Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill

Debate between Greg Clark and Viscount Thurso

Tuesday 9th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[John Thurso]

Yes, something like that.

I am very tempted by new clauses 8 and 10, which were tabled by the Opposition. I will not vote against them, but I will not vote for them at this stage. There is an immense amount in them, but I will wait to hear what the Minister says. There is also a great deal of debate to come in the other place. I do not want to say that I am against the new clauses, but I am not sure that the wording is exactly what I would like to have seen. I ask for the forgiveness of the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) on that.

On new clause 10, there was a lot of debate in the commission about the good bank/bad bank split. We ended up with a central point that we all agreed to, but a number of us wanted to go more in one direction. However, whether a good bank/bad bank split is a good idea is a completely different issue from what should be done afterwards. If one takes the view that a good bank/bad bank split is not needed, one can still consider all the points that have been put forward, including the many things the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) said could be done to enhance regional banking and credit unions. All those things are equally possible whether or not one decides that the bad bank is necessary.

To my mind the good bank/bad bank argument is separate to what one does with a bank going forward. I happen to be somebody who believes that a good bank/bad bank split is right for the simple reason that if we take the flakier assets out of the bank and put them in a run-off bank, therefore liberating the capital being used in the balance sheet to support it, capital is then available in the good bank to be lent to SMEs and individuals. It is a simple mechanism for getting more capital flowing through, but I would make the point that it is not inextricably linked.

Following on from the slightly more partisan comments from the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East, one thing that comes out of this process, and which I have observed right the way through it, is that United Kingdom Financial Investments Ltd has not been the most successful of bodies. We have seen that there are politics in such situations, and that trying to put a mechanism in between muddies the water. That is one of the reasons why the commission’s report made its suggestions on UKFI.

Finally, the commission very much supports new clause 8. As I said in my intervention, I do not think this matter needs legislation. What I would be looking for from the Minister is a commitment that does not require me to look carefully between the lines, but is, in fact, a further commitment.

[Greg Clark]

This has been an interesting debate so far, and it will be a tall order to live up to the great expectations of my hon. Friends the Members for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) and for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso).

This set of new clauses has the common denominator of measures that can improve competition in banking. The parliamentary commission has made it clear that competition can, and should, bring about higher standards in the banking sector. It concluded that

“effective market discipline, geared to the needs of consumers, can be a better mechanism for improving standards and preventing consumer detriment than regulation, which risks ever more detailed product prescription.”

The Government completely agree. The British banking industry, at least at the retail level, was too concentrated before the crisis. The forced mergers of the crisis have exacerbated a bad situation. It is imperative that the regulators do not regard themselves simply as regulating incumbents, but act to promote new entry into the industry.

The commission welcomed the prudential reforms contained in the then Financial Services Authority’s barriers to entry review and commented that

“the concerns of challenger banks in this area appear to have largely been addressed”.

We accept the need to go further. Accordingly, we will be adopting the commission’s recommendation that the Prudential Regulation Authority should be given a secondary competition objective, and we will table amendments to the Bill to that effect in the autumn.