudential, micro-prudential and monetary policy. They too need to shoulder the burden, as indeed they currently do.
One thing that attracted the panel that interviewed Mr Carney, and me when I interviewed him, was his management experience in Canada. He is well regarded for having run a good bank in Canada as a manager, as well as for the international credibility he has earned for his economic and financial policies.
Oral Answers to Questions
George Mudie Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Mr Gauke
My hon. Friend is right to point out that we need to be vigilant about aggressive tax avoidance and the diversion of profits from where genuine economic activity occurs. That is why the Chancellor of the Exchequer is leading the way on that, working with the German Finance Minister, and why we had the announcement from Mexico yesterday that the G20 is focusing on that and encouraging the OECD to progress its work so that we can deal with this as soon as possible.
Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
18. What estimate he has made of the level of economic growth since the October 2010 spending review.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Sajid Javid)
The economy grew by 1.8% in 2010 and 0.9% in 2011. The Office for Budget Responsibility is responsible for producing independent economic and fiscal forecasts.
Sajid Javid
The hon. Gentleman is a distinguished member of the Treasury Committee, and I think he knows better than that. The Government introduced an independent Office for Budget Responsibility to make forecasts, and the OBR report in October 2012 said that there were several reasons why the out-turn has been different from the forecasts, including
“deteriorating export markets…impaired credit conditions”
and “euro area anxiety”. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can welcome yesterday’s report from the Centre for Economics and Business Research, which said that Britain would be the fastest-growing economy in Europe in 2013 and 2014. [Interruption.]
Oral Answers to Questions
George Mudie Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
5. What assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the public sector net borrowing figures in the current fiscal year.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
Public sector borrowing figures have been higher than expected, primarily because of short-term factors, including lower corporation tax receipts caused by the Elgin shutdown and the lower than expected oil price. With eight months of the year remaining, it is too early to draw conclusions about the year as a whole, but the Government remain committed to returning the public finances to a sustainable path, while allowing the automatic stabilisers to operate in response to the weakness in the global economy.
Mr Mudie
The Chancellor boasted in his 2010 Budget speech that the borrowing requirement this year would be £89 billion. The Office for Budget Responsibility is suggesting that the figure will be £120 billion—a 33% overshoot. Can we have an explanation of why the Chancellor got it so wrong?
Danny Alexander
The hon. Gentleman, as he knows, is referring to the OBR’s forecasts. Of course, a number of problems in the global economy, not least those in the eurozone, have become more serious since those forecasts were made. I would have thought that he would applaud the fact that our plan is sufficiently flexible to allow the automatic stabilisers to support our economy when there is weakness in the global economy.
Professional Standards in the Banking Industry
George Mudie Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Clive Efford
My hon. Friend anticipates another part of my speech. The processes in this House to set up Committees of this nature—with Government Whips selecting Committee members—will undermine the independence of any investigation. Unless this Committee is independent and the Government take their grubby little hands off it, its investigations will not satisfy the public at all.
Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that a Government majority on such a Committee prevents any chance of equality or objectivity? Does he also agree that before the wind-up speeches, the Chancellor should be asked whether he will agree with the Whips that, as a minimum, there will be equality of representation on the Committee, in order to secure public support?
Clive Efford
My hon. Friend has made the point, and in the interests of brevity I will leave it there for the Government to comment on.
The Attorney-General is wrong to say that we cannot set up an inquiry such as the one the Opposition are calling for today while a criminal investigation is taking place. At least two criminal investigations are going on while the Leveson inquiry is taking place.
We have been here before. On 4 September 2010, the News of the World issued the following statement:
“We reject absolutely any suggestion there was a widespread culture of wrongdoing at the News of the World.”
We all know what that meant. The then editor of the News of the World, Colin Myler, told the Press Complaints Commission in August 2009 that
“Our internal inquiries have found no evidence of involvement by News of the World staff other than Clive Goodman in phone-message interception”.
Let us compare that with Mr Diamond’s comment in his letter accepting the invitation to appear before the Treasury Committee:
“This inappropriate conduct was limited to a small number of people relative to the size of Barclays trading operations, and the authorities found no evidence that anyone more senior than the immediate desk supervisors was aware of the requests by traders, at the time that they were made.”
We heard exactly the same sort of defences being made against the Leveson inquiry being set up, suggesting that this was a small matter that needed to be investigated. This is too deep an issue to investigate through a Joint Committee of this House or a Select Committee.
