Infected Blood Compensation Scheme

Debate between John Glen and Angela Eagle

Tuesday 21st May 2024 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

Absolutely. My right hon. and learned Friend makes a very wise point. The need to swiftly expedite payments in full to as many qualifying people as possible is the imperative that has guided me to this point, and will be the imperative that Sir Robert will take forward in his conversations. We must not introduce unnecessary complexity to establish people’s qualification to receive a payment, when that is unnecessary. There is a tension, but we must resolve it to get the payments out. That is why the arm’s length body will need to prioritise in particular the groups who are infected, alive and suffering the most, many of whom I met recently.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Does the Minister understand that as well as a duty of candour, we really need, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) has consistently put before this House, a public advocate to make certain that victims in future scandals have somebody to look after them and take them through processes? That would stop this happening ever again. Will he say something about when he expects all the payments to have been made? He talked about an interim scheme which goes on to the end of this financial year, but also about full payments being made going further forward. When is his deadline for getting this done?

DRAFT MONEY LAUNDERING AND TERRORIST FINANCING (AMENDMENT) REGULATIONS 2022

Debate between John Glen and Angela Eagle

Monday 7th February 2022 General Committees

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way on that point. It was absolutely remarkable that when we took evidence from the Minister, and from his Home Office colleague who was responsible for trying to crack on money laundering, how dissatisfied both of them were with the current state of affairs. I wish him well in attempting to get his business managers to realise what everybody else realises, which is that this should be an absolute priority.

[John Glen]

I welcome the hon. Lady’s intervention on this subject. I am happy to recognise her characterisation of the diffused responsibilities in the report. There are observations and questions about many interactions. That is something for the Government to reflect on, as we will do in our response.

The hon. Member for Glenrothes referred to parliamentary time. Fixing some of these things will take a bit more than a few hours, but the point he is making is that there is a will to do this, and I recognise that.

This is a modest set of changes to deal with an administrative problem with one part of this Government’s response to a challenge. We are one of the most open jurisdictions for financial services. We employ 2.3 million people in financial services and 7.4% of jobs in the UK are in financial services. We have got to get that balance right, but I recognise the challenges outstanding. On a broader canvas, at a later point, I will address those points. I hope that the Committee has found this debate informative and will support the regulations. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) Regulations 2022.

Financial Services: UK Economy

Debate between John Glen and Angela Eagle

Thursday 9th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne), who has opened this Backbench Business debate and is a fellow member of the Treasury Committee. He has given us a grand tour of a large and diverse sector of the economy that is, as he pointed out, very important. He also pointed out that it is affected by a range of issues at the moment.

The hon. Gentleman gave us some of his ideas on what should be happening post Brexit with some of the more complex of the EU directives that have been onshored—in particular, MiFID—which have been against the grain of how the UK financial services and insurance industries have always tended to work. He hinted at the philosophical difference between EU regulation in these areas and how the UK more traditionally did it; it is the difference between having principles-based regulation, which is not so specific, and the EU way of doing regulation, which tends to be so specific and puts a lot of those specifics in legislation. When I was in the Treasury and in the Department for Work and Pensions as Pensions Minister, it was a battle that we constantly had with the EU in the Council of Ministers and with the Commission.

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)]

indicated assent.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I can see the Minister is nodding, possibly because he recognises some of those tensions, which always existed when we were in the EU.

When we were in the EU, because of the size of the influence of the UK financial services industry as part of that bloc, we had a very good and effective way of pulling at least a lot of the regulation that went on more towards our way of doing things. One of the worries I have post Brexit, which I suppose is a philosophical and practical worry, is that the EU will now go off and do a lot more of the things that we were able to persuade it not to do when we were a member. The divergence between how EU regulation works and how we may wish our future regulation of financial services to work is likely to grow larger.

It has not been a very friendly divorce to date, and there may well be implications to that, too, in terms of competition for business. We have seen some of that in the wholesale markets for euros and we will doubtless see more of it. The outcome of our way of leaving the EU will challenge some of the agreements that we came to and the influence we were able to have when we were inside the Council chambers, the European Parliament and the European Commission, rather than the situation we find ourselves in now. As the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire said, that can be an advantage, but it can also be a disadvantage. It is an opportunity, but there are also threats and issues that we have to deal with. We have a sharp disjunction with the recent past, after 40 years of that kind of influence, that we will have to deal with in the coming period. We have the inadequacies of the non-existent deal on financial services, which was part of the EU-UK so-called trade agreement, and those are already having an effect.

The hon. Gentleman was right to say that we are in a period of rapid regulatory change, which would have been the case regardless of whether we left the European Union. The fact that we have, and the fact that we have onshored all this regulatory machinery, means that we now have to start looking at how we wish to change all of it.

Even thinking about the sheer weight of work and oversight that will have to be done by the Treasury Committee is quite overwhelming, as the hon. Gentleman acknowledged in the exchange we had during his speech. The Minister must go weak at the knees when he thinks of the detailed work that he will have to put in to deal with the onshoring in the aftermath of Brexit, and whether we want to move quickly or slowly to adapt the laws and regulations that we have imported.

Members of the Treasury Committee have also gone weak at the knees thinking about how they might have some oversight, because of the highly technical nature of much of that regulation. We certainly need to be significantly more tooled up than we have been if we are to have proper oversight of what the regulators are tasked with doing, what philosophical direction the Government wish to go in, and what the practical aspects of that method will mean for our financial services industry and, of course—they have not been mentioned much—for consumers in the UK and for financial stability.

We should not lose sight of those two basic reasons why we have to get regulation right. Consumer protection is a huge issue in financial services, as the hon. Gentleman touched on when he said that financial services are not always the most popular sector of our economy. Perhaps some of those who supply and form part of the industry ought to stop and think about why that is they case and do some self-reflection about it.

Clearly, financial stability is also crucial in an era when markets are becoming more rapid and more global. In the context of highly rapid technical change, financial stability becomes even more important, because innovation outruns the capacity of many regulators to keep up with what on earth is going on in some markets. Those two important issues have to underpin all regulation; the future of the entire financial services industry rests on them.

Regulatory change in a rapidly evolving situation with a lot of flux is inevitably difficult for those who participate in the market and for those who wish to regulate it. It is also difficult for those such as the Minister who want to see how it can be properly harnessed and allowed to be beneficial to our economy while being safe. It is a period of big uncertainty and flex. New technology has the capacity to change things and lead to innovation, some of which might be fantastic and some of which might be awful. That structural issue has hit us greatly through the innovations of digital currencies.

The systems that control financial services have to deal with the practical and philosophical issues that arise, such as whether digital coins are ever stable, what central banks ought to be doing to deal with that, and whether the wild west of Bitcoin and the rest should be left as a gambling thing on the side. Those markets can be volatile—the wild west—but the capacity of software such as open registers and blockchain, and their potential for transparency and in-time and open trading of all sorts of things, could be harnessed for good purposes as well as for the more nefarious ones that feature on the darker edges of the net. On top of that, the demands of climate change will cause a systemic change in the way that things are valued, priced and assessed for value.

That structural change will completely change the context in which the financial services industry has to exist. In the UK, which is one of the most open economies in the world and always has been, we know how important the financial services sector is, and not only to London as a global centre. In 2020, it was worth £164 billion to the UK economy, which is the third-largest sector by size in the OECD. That is 8.6% of economic output, half of which is generated in London but half of which is generated across our regions. Of the 1.1 million jobs, 91,000 are in my region of the north-west. As the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire pointed out, it is one of the few sectors where we have a healthy trade surplus—£46 billion in 2020. It is the fifth-largest economic sector in our economy, and all the more important for that.

As the hon. Gentleman also pointed out, the sector is important for taxation, with £28.8 billion in tax taken from it. According to PwC, it makes up £75.6 billion, or 10% of the total receipts. In the face of such change—technological, structural or the disjunction of Brexit—any Government would want to see how they could remake the environment in which the financial sector can operate and flourish to benefit and protect the sector so that it can benefit and protect our economy. We certainly all have a stake in ensuring that that is the case.

In that area of flux, we have to remember that the regulators, although they could be powerful, are struggling with an increasingly complex and fast-moving environment that they are not always geared up to deal with in detail or to keep on top of. We have seen the travails of the Financial Conduct Authority and how it manages the perimeter, and philosophically the view of caveat emptor—that the buyer should beware in all circumstances. When things go wrong, the reputation of the entire financial services sector is at stake, so it is a difficult balance.

The Financial Conduct Authority gave evidence to the Treasury Committee yesterday, some of which reflected how difficult it is to try to remake a regulator after scandals such as London Capital & Finance, at the same time as operating within all the extra complexity and uncertainty. It has a formidable task. I suspect that being chair of the FCA is one of those jobs where people are told that, if they do a stint, they will get the diplomatic equivalent of the Washington embassy as a reward. The current Governor of the Bank of England is one example of that.

