Interest Rate Swap Derivatives

Debate between Guto Bebb and Stephen Mosley

Thursday 24th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Guto Bebb]

That concern has certainly been raised, but I keep receiving assurances from the banks that that is not the case. I want to take those assurances at face value and would still recommend that anybody who has been sold one of these products should undoubtedly go and talk to their banks. If the banks are unsympathetic, they should come and talk to their MPs, because we can and should intervene.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Guto Bebb]

I will take one quick intervention, but then I will have to make some progress.

[Stephen Mosley]

Is it not the case that some customers do not know that they have been sold swap agreements? Some people have been sold hidden swaps and do not know about it. Does my hon. Friend not think that the banks have a duty to inform customers themselves if they sign people up to such agreements?

[Guto Bebb]

I am grateful for that intervention. I will come to hidden swaps later—“embedded swaps” is the technical term; “hidden swaps” is a fairer way of describing them—because they are a big issue and we need to address them.

The setting up of the redress scheme was the reason why we called this debate. It has taken months to reach an agreement to ensure consistency across the 11 banks involved. Originally we were told that Christmas was the deadline for completion. However, at this point in time there are 30,000 businesses in the cohort—I think that that figure is an underestimate, because of embedded swaps, for example, and the way the sophistication test works—so frankly the Christmas target will not be met.