I am instinctively supportive of the idea that we should set up such Committees, but fundamental reform of this House of Commons would be required for us to carry out such an inquiry. Back Benchers would need to be able to conduct business independently of the Executive. We do not have the structures to deal with an issue such as this. We would also have to change the culture of this place. Back Benchers would have to have a duty to the public, rather than to our respective Front Benchers.
LIBOR (FSA Investigation)
George Mudie Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Osborne
The FSA’s report is very clear about the interaction between the Bank of England and Barclays. Paragraph 176 says:
“No instruction for Barclays to lower its LIBOR submissions was given”
during the telephone conversation that caused the press interest.
Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
Will the Chancellor confirm that there will be no Government majority on the Joint Committee?
Oral Answers to Questions
George Mudie Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Hoban
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. He is right to point out that the details of the scheme have yet to be finalised, but I take on board his comments. We will discuss this with the Bank of England. It is important that the scheme works and that it helps funding and lending to households and businesses.
Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
In view of the banks’ disgraceful behaviour on delivering the Merlin agreement, will the Minister assure the House that this new scheme will be transparent and will be published and monitored independently each month? Above all, will he assure us that every pound of additional money that goes to the banks through this scheme will mean additional lending to small businesses and households?
Mr Hoban
The scheme is designed to encourage lending not just to small businesses and households but across the board to all businesses. We want to make sure that when banks put collateral to the Bank of England, it is in response to their having lent more. That is absolutely vital for a scheme that encourages lending and we will make sure that we design the scheme to do so.
Jobs and Growth
George Mudie Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
Before I begin my remarks on the Queen’s Speech, I should like to compliment my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (David Miliband) on his very good speech. We all have opinions, but to put the facts in such a clear fashion that cannot be argued with proves why he is a loss sitting on the Back Benches. I am not a natural supporter of his, as he knows, but the Front Bench is his place, not the Back Benches—[Interruption.] It is a shame; that is absolutely right.
This Queen’s Speech is almost a re-run of the Budget speech. There are three financial Bills: the pensions Bill, the banking reform Bill, and the enterprise and regulatory reform Bill. This last has parts that may be acceptable, although they will have to be teased out and looked at, but other parts are worrying. Of the remaining Bills, some are good or desirable in their own fashion. In the context of the dangers and difficult problems facing the British economy and the need to get growth and a rebalancing of the economy, the Queen’s Speech offers very little. That is very disappointing, and it will make the public, who are worrying about their families, their homes, their futures and their children’s futures, wonder about how out of touch the House of Commons is with their worries.
The Queen’s Speech projects our spending the majority of our time on a Bill to reform the House of Lords. How sensible will that seem to the families out there who are treading water financially? We must remember that 80% of the public sector cuts are still to come, so we are not at the worst stage; we have almost not even started. Yet this Bill, on which there is no consensus in the House and which is fiercely opposed by Members from all parties, will take up a lot of time here and in the House of Lords. One wonders why we are doing it. The public will ask, “Have they nothing better to do?” As a result, we will not have a social care Bill in this Session—that is a disgrace—and nor will we have a higher education Bill, which would be crucial to the growth strategy. No one can say that the Government have got their priorities right.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling) got something that Labour Members have long wanted—an acceptance from the Chancellor that growth is necessary to run alongside the cuts. That was quite an achievement and quite good news. The sad news, however, is that when the Chancellor read out all the measures that he felt would deal with growth, they were all on the supply side, not the demand side. It is clear that the big corporates are flush with money and could invest today and tomorrow, but they are not doing so because they have no confidence in the economy and there is no demand in the economy. The sooner that confidence is brought back, and the sooner the Chancellor understands that he has to put demand into the economy to get people into jobs with money and the confidence to spend, the better.
Jim McGovern
I thank my hon. Friend—a fellow former Lawside RC academy pupil and Dundonian—for giving way. From 2005 to 2010, I never had any business people coming to my surgery. Since 2010, an ever-increasing number of have been coming to tell me that they are not getting a fair deal from the banks. Does my hon. Friend share that experience?
Mr Mudie
As a member of the Treasury Committee, I can tell my hon. Friend that we argue every month with the Governor of the Bank of England and appeal to him to do something about the banks, which are not lending to small businesses at the level that they promised and have been allowed to get away with it without any complaint from the Government.