The FCA needs to be strengthened. We as policy makers, and the Minister in particular, have to think about how it can practically do the job. The job cannot be so big and complex that it is undoable. Sometimes, the way that the FCA has to cope means it is difficult for it to achieve a balance and be given a job that it can sensibly do. We know there is a big turnover of staff at the FCA at the moment, and that there is workplace stress and unrest. We know that the head of the FCA is trying to transform that organisation into what he calls a lean organisation that can respond very quickly to what is going on in the market and in the areas it has to regulate. I am not convinced that it has that balance right yet, and I am not even convinced that that job can sensibly be done without more support.

I want to deal with a couple of areas that the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire did not touch on. These are what I would call threats to the reputation of the financial services industry in this country. First, I want to talk about economic crime, which I think poses a threat to the entire sector and its integrity if it is allowed to get out of hand. We know that there are rising levels of economic crime, fraud and scams that have been turbocharged during the lockdown. The sector itself has survived covid and the lockdown pretty well so far, because it could manage remotely—it does a lot of its work remotely in the first place—but one of the things we have all seen, unfortunately, is the rise in fraud and scams. We have also seen, and perhaps it is inevitable when it is one of the biggest global centres of financial services, that London has attracted the attention of international criminals and fraudsters who wish to launder their money through cities like London. We know that, as a major financial centre, it is a target for all of these kinds of people.

The Intelligence and Security Committee, in its Russia report, which was suppressed for far too long and was finally published after the 2019 general election, said that London is considered the “laundromat” for corrupt money. We have seen that kind of magnet effect, which is extremely disturbing, and I do not think that we have yet really got a handle on it. There are regulatory failings, there are legislative failings with the structures we have to try to deal with this, and there are certainly enforcement failings of the laws that we do have.

Financial Services Bill

Debate between John Glen and Angela Eagle

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 13th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

Indeed, Martin Lewis, who does some excellent work in this regard and whom I met on this topic recently, looked at this very matter—he commissioned some work from the London School of Economics to look into it—and recommended that we should not take this cap on the SVR. There will always be a variety of views, but I have set out very clearly why I think this is the right position.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

The Minister is full of reasons, as Treasury Ministers always are, for not accepting amendments or new clauses that people have tabled to solve problems. Does he appreciate the frustration that mortgage prisoners and those who are trying to do something about financial crime feel when they hear Ministers giving us all the technical reasons why things cannot be done but not really proceeding with much alacrity to solve the problems that we raise, albeit not necessarily in the correct format?

[John Glen]

I am very happy to respond to that. That is why, over the last three years, I have engaged with the problem and worked with the FCA to change the lending criteria so that an estimated 125,000 of the 250,000 mortgage prisoners have been able to switch to more affordable mortgages if they are not taking on lending and are not in arrears. This a complex problem. I am still focused on the 55,000 that we estimate are in that difficult position. I will continue to work with stakeholders and industry representatives to find solutions, working closely with the FCA, but that does not permit me simply to allow any intervention. I did start my remarks with a concession on something that I thought was constructive.

Let me move on to new clause 26, which would require a lender to seek a borrower’s permission before transferring their loan. That would give rise to significant financial stability concerns, especially if a firm was entering liquidation, since it would prevent the timely transfer of the mortgage book. Selling a mortgage book can also represent a sensible way for a lender to manage its balance sheet and does not change the terms or conditions of a borrower’s mortgage contract.

I turn to a number of amendments relating to EU exit and financial services. New clause 12 would require the Treasury to assess the impact of adopting different rules from those of the EU through the Bill. It is right that the UK is able to adopt rules that best suit our own markets. The Government have published an impact assessment alongside the Bill, so the new clause is unnecessary.

Financial Services Bill (Ninth sitting)

Debate between John Glen and Angela Eagle

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 9th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 1st December 2020 Public Bill Committees

[John Glen]

There is no intention to moderate or significantly alter the effect of the regulation. This is about doing what is necessary to ensure that we regulate the services and activities of overseas investment firms following an equivalence determination. The changes are designed to be consistent with the direction of travel that we have pursued within the EU, but making changes that are necessary for the different outcomes-based approach that we have always taken in the UK.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Just briefly to add to the questions from my right hon. Friend, why on earth is there all this faffing about when we are having total equivalence and companies will want the rules to be the same? Is this just another obtuse obsession with sovereignty, which will cost a hell of a lot more money because we will have to have our own bespoke regime that is meant to do exactly the same thing?

[John Glen]

I think the hon. Lady’s point goes back to the decision made to leave the EU and the implications of that. I recognise that we had a conversation in the previous sitting about the nature of the regimes that have been mooted as a possible solution.

I did an extensive session with the Lords EU Services Sub-Committee yesterday morning dealing with the issue of equivalence. We see this as a technical process. We have filled in several thousand pages of forms across 17 questionnaires for the EU, and it has not made those determinations, so we moved forward and made our determinations of the EU and are seeking to bring as much clarity as possible. This is another example of our bringing clarity to industry in as straightforward a way as possible, and the changes reflect that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Eagle]

I praise the Minister for his diplomacy. Having been a Treasury Minister myself, I know that diplomacy is extremely important when he sits in his bivouac. Has he made any assessment of the extra red tape that he is putting on our own financial services sector by insisting, for reasons of sovereignty, on a different but hopefully equivalent route? He and I both know that the minor differences between what is allowed and what is not can turn into weaknesses and reasons for arbitrage and rule breaking if those who regulate are not extremely careful.

[John Glen]

I acknowledge the hon. Lady’s deep experience in this matter and I am grateful for her empathy with the need to be diplomatic as a Treasury Minister. The measure is about extending limited supervisory powers to replicate EU powers. Her general point about the additional costs that can accrue to industry is something that we are very concerned about. We have always had within the UK a different approach to onshoring regulations, and that will continue.

FSMA 2000 gives us that outcome-based approach. When we downloaded the directives that we participated in creating in the EU and the Commission process, we always did it in our own way as per those principles. The hon. Lady’s main point is a key concern for the Government. That is why we are anxious to give assurance of continuity where it is plainly necessary and illustrate how we can do things as smoothly as possible, to minimise disruption to industry in a time of prolonged uncertainty, which I hope will come to an end soon.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 27 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 10

Amendments of the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Eagle]

The powers are necessary to prevent not only exploitation that might pose some systemic risks to the financial system, but catastrophic loss to UK investors due to rogue investors or investments. Regulators are reluctant to use the more draconian end of their powers, and there is little evidence that they actually go there.

Is the Minister satisfied that the practical effect of the changes will be that the FCA is determined to use those powers, if need be? It seems to be reluctant to go to the stage of closing firms down. That would be a huge decision that may involve considerable disruption. Is he convinced that the FCA has the resources, the aptitude and the determination to do that if necessary?

[John Glen]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. This goes to the heart of the evolution in the FCA’s responsibilities in an environment where it is being asked to do things differently and to account to Parliament for its actions. The future regulatory framework discussions through the next six months will allow us to solidify what those responsibilities will be.

The hon. Lady is right to say that the FCA will be required to make significant judgments on regulatory and supervisory developments, enforcement practices and other relevant market developments in third countries. The Treasury will request reports from the FCA with regards to overseas jurisdictions. We will consider those reports and other sources of information and take appropriate action, which would involve reviewing and equivalence determination or withdrawing equivalence.

Resourcing is a matter for the FCA itself, which it reflects on and establishes a levy for. I have conversations every six weeks with the FCA’s chief executive and chairman, and such matters are under ongoing review. Clearly, in the light of these changes, the FCA will need to update its provision. The FCA has a new chief executive officer who is undertaking a significant transformation project. I welcome his appointment and his plans, but reviews will be ongoing, and I am confident that he and his organisation will rise to the occasion.

[Ms Eagle]

I am sorry to press the Minister again, but this area is crucial to ensuring that our financial services industry is properly and appropriately regulated. We will be discussing crime, money laundering, and market abuse later today, I think, but the powers arranged against a regulator wanting to take drastic action, particularly in the form of disruption, trouble, lawyers, threats and all that, can mitigate decisive action. With Action Fraud and the failures in some of these areas, we have seen that even when criminal liability and offences are in the mix, rather than just regulatory offences, we do not seem to have developed a system that is as effective as it needs to be.

To what extent does the Economic Secretary think that the FCA’s use of levies to finance that activity is good enough given their volume and the drastic effects of some decisions, especially considering the funding of other regulators? Across the pond—we will increasingly have to look across the Atlantic—regulators are much better resourced than our own. Is he convinced that he has got the balance right for capacity and resources?

[John Glen]

The hon. Lady is taking me further and further away from the Bill. Her core point is about the suitability and sufficiency of the FCA’s capability. The FCA has provision to take account of consumer and market conditions and intervene, and I am clear that it has the capacity and the experience to do that work. The broader economic crime challenges that she mentions are why the March Budget contained an additional £100 million economic crime levy to support existing public investment and levies.

These are an ongoing, challenging, evolving and changing set of risks across that market, with the application of new technology—I have mentioned cryptocurrencies—and new ways of doing business that mean that the nature of crime is also evolving. I would never be complacent about the capacity of the FCA, and I recognise that it needs constant review and refresh to ensure that it is aligned with the other agencies involved in monitoring and dealing with threats to market integrity.

Question put and agreed to.

Schedule 10, as amended, accordingly agreed to.

Clause 28

Part 4A permissions: variation or cancellation on initiative of FCA

--- Later in debate ---

[John Glen]

I thank Opposition Members for the last three speeches. I think that they expressed a broad understanding of and agreement with the measure, but more general concern about the capacity for implementation and the need to ensure that the issue is addressed more broadly. I am happy to try to respond to those points.

The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East started the conversation about enforcement and prosecution. The terms of the clause will help to ensure that market abuse is recognised as serious misconduct in the same way as fraud is currently judged, and that will send a clear message to individuals who break the law: they will be held to account.

The hon. Member for Glasgow Central spoke about the length of sentencing. Since 2009, there have been 36 successful prosecutions for market abuse offences—the average sentence is 1.7 years, and the longest sentence was 4.5 years. To date, no criminal market abuse case has been tried that resulted in a seven-year sentence. That does not preclude the possibility of convictions in future cases that require a longer sentence as a result of aggravating factors, such as a significant breach of trust by senior individuals or sophisticated criminality by organised criminal groups.

In the light of the comments of the hon. Member for Wallasey about the challenges faced, I also want to add that in last week’s spending review an additional £63 million was allocated to the Home Office to boost Action Fraud. I also mentioned the economic crime levy in an earlier response, although that is anti-money laundering specific, and will not cover fraud. But a number of other activities are relevant to the points raised by Opposition colleagues.

A significant amount of work is going into the reform of suspicious activity reporting, where banks highlight transactions that give reasons for concern. That reform will be integral to our response to economic crime, and it is vital in uncovering and combating wider criminal activity. The Home Office is leading on that work.

The hon. Member for Wallasey made a point about the £100 million levy and the outsourcing, essentially, of capacity. It is important that we have joint working between the Home Office, the Treasury and the private sector on this matter. Just last week, I had a conversation with the payments regulator and UK Finance about push payment scams and the need to increase the confidence in the way those matters are treated. They are complex and involve sophisticated fraud against many of our constituents. I completely empathise with the hon. Lady’s frustration regarding the apparent lower prioritisation of this area. Across my 12 broad areas of responsibility, it is this that I find most challenging to move forward on definitively because the nature of the challenge is evolving. However, the work going on there and the payments regulator’s imperative to act, which it will do following the consultation, is significant.

However, with respect to the questions on this particular clause, I hope that the value of that enhanced sentence, which reflects the 2015 report, is understood. We will not bring the broader measures to a conclusion now, but I hope that I have signalled some of the ongoing efforts to try to deal with what is a particularly challenging area.

[Ms Eagle]

To some extent, this is illustrated by the fact that the enhanced sentence was in a 2015 report but we are only just legislating for it now. Five years later, we are still only talking about a sentence that is highly unlikely ever to be used, based on the past record—the Minister just quoted it himself. I wonder whether he might increase the confidence that some of us have that this is being tackled in a coherent way—we will get on to some of this later—by talking about the fragmented supervisory system and what he is doing to help bring that together so that the fragmented regulation of this whole area can actually be done more coherently, so that we can get enforcement on abuse. We all know that, prior to the big bang in the City, this was all done informally anyway, by gentleman in their clubs. It seems to me that we never really got a grip, after the big bang, in dealing with that informal networking that goes on, where a lot of the gaps and a lot of the potential insider dealing actually lurks. Perhaps he could give me a little bit more confidence about that.

[Mr McFadden]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Eagle]

I suspect you have just wiped out most of my speech, Dr Huq. We want to hear from the Minister about the adequacy of having just this clause, and not a lot else, to deal with the issue in this portmanteau Bill. In the debate on clause 30, we heard that it had taken the Treasury five years to increase from seven to 10 years the potential sentence for market abuse. The Treasury Committee’s 2019 report—I am now a member of that Committee—was excoriating about the scale of the problem, with between tens of billions and potentially £100 billion lost. As we have discussed in relation to other parts of the Bill, we know that small weaknesses in the defences can be ruthlessly targeted and become much bigger if they are not closed off.

We are reassured about the point that the Minister is trying to make with clause 31, but given that our country has been described as a laundromat for money laundering, perhaps the Government could have used this Bill as a suitable legislative opportunity to make other changes to the money laundering legislation that this clause amends. Perhaps the Minister could explain why that action has not been taken and give us an idea of what will follow. He has already referred to a reform of the suspicious activity reports regime. Why is that not included in this Bill, given that an analysis of it has found that over 80% of the reports are from banks, and very few from other places where there might be suspicious activity, such as property ownership in the UK? As we know, that is how money can be laundered.

We seem to have got ourselves into a situation where the banking structures just produce suspicious activity reports in massive numbers—three quarters of a million of them in a year, I think. Among those, the real ones are perhaps hidden, but the regulators are trying to get through them all and do very little. At the same time, we know that when the FinCEN papers were actually leaked, that involved, between 2000 and 2017, the transfer of close to $2 trillion of transactions, which were included in these suspicious activity reports.

Many transactions laundered money through our systems—many from overseas, in terms of what we are dealing with in clause 4. HSBC allowed fraudsters to move millions of dollars of stolen money around the world even though they knew it was a scam. J.P. Morgan allowed a company to move more than one billion through a London account without knowing who owned it. I could go on.

It seems that clause 31 is a tiny little attempt to stop an abuse, given that the abuse going on is of that scale. There is also the husband of a woman who donated £1.7 million to the UK’s Conservative party, secretly funded by a Russian oligarch with close ties to President Putin. Again, I could go on. I hope that the Minister is going to at least give us some view about what is going on here and whether clause 31 is the be-all and end-all of what the Government intend to put in place to deal with this issue.

On victims of fraud, criminals have successfully stolen £1.2 billion from individuals through banking fraud; in an earlier debate, the Minister was talking about his own frustrations with trying to get a grip of that issue. That figure on scams comes from 2018. It is also estimated that £5.9 billion a year is defrauded from businesses in the public sector.

The issue is not just about oligarchs running their money around the world and laundering it into property and other things. It is not just about mafiosi or corrupt political leaders doing the same, although all that is happening. This involves your constituents, Dr Huq, and my constituents, who are losing money through banking scams. Our public sector is losing money through other scams, which bleeds away the resources available to us to do the other things we need to, especially when these resources are scarce.

This issue can sometimes look very technical—it is about overseas investors and is only little clause 31. But it is not only about corrupt laundromats, Russian reports and corruption on a scale we can only think about. It is also about some of our well-known high street banks indulging in such activity and covering it up somehow, because having the business is so profitable for them—and, again, the risks of being caught and fined are outweighed by the profits that can be made by turning a blind eye. It involves all of the major banking and investment institutions. It involves estate agents, lawyers and accountants who are facilitators—wittingly or unwittingly—to all these activities.

We had better get a grip: the more this kind of money is present, the worse and dirtier it makes our structures and systems and the more cynical it makes our constituents. It makes all of us less likely to follow the rule of law and agree that the right thing should be done. It changes the balance that people calculate between the risks of doing something wrong and the rewards of not being caught. None of that helps the rule of law; none of it helps honesty; and none of it helps those of our constituents who strive their whole lives to do the right thing and yet see others profit massively from scams and reprehensible behaviour—criminal behaviour, in a lot of cases.

Dr Huq, I have ranged a bit wider than the terms of clause 31, but I think that it is the start of a fightback on money laundering regulations. Even though it represents a tiny, tiny little step, the Government have yet to persuade me that they want to get a grip of the situation and intend to do so through the Bill.

[John Glen]

I thank Members for their contributions, although at times as I listened I thought that I was in the wrong place, given the wider conversation about economic crime. However, I greatly respect the sentiments and points expressed and I will try to address the questions put.

The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East spoke of a mental image of a cupboard being cleared out. I will not deny that in my three years as Economic Secretary I needed to legislate on a number of matters, and the Bill necessarily brings together a number of them. However, there will be more legislation if I can persuade the authorities in this place to grant me that opportunity. I assure him that the Bill does not represent the end point on a number of matters. The clause, however, merely ensures the continuation of, and ability to vary in future, existing powers and requirements with respect to overseas trusts.

New clause 30, proposed by the hon. Member for Glasgow Central, would impose a requirement on the Treasury to report on the impact of the provisions of clause 31 on the expected change in corporation tax and income tax paid, and the expected change in the difference between the amount of tax required and the amount tax paid in relation to overseas trusts and Scottish limited partnerships. I reiterate that the Government are committed to ensuring that the UK’s corporate structures are not exploited by those seeking to avoid or evade tax. For reasons that I will outline, however, the Government cannot support the proposed new clause.