If Government Members think that it is partisan to say that there is no plan for growth and no understanding of growth, let me read out what the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills said in a letter to the Prime Minister regarding industrial policy. He wrote:
“I sense however that there is still something…missing—a compelling vision of where the country is heading beyond sorting out the fiscal mess; and a clear and confident message about how we will earn our living in future.”
He clearly and comprehensively set out five areas where there should be investment, the final one being investment in the construction of houses, which he said would get people into work and have an effect on the supply chain. None of those issues appears in the Queen’s Speech or was addressed in the Budget. If the Government cannot trust and listen to their own Business Secretary about how to get an industrial policy for growth, what chance do the people of this country have?
Oral Answers to Questions
George Mudie Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr George Osborne
We need to reform the labour market, which is why, as my hon. Friend will know, we have this month extended the qualifying period for unfair dismissal cases from one to two years. That has been welcomed and will encourage people to take on new employees. We also have a call for evidence on compensated no-fault dismissal. I have no doubt that she will make a submission to that call for evidence.
Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
T5. In view of earlier answers on corporation tax, will the Chancellor tell the House how many FTSE 100 companies paid full corporation tax in the last available tax year? It would be understandable if he does not have the figure now, but will he place it in the Library of the House for hon. Members?
Mr Osborne
As the hon. Gentleman knows, because he is an experienced Member and sits on the Treasury Committee, there is a very important principle of taxpayer confidentiality, so I am not shown the individual tax returns of businesses or indeed individuals. We have recently published data on the average tax rate that people on the highest incomes were paying under the last Labour Government, and we can see that it was very much lower than Treasury Ministers were telling us.
Financial Services Bill
George Mudie Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)
I rise to support new clause 1 briefly. I had the privilege of sitting on the Joint Committee on the draft Bill and of being a member of the Treasury Committee, which is chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie)—colleagues have noted that he is not a Privy Counsellor, but as far as many of us are concerned he is right honourable in spirit.
The main purport of new clause 1 is to establish a duty on the court of directors to conduct retrospective reviews of the Bank’s performance. The Governor of the Bank of England, in giving evidence to the Joint Committee and the Treasury Committee, has argued that it would be a bad idea to have a review into anything other than the processes by which certain policy decisions are reached. In other words, he does not want there to be a duty on the Bank to scrutinise retrospectively how good its decisions—meaning the decisions of the Financial Policy Committee or the Monetary Policy Committee—turned out to be. One of the reasons he gave was that there are lots of external commentators, such as outside economists in the City and the commentariat in the fourth estate, but it is fairly obvious that those entities are under no statutory duty to crawl through every decision of the FPC or the MPC and decide with hindsight whether they were good or bad.
The second reason the Governor gave is that the Treasury Committee holds the Bank to account, a point alluded to by the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie). The Treasury Committee, packed with talent though it is on a yearly basis, still has a huge amount of work to do and, not for the want of trying, does not have the amount of technical expertise or the number of macro- and micro-economists needed to conduct work month after month, tracking back and looking at how good or bad the judgment calls of the FPC, as constituted by the Bill, and the extant MPC turned out to be. My word, don’t we need such backward-looking analysis? If it had been present in 2007 and 2008, we might have avoided the difficulties of which we are all too well aware.
The Bill gives the Bank of England unprecedented powers. As a result of it, we will have a Governor of the Bank of England, whomever he or she is in the future, who will be chair of the Monetary Policy Committee, have a place on the court of directors of the Bank of England, chair the Financial Policy Committee and chair the Prudential Regulation Authority. With the creation of the FPC, alongside all the work that the Bank does on monetary policy, a lot of decisions are going to be made.
Not since the creation of the Bank of England in the late 17th century has its senior management and Governor had so much power, and, from even a cursory glance, the Joint Committee’s evidence and the evidence taken by the Treasury Committee in recent months all leads to one thing: one cannot have enough scrutiny of this big beast that the Bank will become as a result of the Bill coming into force.
The Treasury Committee argued forcefully for a severe new set of accountability and scrutiny powers. We advocated the creation of a new supervisory body inside the Bank of England in order to replace the court of directors, because the court, as everybody knows, is packed full of amateurs—well-meaning amateurs, but people who simply are not, by any stretch of the imagination, able to hold the Bank of England’s senior executive members, who are on the MPC and will soon be on the FPC, to account.