As I have said, the Government have introduced changes through amendments to the money laundering regulations that directly aim to improve the transparency of the ownership of trusts. In particular, those changes significantly expand the requirement for non-UK trusts to register with the HMRC trust registration service. Trusts will have to provide evidence that they are registered before entering into business arrangements with regulated firms under the money laundering regulations. HMRC needs clear powers to take enforcement action against those who do not comply with registration requirements, and the Government need to maintain the ability to amend those requirements in future.

The powers in the Sanctions and Anti-money Laundering Act 2018 will ensure that the UK Government can continue to make and amend their regulations. The proposed new clause would require the Treasury to publish a report on the effects of clause 31 on the amount of taxes paid, but it is not in line with effects of that clause, which does not make changes to taxes. The provision is not expected to bring about any changes in the amount of corporation tax and income tax paid nor any change to the tax gap in relation to Scottish limited partnerships or otherwise. Neither is it envisioned that it would be possible to attribute any variation in taxes paid, nor the tax gap, to clause 31.

New clause 35 imposes a requirement on the Treasury to report on the impact of the provisions in clause 31 on money laundering volumes involving overseas trusts and Scottish limited partnerships. I understand that it seeks to measure the impact of our efforts to prevent money laundering through trusts, but may I remind hon. Members that the current Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 and the 2017 regulations that they amended, namely, the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017, already require the Treasury to carry out a review of its regulatory provisions and publish a report setting out the conclusions of its review by June 2022? That wider review will provide a more meaningful evaluation than simply reporting on the narrow provision of the clause, and provide continuity in the Government’s powers to make changes in the UK’s anti-money laundering regime.

I also remind colleagues that Scottish limited partnerships are not specifically within the scope of the trust register, and point them towards separate legislation that deals with transparency for those vehicles. In June 2017, Scottish limited partnerships were brought into scope with the public register of beneficial ownership maintained by Companies House. Since the Government introduced new reporting requirements for Scottish limited partnerships in 2017, new registrations of Scottish limited partnerships have greatly reduced, with registrations falling from 4,932 in 2016-17 to 2,689 in 2017-18, and falling further to 657 in 2019-20.

I want to take this opportunity to address some of the broader points on the alleged failures, and the work in progress, with respect to anti-money laundering and trusts. I think it reasonable to say that the UK is recognised as having some of the strongest controls internationally for tackling money laundering and terrorist financing. In recent years, we have taken a number of steps, including creating a new National Economic Crime Centre, passing the Criminal Finances Act 2017, and establishing the Office for Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervision.

The hon. Member for Wallasey referred to the challenge of suspicious activity reports processing. The economic crime levy, in working with industry, is a direct attempt to invest in that reform. She asked specifically why legislation on that is not included in the Bill. That is continuing work that urgently needs to move forward, but provision for extra investment to process SARs more efficiently is being conducted at pace.

Last year, the Government published the landmark economic crime plan, which brought law enforcement and the private sector together in closer co-operation than ever before to deliver a whole-system response to economic crime. This year, we completed the transposition of the fifth anti-money laundering directive into domestic law. That remains comprehensive and responsive to emerging threats, in line with the evolving standards set out by the Financial Action Task Force—the international body that monitors such matters.

The expansion of the trusts registration service referenced today will bring millions more trusts in scope, including overseas trusts that purchase land or property in the UK. We will ensure that information on the register is made available in certain circumstances to those with a legitimate interest. We do recognise—I acknowledge the sentiments that have been expressed—that more needs to be done, and we are committed to making further progress, building on that made so far, to lead the global fight against illicit financial flows.

New clauses 30 and 35 make small amendments to clarify that the Government can enforce extraterritorial trust registration in relation to non-UK resident trustees and update those requirements in future. On why we are not doing more in the Bill, I have mentioned a number of the activities that the Government are undertaking, but I recognise that more needs to be done.

I should also mention the overseas entities Bill. In line with the ongoing commitment to combatting illicit finance, we intend to implement a register of beneficial owners of overseas entities that buy or own land in the UK as a measure of the economic crime plan 2019 to 2022. The register will be the first of its type in the world. The Government published a draft of that legislation, which accepted many of the subsequent recommendations by the Joint Committee that carried out that pre-legislative scrutiny. As the hon. Member for Glasgow Central knows, the Queen’s Speech last year committed to this Bill and to the continuing progress of that draft legislation. Lord Callanan’s written ministerial statement in July outlined the progress to date of that draft Bill.

On Companies House register reform—another matter mentioned by several colleagues—the Government are currently considering a broad package of reforms to Companies House to boost its potential as an enabler of business transactions and economic growth, but also giving it a bigger role in combatting economic crime. Following last year’s consultation, the Government issued our response to the corporate transparency and register reform on 18 September. The response summarises the views received and sets out how the Government will take forward those plans.

The Government will legislate when the parliamentary calendar allows and intend to deliver more reliable information on the companies register—reinforced by the verification of the identity of people who manage, control or set up companies, as has been referenced—and greater powers for those at Companies House to query and challenge information, so they are not just librarians, as I think they were described.

We will bring effective protection of personal information provided to Companies House and a more effective investigation and enforcement regime for non-disclosure and false-filing; the removal of technological and legal barriers to allow enhanced cross-checks on corporate data with other public and private sector bodies; continued investment in technology and in the skills of Companies House staff to make that register more efficient, effective and resilient; and broader reforms to clamp down on the misuse of entities I hope that my answers have done some justice to the questions asked, and I ask the hon. Member for Glasgow Central to withdraw the new clauses.

Financial Services Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between John Glen and Angela Eagle

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 8th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 26th November 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Mr McFadden]

I just have a question about these policy statements. We have been through quite a lot about how the FCA will designate, compel and continue the submission of information and all the rest of it. What role do these policy statements play in all of that? Is the policy statement simply putting into law a requirement on the FCA to say why it has acted as it has, or is it, as part of what I think is behind some of the stuff in these clauses, insulating the FCA against the threat of legal action because of the possible effect on contracts? Is this a nice to have, best practice or is it something that helps to protect the FCA against the threat of litigation, which has been a thread through this discussion?

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Obviously, this is a very technical area, to say the least. I just want to ask a couple of questions so that I can get my head round how the FCA will use the power. We have different regulators who could make different determinations as to what constitutes benchmarks going forward, and yet those benchmarks write contracts worth trillions of pounds and dollars into the future. Any arbitrage opportunity in the way that those contracts work could make some people very rich and ruin others. This will be decided as one goes along. Some of these contracts are being made, but some are already projected into the future.

To ensure that markets are not distorted and the potential for nefarious profit by some with insider information is minimised, we need reassurance about how the FCA will perform the task, particularly in its interactions with the other regulators. I am not sure what the Government’s intention is, apart from saying they are going to liaise with other regulators. Is it the Government’s intention that these benchmarks ought to be similarly designed and defined across different regulatory jurisdictions, since this is almost a currency, or are we seeking divergence here as well in order to perhaps increase our chances of being the place where some of this business is written?

Perhaps the Economic Secretary could reassure me on that, because the FCA’s powers are pretty strong, but what is the intention? That might be in all of the many consultations, which I confess I have not read, so it might be set out there. If the Minister could put a little more on the record, we might at least have some certainty there, not least for Pepper v. Hart purposes.

[John Glen]

I thank the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East and the hon. Member for Wallasey for their observations. The hon. Lady demonstrates her experience and professionalism in being able to jump in on the first clause, having not been here this morning—no disrespect intended.

[Ms Eagle]

None taken.

[John Glen]

The point that the hon. Lady makes is absolutely clear. We need to ensure that the regulations are in line with global practices because the issue is global. The interconnectedness of financial services markets demands, as in the statement I made just now, that we work very closely with regulators in other jurisdictions. It is absolutely right that we learn the lessons that the right hon. Gentleman, in his work on the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards several years ago, drew attention to with respect to the appalling abuses in the market. This measure is designed to give us a framework and to give the FCA the powers to ensure that we have global best practice and no ambiguity.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Glen]

The clause introduces amendments to article 28 of the benchmarks regulation, including new paragraphs 1A to 1E. Article 28 of the benchmarks regulation stipulates requirements for benchmark administrators and supervised entities in preparing for changes to, or the cessation of, benchmarks. I will refer to this as the change and cessation procedure.

The clause inserts the word “robust” in paragraph 1 of article 28 to define and strengthen the nature of the change and cessation procedures that benchmark administrators are required to publish. The clause also inserts new paragraphs 1A to 1E, which set out requirements for the written change and cessation procedure that a benchmark administrator must publish.

New paragraph 1A establishes that the administrator must publish a robust written change and cessation procedure alongside the publication of the administrator’s benchmark statement, which, among other things, sets out the market or economic reality that the benchmark intends to measure. The documents must be published within two weeks of the benchmark being registered in the FCA’s register. Wherever a material change occurs, the benchmark administrator is required to update its written procedure. For critical benchmarks, the proposed changes in new paragraphs 1B to 1E set out additional and more stringent requirements.

When publishing its written procedure, the administrator of a critical benchmark is required to provide an assessment to the FCA, on the basis of the information available to it, that considers the nature and extent of the current use of the benchmark, the availability of suitable alternatives, and how prepared users are for changes to, or the cessation of, the benchmark. Before publishing an updated written change and cessation procedure, critical benchmark administrators must also provide that assessment together with their updated written procedure to the FCA for review. The FCA is required to review and consider whether the procedure is sufficiently robust. The administrator must not publish an update of its procedure without receiving written notice from the FCA that its procedure is sufficiently robust.

In order to be designated as a critical benchmark, a benchmark must be used extensively, and its cessation may pose significant and adverse impacts on market integrity, financial stability, consumers, the real economy, or the financing of households and businesses. It is therefore reasonable and proportionate to require administrators of critical benchmarks to demonstrate via an assessment that their cessation plans are robust. We do not expect it to be an overly burdensome assessment for benchmark administrators. The clause will support increased preparedness in the event of changes to, or the cessation of, benchmarks in the future. I therefore recommend that the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Ms Eagle]

Again, I have just a few questions so that I can get in my head precisely what the reason is for putting this in primary legislation. LIBOR clearly had its issues but it was used for a very long time. Is the Minister anticipating that benchmarks will change much more rapidly in the future, or does he want some kind of stability with the new benchmarks that are based on actual prices, rather than the guesses of participants in the market, as LIBOR came to be defined prior to its demise?

Is the Minister expecting that this kind of provision for ceasing benchmarks will be used regularly? I anticipate that the answer will be, “Only when it is needed because of what is happening in the market.” If this kind of procedure is theoretical and on the face of a piece of legislation but hardly ever used, does that mean that the mechanisms that the Minister is setting out in clause 19 and other parts of the Bill will rust away? They will be there in theory, but there will be nobody there to work them properly. How does he anticipate that the market, the FCA and the benchmark administrators will maintain the capacity to do this if cessation is a very irregular, rare thing?

Will the Minister spend a bit of time defining what “robust” means in this context? In my time in this place, I have had many arguments with Ministers, and made many arguments as a Minister, about why we must not put particular words on the face of Bills and what their meaning is. Can the Minister enlighten us as to what he, the FCA and the Treasury mean by “robust” and how they are defining that in law, so that I can have a bit more confidence that they have got it right on the face of the Bill?

[John Glen]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments. Although the provisions of this legislation are under the heading of benchmarks, they really refer to the capacity that we need to have to deal with the LIBOR issue. She is right to raise the question of the enduring provision and how tested and exercised that capacity would be, but this is about setting a framework for future use, which is very difficult to anticipate. We want to ensure that it is fit for purpose for the future.

The hon. Lady asks when the framework could be used, which is not a matter that I can reasonably be drawn on, because it would be about market conditions evolving, but it certainly means that we are ready for whatever might evolve, in terms of benchmarks on the path towards becoming critical. However, it will be for the FCA, in conversation with the market and Parliament, to determine how to bring that forward.

[Ms Eagle]

Does the Economic Secretary think that, given the incredible trouble that the wind-down of LIBOR has caused in the markets—not least because of what is on the face of the Bill and the very difficult issues caused by having to exit the LIBOR benchmark—it is best to try to get the next benchmark sorted and future-proofed, so that it does not turn into LIBOR 2 and cause his future successor in the Treasury and me all this kerfuffle in a Public Bill Committee?

[John Glen]

Absolutely. It is absolutely right that we give the power to the FCA but also keep a vigilant eye on evolving market conditions, so that we are well placed to move earlier to deal with any failures in benchmarks.

The hon. Lady asked me to define “robust” in the context of the Bill. I am reluctant to be drawn on that, because it is a matter of legal definition, but I would be very happy to write to her on that and respond at subsequent sittings of the Committee, if she wishes me to do so.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 19 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 20

Extension of transitional period for benchmarks with non-UK administrators

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Eagle]

Will the Economic Secretary share with the Committee the intention behind the extension to 2025? He said that it was to create certainty—I can understand that. Is the intention to transition to something different—the new third-country regime—after the extension, or is it to develop and introduce it earlier if it looks like there are advantages to doing so? I know that I am asking him to gaze into the future, but this will be in the Treasury and regulators’ work list and they will presumably schedule it at some stage. Does he expect the creation of a third-country regime to be difficult or quite easy? Are the Government thinking of basing it on the existing regimes or diverging from what we are used to? Will he give us a little more information about how the Treasury intends to proceed with this piece of technical but very important work.

[John Glen]

I am very happy to address those points. The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East raised the issue of the different time periods. This is different from the LIBOR transition; it is about the third-party benchmarks exclusively. It is a response to the market reality, as we have seen in the number of applications. I will come to the point of the hon. Member for Wallasey in a second.

The right hon. Gentleman also asked about the risk of harm concept and how important that is. Clearly, the LIBOR transition, as we have established today, is an incredibly complicated matter with a great deal of legal complexity, an imperative to align to global best practice, the need to produce a synthetic alternative and the evolution of policy around that. It is also designed to protect. He is right to say that there is a lot more work to be done; there is no off-the-shelf solution. This measure allows the formal framework for that to evolve.

The hon. Member for Wallasey asked me to comment on the future time period by which the new third-country benchmark regime would be constructed. The extension is a response intended to resolve industry concerns and to ensure that UK markets can retain access to the third-country benchmarks. There is no intention to find some way of deviating from norms on that. It is in our interest to have complete alignment to global best practice. The extension gives UK firms the legal and economic certainty. As soon as it can be done, it should be done. I cannot give her the precise location of where that is in the work plan—the FCA has a lot on at the moment—but she is right that we need to operationalise it appropriately, recognising the different obligations on different sized firms. I will be working with the FCA to keep an eye on that in the coming weeks and months.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 20 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 21

Benchmarks: minor and consequential amendments

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[John Glen]

Clause 22 delivers the Government’s commitment to enable Gibraltar-based firms to have continued access to the UK’s financial markets. We move on, finally, from benchmarks and LIBOR; I cannot say that I am too disappointed by that.

[Ms Eagle]

I recognise that I missed a lot of exciting things this morning, but I do not think the Minister is really moving on from that, as he now has to do the work to put it into effect.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Eagle]

Clearly, the potential situation is there now. In evidence, the response—reasonably—was that that has not happened to date, even though there have been close connections between Gibraltar and the UK. However, these things tend to be dynamic and, once the agreement with Gibraltar is established, our tax regimes may diverge even further. If the Chancellor has his way after yesterday’s statement, I suspect they might have to.

Will that create more of a temptation for financial service companies to offshore to Gibraltar outside of the UK? Is the Minister convinced that that will not happen as a result of the Bill? I want reassurance from him about those potential weaknesses or risks and about consumer protections. He might even want to say a bit about benefits, if he feels up to it.

[John Glen]

I counted several questions in those four contributions and I will do my best to address them. First, I will reiterate what we are trying to do: to create the market access regime for Gibraltar-based financial services wishing to operate in the UK, and to make provision for outbound UK-based firms wishing to operate in Gibraltar.

The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East made a number of points, which I will start to address. He asked about the two-year reporting mechanism. The Gibraltar authorisation regime provides a broader and deeper market access into the UK market—including to the retail market—than other market access regimes, so the Treasury needs to be satisfied continuously that all conditions are met. We will therefore work carefully with the Minister we spoke to last week from the Government of Gibraltar to ensure that those conditions can be satisfied on an ongoing basis.

It is important to contextualise the nature of the relationship with Gibraltar. There has been a lot of dialogue, visits—not latterly—and evaluation of each other’s situation with respect to market access. In the lead up to the new regime, the Treasury will assess Gibraltar against the relevant market conditions for the sub-sectors to which it seeks access, and we will work closely with the Government of Gibraltar. The most significant area is the Gibraltarian insurance market, and 90% of that is UK facing.

The right hon. Gentleman compared the two-year review to our refusal to review the prudential regimes. As we have already discussed, the prudential measures include an accountability framework; we had a different view on the suitability of the one we suggested versus the amendment. The regulators have the expertise to set rules in the complex and technical areas of financial regulation and can do so in an agile way.

The right hon. Gentleman also referred to the FATF report. I have not read it in full, but I am aware of its broad indications of the challenges that exist. I am also aware that, while we had a good report, there are some challenges that we need to address in the UK. I will not hold back on admitting that. I will write to him specifically on those measures that pertain to Gibraltar, because I ought to do justice to his proper scrutiny.