The court includes has-beens in the City, or “never-was’s”, and people with indifferent reputations in the trade union movement, in manufacturing and in all aspects of public policy. But the evidence shows that remarkably few of them have any expertise in central banking matters, in fiscal policy, in macro-prudential policy or in monetary policy. The court is desperately under-geared, and its intellectual horsepower is not what it should be.
A supervisory body, with a majority of external members, overseeing the FPC’s and MPC’s judgments and undertaking retrospective reviews is the best-case scenario; it is what the Treasury Committee thought would be the best solution for scrutinising this very powerful—all-powerful, I might add—Bank.
I understand why Ministers have concluded that they do not want to go into battle with the Governor and the senior executives about a supervisory body, because it is way too radical, but it is absolutely incumbent on this House to look at the purport of new clause 1 to see that it actually imposes more scrutiny than the Bill currently provides on the policy decisions of not just the MPC, but the FPC. Let us not forget that the MPC has recently acquired, or arrogated to itself, certain very significant discretionary powers over monetary policy—not in setting the bank rate, but in quantitative easing.
How many debates have we had in this Chamber about QE and its merits or relative de-merits? The answer is relatively few. The Monetary Policy Committee is held to account only by the Treasury Committee. It is my suggestion that the Treasury Committee, marvellous and wonderful though it is—I am a member of it, so I would say that—will need the assistance of ex-post reviews to look retrospectively at the quality of the decisions that the Bank, with its new powers, makes. I therefore urge colleagues to support new clause 1.
Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
I congratulate the Chairman of the Treasury Committee on new clause 1. I disagree with what was said about him becoming a right hon. Member. In my experience of this place, somebody as independent and straightforward has little chance of becoming right honourable.
On a more serious note, I follow my colleague on the Treasury Committee, the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Mr Ruffley), in saying that the Minister would be well advised to accept the amendment or to indicate that further thought will be given to it. I agree with my colleague that the amendment could and should have been much harder. The problem is with the behaviour of the court of the Bank of England. It is not that it has not been given power; it is that it has accepted the boundaries and the servile role imposed on it by the Governor and the executives of the Bank of England. As I have said in this Chamber and as has been said to the Treasury Committee in all but terms, the court is allowed to count the paperclips, but that is about it. Anything serious or to do with policy is nothing to do with it. If its members had any dignity or self-regard, they would not be part of it, because apart from receiving a nice little stipend for going, one wonders what on earth they do.
The discussion in the Treasury Committee, and even in the Joint Committee on the draft Financial Services Bill, has been about bringing the corporate governance of the Bank of England into the 21st century with a proper board, and about stopping it being the fiefdom of one person. If I were the Minister, I would accept the new clause in spirit and say that I would speak quietly to people about it to strengthen the proposals and move on. He could well find himself having a much stronger position forced upon him, which would be good for the Bank of England in the long run.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) on amendments 22 and 23. I will deal with them briefly because many Members want to speak. This is not a political point, but the response to those amendments from Government Members is interesting, because my hon. Friend has raised a matter that deserves discussion and thought. The powers being given to the Financial Policy Committee will affect people, industries and firms, and there must be accountability. The problem arises from the fact that there is no consensus on the definition of financial stability, but the House is setting up a Financial Policy Committee, the objective of which is financial stability. The Chancellor of the Exchequer raised the most pertinent point before the Joint Committee, which was that although we do not want it to, the FPC could define financial stability as the “stability of the graveyard” and reach it. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East raised that point today.
If the FPC had the responsibility for making the definition and wanted to do it without much fuss, it could set the required level of economic activity so that it neither pressed the ceiling nor went through the floor, but would that give us the growth and employment that the Government might want? Should not the FPC be asked to work towards the Government’s policy, whichever party is in government?
David Rutley
I know that the hon. Gentleman is very knowledgeable about these matters and was on the pre-legislative scrutiny Committee, but has he not seen that proposed new section 9C(4) in clause 3 contains some clear wording about what the FPC should do? It states that subsections (1) and (2) of that proposed section do not
“authorise the Committee to exercise its functions in a way that would in its opinion be likely to have a significant adverse effect on the capacity of the financial sector to contribute to the growth of the UK economy”.
The matter is addressed, so what does he want in addition to that, and why does he feel the need for more?