There is an issue with the extension of the Gibraltarian regime to other countries. That is a bespoke regime that has been specifically designed for Gibraltar, recognising what the right hon. Gentleman and others will acknowledge is a special historical relationship, and our past common membership of the EU. These circumstances do not apply to any other jurisdictions, so that is not designed as a model or, as he said, a mini-single market to be extended elsewhere.

The hon. Member for Glasgow Central asked about the scope of the FOS jurisdiction over products sold by Gibraltarian firms. Our intention is that all Gibraltar-based firms with a schedule 2A commission will be covered by the FOS’s compulsory jurisdiction. That ensures that individuals and small businesses can seek appropriate redress. However, the extension of the FOS’s jurisdiction to schedule 2A firms does not require express wording in this Bill. The Bill makes schedule 2A firms a type of authorised person, so the FCA be able to make rules about them, bringing them inside the FOS’s remit. The FCA will be reflecting that change in the rules governing the FOS’s jurisdiction. Firms already under the FOS’s voluntary jurisdiction will transfer to the compulsory jurisdiction, with no loss of eligibility for their consumers in respect of actions occurring before they entered the compulsory jurisdiction.

The hon. Member for Glasgow Central also asked about the withdrawal of equivalence. If market access were to be withdrawn, schedule 2A puts in place winding down arrangements that enable the Government to pass secondary legislation providing for Gibraltar-based firms to exit the market in an orderly fashion, with appropriate protections for UK consumers. That is what would happen in market failure.

Financial Services Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between John Glen and Angela Eagle

Committee stage
Tuesday 24th November 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Ms Eagle]

I want to come back on that and press the Minister on a couple of questions that, with all due respect, I do not think he answered in his response. Clearly, our amendment is a hook on which to hang a debate about transparency, so that we know what the regulators are doing, and about accountability, because, as I said earlier, if these organisations begin to respond to particular inducements, such as their own remuneration, they can cause risk to happen in a way that can be severely detrimental to consumers and entire economies, as we have seen in recent history. I think that, in the light of that, we are perhaps owed a little more of an explanation from the Minister—I am putting this gently—about what the approach of the regulators will be. The Minister can stand there and say, “The regulators are going to right-size regulation.” That sounds like a fantastic thing because of the very phrase that the Minister has used—“right-size”—but how are they deciding?

We clearly got the wrong size because of evolutionary behaviour to avoid regulation and increasingly risky behaviour in the global financial system in the run-up to the global financial crisis in 2008, which was caused by or began in the subprime mortgage market in America but which brought most of the—if I can put it this way—western-style banking systems close to ruin in the rest of the very interconnected economy because of what had been happening with derivatives. Therefore I wonder whether the Minister might be able to say a little more about the benefits of having the regime that he called right-sized regulation; why we might wish to move away from the current position so quickly after the transition period is over; and what he sees as the benefits of doing this. Refusing our amendment means that there will be no transparent analysis of the effect on the public domain, so we will not be able to discuss it.

I for one think it is important to get these very technical, dry regulations out into the open and to translate them, with the seriousness they deserve, into the potential implications that they present for all our constituents. Our amendment seeks to do that by at least having a transparent publication of these kinds of analyses. The Minister wants to keep it in the regulators’ ambit, in which there is not so much light, to be honest. It is highly technical, and it is hard for those on the outside to have a look inside to see what the implications are. I have hardly had any correspondence from outsiders on the Bill to help me through the long hours and sittings to come. That rather illustrates my point: that a light needs to be shone on this area, because of the risks if we get it wrong.

The Minister rightly wants to get it right, but surely it is relevant to hear from him and to have a bit of transparency, and to put something on the record now about how he sees the advantages playing out, as opposed to the risks. Will he have another go?

[John Glen]

I am very happy to have another go. The hon. Lady is at risk of suggesting that there is somehow a clumsy, rushed delegation to regulators and a risk that—in that delegation—the industry will influence regulators to right-size in a way that damages consumers. I draw her attention to the fact that the legislation gives the FCA responsibility to have regard to the impact on consumers, on the market and on firms—that is, the impact on themselves—of not having the appropriate capital requirements.

The right-sizing comment refers to the fact that the firms are currently bound by rules that align them to other institutions that are clearly functionally different. Nobody really believes that it would be right for there to be a prescriptive mandate from primary legislation on exactly how those technical rules and those capital requirements on a firm-by-firm basis should exist. The FCA has the right to reclassify firms and monitor that reclassification as firms evolve. The PRA will retain oversight of systemically important firms.

I contend that the Bill contains sufficient mechanisms to ensure public and parliamentary scrutiny of both the FCA and the Treasury through the draft affirmative procedure and the FCA reporting requirements. That combination of the FCA’s existing statutory duties and the “have regards” set out in the Bill cover the areas that amendment 19 seeks to address.

I make one further important point that goes to the heart of the wider regulatory framework. The future regulatory framework consultation that we launched on 19 October sets out over a 12-week period to look holistically at what should be the constitutional relationship between the FCA, the PRA, the Treasury and Parliament to embed an enduring accountability framework on a much broader basis. There will be another consultation subsequent to that. I anticipate that the response to the consultation might be, “Why haven’t you done this before?”. The bottom line is that the measures are required to meet international standards within an internationally determined timeframe of expectations. I declared on Second Reading that this is the first in a series of pieces of legislation, and I have always said so. This first piece of legislation sets the accountability framework for the initial measures.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Eagle]

Like the hon. Member for Glasgow Central, I am on the Treasury Committee. We have a very full programme. The hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford also shares the pleasures of being on the Treasury Committee. However, it would be very difficult for us to question the FCA with this level of granularity. Therefore, given the onshoring and the importance of this regime as it evolves, how does the Minister expect the transparency, oversight and accountability to be put in place going forward? Does he expect that to also include consumer authorities and the consumer interest, and will explain what he expects these companies to be able to do under this regime that they cannot do now?

[John Glen]

I am grateful for those questions, and I shall seek to bring some clarity. The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East asked me two questions about the numbers. I cannot give a specific number here, because it is fluid and would be something for the FCA to determine. I am sure the FCA would be very happy to give him an indication on that.

To the other point around interconnectedness, made by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Central as well, the classification will be based on the evolving nature of the activities, and this is something the FCA makes judgments on all the time. The PRA is responsible for eight systemically important institutions, covering Goldman Sachs and J. P. Morgan, among others, which are of a size and scale such that their interconnectedness means they are of systemic significance.

There are a lot of complex relationships between financial institutions. Therefore, as acknowledged by the hon. Member for Wallasey, as people who are technically capable of evaluating those interconnected elements, it is appropriate and in their interest to make those judgments, and that sort of decision making does go on currently.

The scrutiny process links back—I will not keep repeating it—to the point that the right hon. Gentleman made about the “Future Regulatory Framework Review”, which will look at the appropriateness in a situation where that scrutiny has previously happened at an EU level, through combined conversations, the Council of Ministers, work that is then is auto-uploaded to the regulators. What is the new mechanism to hold regulators accountable in a situation where they are given the task from this place? That would be the purpose of the extended regulatory review and future legislation. It may involve an enhanced role for the Treasury Committee, with additional resources to augment the expertise that already exists, but that is a matter for that consultation.

In answer to the question from the hon. Member for Wallasey about what I expect the companies will be able to do that they currently cannot, this comes back to some of the evidence we heard last week from the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association, which says there is a wide family of firms with different activities. The question is: are the regulations as they apply at the moment—as fitted for 28 countries, where obviously some compromises were made—appropriate for the configuration of firms as they exist?

What I would expect to see is consideration given for capital requirements that match the actual profile of activities, notwithstanding the very legitimate points made around the interconnectedness and the risks associated with their broadest activities. I have stressed throughout the passage of this Bill so far, and I reiterate now, that the essential purpose of the Government’s approach is to ensure that we have the highest regulatory standards. Our reputation as a centre for financial services is based not on finding quick fixes that shortcut regulatory standards, but on finding something that fits the nature of our industry, aligned to international standards, that gives us the best opportunity to grow and prosper in a way that is safe and secure for consumers.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 1

Exclusion of certain investment firms from the Capital Requirements Regulation: consequential amendments

Question proposed, That the schedule be the First schedule to the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr McFadden]

I do not really have substantial questions at this stage, because schedule 2 sets out the detail, and I think we will probably have an extensive debate on it.

[Ms Eagle]

The clause inserts a new part 9C into the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, which forms the legal basis for the new regime that the Bill introduces for investment companies. We have been talking about the minimum amount of capital required. We have covered some of that, although we will get further into it when we come to the Basel 3.1 bits.

Will the Minister say a bit about remuneration policies? That is another issue that will be regulated. We know from what happened in the financial crash and the build-up to that bubble that remuneration policies formed a key part of the bad incentives that created the behaviour that caused the crash. How will the Government be dealing with the regulators about remuneration? What will the principles be? Getting the right incentives for remuneration is a key driver for behaviour, and behaviour is a key driver for activities in that area, as we know only too well. If we did not know that from 2008, we would know it from the Wall Street crash in 1929. It is part of a set pattern. How will the Government ask the regulators to deal with that issue?