Mr Mudie
I accept that point, which has been made clear all the way through, but that is negative language rather than positive. Instead of telling the FPC, “In carrying out your duties, you mustn’t adversely affect growth”, I would rather put it to work with the MPC on ensuring that we have a buoyant economy with steady, acceptable growth and employment levels. At the moment, apart from the negative words that the hon. Gentleman quotes, all we have is the requirement of financial stability.
The hon. Gentleman was with a number of colleagues here on the Treasury Committee. We go through accountability with the MPC. It is bad enough trying to get the Governor of the Bank of England to be accountable even when he has a named target; what would he be like, or what would a future Governor be like, when he came before the Committee to which he was accountable and only had to defend his actions on the grounds of financial stability, which cannot be defined? It is a case of the emperor’s new clothes. There really should be a joint mandate, with a definition of financial stability and an acceptance of the Government’s picture of growth and employment.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
I agree with very much of what my hon. Friend says. When the Bank of England was given its independence—so-called—I thought that if it started to fly in the face of what was obviously sensible for the economy, a Government might choose to take that independence back to the Treasury and into the hands of the Chancellor. If the Bank is not sensible in respect of managing the economy as a whole, is it not possible that a Government might choose to take back that independence and operate policy from the Treasury?
Mr Mudie
One can see many scenarios. I have seen many political philanthropists since I have been a Member of Parliament. I worry because they come to the House as politicians, but seem not to want to do anything or take any responsibility. They have offloaded power to quangos and agencies, and gave independence to the Bank. The real question is why are the Chancellor and the Treasury sitting back and watching their ground—sensitive economic ground—being given away to a quango, an unelected bunch of people? Under the Bill, those people can take the remit and the guidance on it, which the Treasury sets, and say to the Treasury, “We don’t agree with you,” and that is that. That is the situation we are reaching on accountability and responsibility despite the worry about giving away powers.
On amendment 23, some hon. Members were hard on my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East, although it is not as if he cannot defend himself. The Government’s original proposition, which was put out for consultation, included macro-prudential tools, which, as hon. Members have said, are highly sensitive and powerful. One aspect of the proposal they have given up because of its sensitivity—I am going by what has been in the papers in the past few days—is the ability to interfere in the mortgage market on loan-to-value and similar matters. What happens if the unelected Financial Policy Committee starts leaning against the wind in a way that affects large numbers of people, and there is no way of talking to it or affecting its position?
The Government’s original proposal was that decisions on macro-prudential tools would go upstairs to the Committee Corridor as statutory instruments—secondary legislation—for a 90-minute debate on a measure that would not be amendable. All hon. Members know what happens upstairs. The Minister talks for an hour, the shadow Minister talks for 25 minutes and we all go home, with the measure voted through by the Government majority. That happens with Governments of all parties. The way secondary legislation is dealt with in Parliament is an absolute disgrace. We can excuse a lot of it, but matters as important as the ones we are discussing, it is scandalous.
To be fair to the Chancellor, I raised the proposal with him when he first introduced it and asked him to look at it again because of its undemocratic nature. I am pleased that the line has softened, but there is more talking and work to be done. If hon. Members are asked to give away powers that affect our constituents so directly, it is important for us to be absolutely sure that we have had the opportunity to at least have our say in the strongest possible terms and ones that might allow the regulator to think about what has been said, although it is not for us to take its take its job.
A Government Member attacked my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East and asked him whether he would interfere with a regulator. We had that situation when the Treasury Committee discussed the retail distribution review with the chief executive of the FSA. We said to him, “This Committee feels strongly about this matter. We’ve had a lot of press about it and a lot of pressure, and we’d like you to think again.” He replied, “No, we won’t think again, unless you give me evidence.” The Treasury Select Committee giving evidence to the chief executive of the FSA—what arrogance! My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East is doing the Government a favour. They might not agree with the detail of the amendment, but the spirit is that we give the House every opportunity to comment on, think about and be aware of the powers we give to individuals that might affect our constituents.
Mark Garnier
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Leeds East (Mr Mudie), with whom I serve on the Treasury Committee. It is interesting that I am the fourth consecutive Committee member to speak.
The House will not be surprised to hear that I rise to speak to new clause 1, tabled in the name of my hon. Friend the Committee Chairman, under whom it has been a great pleasure to serve. He is a very forensic Chairman of a Committee doing some extraordinarily good work at a time when it could not be more important—when we are facing some of the most fundamental problems in the economic world and when it is incredibly important that we do something significant about financial regulation. There is no doubt that something needs to be done. We have had a problem with a system of financial regulation that failed to address the problems with the banks, and the Bill travels a huge distance in trying to resolve those problems and come up with a robust new regulatory framework.
Having been a compliance officer under not one but three regulatory regimes—the Securities and Futures Authority, the Financial Services Authority and the Securities and Investment Board—and, prior to that, a regulated dealer on the floor of the stock exchange under the old stock exchange rules, I have had a fair degree of practical experience of financial regulation. Furthermore, in the past 18 months or so, I have, with the rest of the Committee, spent a huge amount of time scrutinising and studying the draft recommendations for the Bill. I also spent some 50 hours, in the Bill Committee, with the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie), who waxed lyrical and at great length—and with great intelligence, I might add; and here we are on the Floor of the House talking about the matter yet again.
A number of things in the Bill are not ideal, but the one surgical cut that would have the most effect would be new clause 1. The Bill contains perhaps the single most fundamental change that we will see in financial regulation—the creation of the Financial Policy Committee. We have heard a lot about the FPC. One of the criticisms is that it could make profound changes to our financial system in trying to deal with financial instabilities, with bubbles that seem to be growing and all the rest of it. We can speculate ad nauseam about the type of interventions that could be made, but the one that people talk about a great deal is where the FPC may, with one of its tools of direction or recommendation, direct banks to change the loan-to-value ratios on mortgages. That could have far-reaching effects for our constituents.
Finance (No. 4) Bill
George Mudie Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Redwood
If it were that easy to make the distinction and to close down or punish the one and reward or encourage the other, I am sure the outgoing Government would have done it. The fact that they did not implies that in office they realised the situation was far more complicated. When we consider the complications of a large conglomerate bank—as it happens the taxpayer should have a lot of knowledge about them because we are the forced owners or part-owners of two such banks—it is immediately obvious to any sensible analyst that the activities of the investment bank are deeply integrated with, and related to, those of the normal commercial bank; for example, in their service for small and medium-sized enterprises. A small or medium-sized export business may need forward currency cover or trade finance and credit, or it may have an investable surplus. It may need all kinds of services that go well beyond the basic banking that the hon. Gentleman was trying to describe—just having a current account to make payments and a simple savings account. The world is much more complicated than that. If we are to survive and compete in a global world with international trade, we need to be able to handle its requirements.
Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
I do not share the right hon. Gentleman’s confidence that the banks are so optimistic, and that they are so ambitious to provide loans that will get jobs for the million youngsters who are out of work. The Government signed up to Merlin scheme for loans to small businesses, but were badly let down by the banks who did not live up to their part of the agreement. This year’s Budget wheeze is the loan guarantee scheme, which is supposed to get jobs for youngsters. The Treasury Committee took evidence and accepts in its report that the scheme will not provide additional lending for firms; it is only a method for lowering current rates, so why is the right hon. Gentleman so confident?
Mr Redwood
I do not think I expressed any confidence on the subject at all. The hon. Gentleman, the Government and I are in agreement that past levels of lending have been inadequate. That is why the Government have come forward with yet another scheme to try to encourage more lending, which I should have thought everyone in the House would want them to do. If the hon. Gentleman wants to know why there has been too little lending in the last couple of years, there are two simple reasons. The first is that after the crash the banks were forcefully regulated not to lend more—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman says that is nonsense, but their problem is obvious. The banks were told by the regulator that they needed to hold more cash and capital relative to their lending; the only way they can do that, especially the nationalised ones, is to keep lending down. They are not in a position to raise more money because the taxpayer does not want to put more money into RBS at the moment, and I entirely agree with the Government’s view that we should not be doing so. There is thus a regulatory squeeze on the amount of lending.
The banks would say that the projects are not out there. I am not so sure. The hon. Gentleman and I probably know of financeable propositions on which we would like to see the banks rise to the challenge. We hope that will be possible with the new scheme, but under the Opposition amendment we would spend any revenue that might be raised from what they call a payroll tax, although it is apparently a bonus tax on new jobs and tackling unemployment. We do not know exactly how much they have in mind; the amount would probably be quite modest, as it was from their bonus tax. If the banks see another bonus tax coming in this climate, there will be even fewer bonuses to tax, but the Opposition may welcome that.