[John Glen]

I am happy to respond to that. The risk that the hon. Lady sets out—that, broadly, this country will go down a route where we deviate significantly from the new established norms of the regulation of remuneration and the rules around rewards and bonuses and so on—is a matter for which the regulator has responsibility. It will be incumbent on the Government to look at evolving best practice and the appropriate way to bring continuity to such regulations in line with those highest standards.

It is not our wish to create deviation for the sake of it. We will continue to look at the market situation. The point has been made already that we have to be alert to evolving new practices. In the same way, I think the hon. Lady would acknowledge that, in the light of the last crisis, there was an evolution in business models with respect to high-cost credit. There is always a risk in the sort of environment that we are in now that there will be new developments. I cannot prescribe precisely how we will look forward, but we will look to adhere to global high standards, because the integrity of our reputation relies on it.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Minister for his indulgence. Clause 2 is also partly about enforcing regulations; there are references to fraud and criminal offences, which again we will come to in more detail later. Will he let us know whether fraud enforcement will be beefed up? We can have a great regulatory regime and redefine fraudulent behaviour, but if enforcement is not up to scratch, that will not really deter. This is area where, if enforcement is too weak, the rewards are very high and the risk of being caught and prosecuted or fined is very low. Can he give some reassurance on that point at this stage?

[John Glen]

I am happy to. The hon. Lady makes a fair and reasonable point. We have to maintain the highest standards of regulation. The FCA and the PRA are extremely well respected globally, but that does not lead me as the Minister to be complacent. We must continually be vigilant about whether those standards of compliance and intervention into non-compliance are sufficient and adequate. We will always seek to maintain that.

To return to the principle, these capital requirements for firms are extremely detailed and technical. The regulators have the right expertise to update them. They will have increased responsibility, but they will need to consider the principles set out in the Bill. We are following the advice of the House of Lords Financial Affairs Sub-Committee, which said that these delegations would be appropriate. The broader conversation about the direction of travel around what sort of framework we wish to have in the UK is not fully addressed at this moment, but there will be more to say in the context of the response to the future regulatory framework two-stage review and the legislation we bring forward subsequently.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 2 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 2

Prudential regulation of FCA investment firms

Draft Benchmarks (Amendment and Transitional Provision) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between John Glen and Angela Eagle

Tuesday 19th February 2019 General Committees

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Benchmarks (Amendment and Transitional Provision) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.

May I start by saying what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray?

As the Committee will be aware, the Treasury has been undertaking a programme of legislation to ensure that, if the UK leaves the EU without a deal or an implementation period, there continues to be a functioning legislative and regulatory regime for financial services in the UK. The Treasury is laying statutory instruments under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 to deliver that, and a large number of debates on the SIs have already been undertaken in this place and in the House of Lords. The SI being debated today is part of that programme and was debated and approved by the House of Lords on 18 January.

The SI will fix deficiencies in UK law relating to the regulation of financial benchmarks, to ensure that it continues to operate effectively post-exit. This legislation is important for the regulation and integrity of financial markets in the UK. The approach taken aligns with that of other SIs being laid under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act, providing continuity by maintaining existing legislation at the point of exit, but amending where necessary to ensure that it works effectively in a no-deal context. The benchmarks SI makes amendments to retained EU law on financial benchmarks, known as the EU benchmarks regulation—the BMR—and ensures that the UK continues to have an effective framework to regulate financial benchmarks.

Benchmarks are publicly available indices used in a wide range of markets to help set prices, measure the performance of investment funds or work out amounts payable under financial contracts. They play a key role in the financial system’s core functions of allocating capital and risk, and impact huge volumes of credit products and derivatives. The EU BMR sets requirements on benchmark methodology, transparency and governance.

Benchmarks must be approved in order to be used in the EU after the conclusion of the EU BMR’s transitional period at the end of 2019. To provide benchmarks for use in the EU after that, benchmark administrators located in the EU may apply for authorisation or registration. Third-country administrators or benchmarks may be approved through equivalence, recognition or endorsement. Approved administrators and benchmarks are placed on to the public register maintained by the European Securities and Markets Authority: ESMA.

In a no-deal scenario, the UK would be outside the European economic area and the EU’s legal, supervisory and financial regulatory framework. The UK legislation implementing the BMR and related legislation therefore needs to be updated to reflect that and ensure that the UK’s benchmarks regulation operates properly in a no-deal scenario.

The draft regulations therefore make the necessary amendments to the retained EU legislation to ensure that the regimes are operable in a wholly domestic context. First, this instrument amends the scope of the BMR to apply to the UK only. From exit day, benchmarks and administrators outside the UK will be subject to the onshored third-country regime, and must be approved via recognition, endorsement or equivalence for use in the UK.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Could the Minister give the Committee an idea of how many people will have to be put through the system, which interacts with our very large financial sector? How many are involved in what he is talking about now? Will it be a big issue for the Financial Conduct Authority or will it be a tick-box exercise? How many countries and organisations are involved?

[John Glen]

Since 2015, the FCA has allocated £16 million to its Brexit onshoring exercise, which has ramped up to 158 full-time staff since March last year, when it had only 28. Following scrutiny from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and further dialogue with the FCA, we in the Treasury are convinced that the FCA has the resources to continue to do that work. Publicly available machine-to-machine software onshores those approved through European national competent authorities to the FCA so that they are completely up to date. We foresee no difficulties in that process, but resources have been added. The hon. Lady asks about the number of countries involved. I cannot give her that information now—I do not have it available to me—but I will be able to write to her with it.

Secondly, the instrument establishes a requirement for the Financial Conduct Authority to create a UK benchmarks register, which it will maintain from exit day. Following the transitional window in the BMR, supervised entities may use a benchmark in the UK only if either the relevant administrator or the benchmark is on the FCA register. The instrument will ensure that benchmark administrators that the FCA has already authorised or registered ahead of exit day are automatically migrated from the ESMA register to the FCA register on exit day. It will do the same for third-country benchmarks or administrators that the FCA has already recognised or UK firms have endorsed.

Thirdly, the instrument includes a new transitional provision that takes EU and third-country administrators and benchmarks that appear on the ESMA register at exit day as the result of an approval under the BMR outside of the UK, and temporarily migrates them on to the FCA register for 24 months, beginning with exit day. That will enable continued use of those benchmarks in the UK for a 24-month period, unless and until an application for approval in the UK is refused, or unless they are removed from the ESMA register during that time. That will provide continuity for administrators and users, and minimise market disruption. Administrators and benchmarks subject to that transitional provision must become approved by the FCA under the third-country regime to enable their continued use in new contracts in the UK after that period.

Additionally, the SI removes obligations in retained EU law for the FCA to co-operate and share information with EU regulators as, with no guarantee of reciprocity, those obligations would not be appropriate as of exit day. However, the FCA will still be able to co-operate with EU regulators through the existing framework in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, as it is currently able to with all other third countries.

Furthermore, certain regulatory functions under the BMR are currently carried out by EU authorities—primarily the European Commission and the European supervisory authorities, including ESMA. Once the UK leaves the EU, EU bodies will no longer have a mandate to carry out those functions. Therefore, the SI transfers the functions of the Commission to the Treasury, including the power to adopt delegated Acts based on the underlying legislation. The SI also transfers to the FCA the functions of ESMA, such as the function to maintain a register of benchmarks and the power to make binding technical standards. That delegation is in line with the way we have conducted similar SIs across the board.

Finally, the SI makes further minor amendments to retained EU legislation to ensure that the UK’s benchmarks regime operates effectively once it leaves the EU. Taken together, these measures will ensure that the UK retains an effective framework to regulate financial benchmarks. The Treasury worked very closely with the Financial Conduct Authority in drafting the instrument. It has also engaged the financial services industry on the SI, and it will continue to do so. On 8 January, the Treasury published the instrument in draft along with an explanatory policy note, to maximise transparency to Parliament and industry.

In conclusion, the Government believe that the changes made by the instrument are necessary to ensure that the UK has an effective regime for regulating benchmarks and that legislation functions appropriately if the UK leaves the EU without a deal or an implementation period. That is not the Government’s expectation or desire, but it is consistent with the preparation we are doing. I hope Members will be able to support the draft regulations, which I commend to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Eagle]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray—I think for the first time. It is important for us to do a little translation of this highly technical set of instruments that are before us in the event of no deal; I presume that when he replies to the debate, the Minister will confirm that these changes will automatically become defunct if there is a deal.

What we are really talking about with benchmarking is the price of particular assets and contracts being swapped, traded or changed. As my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East so pointedly observed, this is about trillions of pounds swilling through various international markets in—

[John Glen]

Pensions.

[Ms Eagle]

In assets, cash, pensions, contracts, swaps and all the things that currently make up our global trade in such issues. As the Minister points out from a sedentary position, many people’s future retirement plans are crucially dependent on getting this right.

These kind of EU regulations came into being in the first place because of the LIBOR scandal and the evidence of significant cheating in creating the prices of these benchmarks for these trades to happen. Until the LIBOR scandal, nobody had really looked at how international benchmarks such as LIBOR were generated. Everybody thought it simply happened according to market mechanisms, and that absolutely nothing nefarious was going on.

However, we then discovered that a great deal of nefariosity—I do not know whether that is a word—was going on, and that people’s rewards for indulging in that nefariosity were colossal. That is why all these regulations had to be immediately generated. That is the first thing. This is about a hugely important area of potential market manipulation and cheating, the risks of which, until we became aware the LIBOR scandal, were tiny and the rewards from which, if one indulged in it and got away with it, were colossal.

We also need to think not only about the individual market manipulation that might happen if we get this wrong, but about financial stability itself. If 2008 taught us anything, it was that these very complex and increasingly complicated global money and asset markets, for which these benchmarks effectively represent what is meant to be a market-generated price, are the weakest and least-regulated points across the world. The regime that is the most hands-off becomes the weakest, and—at the same time, paradoxically—the strongest defence against manipulation and disaster.

We know disasters such as the global financial crash affect real people’s lives across the globe. The draft regulations might look like very dry, boring, technical changes that the Minister has brought before us, but they are actually crucial. They are about real issues of financial stability, potential market manipulation and cheating. If we do not get this right, we will become the weakest link.

It is therefore absolutely and utterly crucial that, if we are to establish this kind of regime, we had better be sure that we are doing it correctly, that we have the time to do it correctly and that we have enough people in the FCA with enough sophistication to do it correctly. I worry about the size of our market—£130 billion in gross value, according to the Minister’s own figures. With the sudden ramping up from a mere 28 employees at the FCA to 158 full-time staff, which the Minister talked about, they are going to have to be some of the most sophisticated people on this earth. I hope he is paying them properly—[Interruption.] Not him personally, but the Government, of whom he is the representative in Committee. They had better be good at their jobs. I want the Minister to reassure us about that.

Is the FCA up to it? I do not mean to be horrible, but the Minister is suddenly giving it a lot of responsibility, with new staff: if we get it wrong and there is regulatory arbitrage to be exploited in the way the system works, we know that it will be. That might include leaving loopholes for huge market manipulation and enrichment at the expense of customers, pensioners and the people who are investing in the instruments, who will be traders. If the Minister does not get it right, the consequences will be huge.

How big is the risk? The impact assessment does not really talk about how big it is or the likely costs of the changes. I congratulate the Minister on being one of the few Ministers who has managed to produce an assessment to put before one of these statutory instrument Committees, which we are attending in great numbers at the moment. Large numbers of his ministerial colleagues have not been able to do that, which is a disgrace. That is the way in which the Government are dealing with the situation we find ourselves in.

The costs that the Minister puts before us are described as “unknown: likely significant” or “significant”. There is an inability to quantify the cost to business and to those who are in the market of the sudden change and the no-deal scenario. At a macro level, it is significant but unknowable, but at a micro level, in annex A, the Treasury has come up with a ridiculous little formula for the familiarisation costs for individual companies—as an ex-Treasury Minister, I am familiar with that kind of thing.

The Treasury has decided that the familiarisation cost of a statutory instrument for one firm is the number of words in the statutory instrument divided by the number of words that one can read in a minute—as if being able to read the statutory instrument means that one automatically understands it. In one of the most complex areas of regulation and statutory authority, that is the best that HMRC can come up with.

By the way, that figure has to be multiplied by one over 60 and by the hourly wage rate, which is £330 for a solicitor or legal executive with more than four years’ experience. What a joke! Is the Minister really suggesting that if one could read the statutory instrument at so many words per minute, one would automatically understand what it meant? I have been in the House for 27 years, and I can read quite a few words a minute, but I must confess that I have never come across a statutory instrument that I can automatically understand just because of that, especially in such a complex area.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Glen]

I think, with the greatest respect, that the hon. Lady is getting two things muddled up. At this point, we are onshoring what already exists. We have a 24-month transition period during which, in a no-deal situation, there would be considerable engagement with industry and regulators about how we would adopt the criteria as a national body independent of the European supervisory authorities. If we were in that situation, we would clearly need to develop a new framework altogether for regulation. How we would harmonise with other bodies outside the UK would depend on the basis of that no deal. If the hon. Lady is asking me whether I am setting out in this SI a comprehensive regime for an independent verification of benchmarks over the next two years in a no-deal situation, I should say that no, I am not.

[Ms Eagle]

It is difficult to think of scenarios that we hope will not happen. We all hope that at some stage sense will break out and there will be time to do this disentangling. Will the Minister reassure me that if there is no deal, the regime that these changes will put in place will be in place the day after no deal, and that there will not be large numbers of loopholes through which very rapid trading, which can be instantaneous, can occur, leading to huge profiteering?

[Anneliese Dodds]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[John Glen]

I am grateful for both points. I will first respond to the hon. Member for Wallasey. I assure her that the regulation will onshore and will not create any cliff-edge risks around the loopholes that she refers to. We have worked very closely with the FCA, which provides the technical expertise. I will address her point about the resourcing of the FCA in a moment.

For the record, I do not accept the characterisation of hon. Member for Oxford East of the regulations as hybrid. In a no-deal situation, there would need to be a lot of extra work to create a new permanent regime. In terms of the divergence between the UK and the EU27, the FCA will not necessarily know why a benchmark has been removed from the ESMA register after exit. It is therefore prudent to give the FCA the discretion to make its own assessment so it is able to protect UK markets and consumers. In a no-deal situation, we would be in a world very different from the one we are used to and we take the view that the provision fixes a deficiency caused by our withdrawal.

The hon. Member for Wallasey raised the importance of the benchmarks being regulated, and I absolutely agree. The SI will ensure that the regulatory regime in the UK will operate effectively in a no-deal scenario. I reassure her that the SIs in the programme have passed through the usual quality control procedures and we have engaged extensively with the FCA in drafting them.

Based on my earlier comments about the additional full-time equivalents that the FCA has had this year in preparing effectively to manage the programme, I am confident that it has adequate resources. Regarding the future pressure, the FCA is not funded by the Government but by a levy on industry, so it will be up to the authority to bring that forward in its plan, which it will do shortly for 2019-20.

I note the observations about the familiarisation costs and the mechanism to calculate them. To be clear, the SI has been assessed to result in an estimated one-off familiarisation cost of £8,300, which, shared between the 16 UK benchmark administrators authorised under the regulations, is £518 each.

[Ms Eagle]

The hon. Gentleman may be a turbo-charged understander and reader of things, which perhaps I am not, but is he really telling the Committee that if one has read a statutory instrument as technical as this, one automatically understands it at so many words a minute?

[John Glen]

The hon. Lady will know, from her two years as Exchequer Secretary between 2007 and 2009, that in this sort of context it is unrealistic for me to read out the rationale behind the familiarisation costs methodology—

[Ms Eagle]

It is rubbish!

[John Glen]

I will, however, write to her to explain how we have used it. I acknowledge her scepticism about the situation.

The hon. Member for Oxford East raised a point about the definition of “commodity” not being in the EU regulation. As I cannot respond here and now, I am grateful for her graciousness in allowing me to write to her.

On the LIBOR points that the hon. Member for Wallasey raised, the UK did have eight domestic benchmarks but they were superseded by the EU’s more comprehensive range. The regime we are now part of is more thorough than it was 10 years ago.

The hon. Member for Oxford East asked whether it was appropriate for the FCA to assess the critical benchmarks. Just to contextualise that for the benefit of the Committee, I should say that the FCA carries out its assessment against the conditions relating to critical benchmarks set out in the benchmarks regulation. The FCA will present its conclusions to the Treasury. The Treasury must make regulations designating a benchmark as critical if the FCA makes a recommendation in accordance with the requirements of the amended provisions. The FCA is the appropriate body to carry out that assessment due to its technical expertise. That is consistent with the current split of functions between the Commission and ESMA, and it has been onshored appropriately.

The hon. Member for Wallasey asked about the wider impacts. I acknowledge her recognition of a green impact assessment, published on 8 February. Impact assessments for the SIs focus narrowly on the changes that the instruments make and on how businesses will need to respond. I concede that they do not deal with the broader economic impact of leaving the EU. There is considerable debate about what that would mean in a no-deal scenario and my judgment is that there would be a significant impact, in the short term particularly.

The impact assessment of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 deals with the impact of the parent Acts, and the Government have also published analysis, as the hon. Lady will know, of the potential economic impact of a range of scenarios. I must stress that the SI mitigates the impact of leaving the EU without a deal, and if it were not in place industry would face greater disruption and cost.

In conclusion, the changes are needed to ensure that the UK has an effective regime for regulating benchmarks and that the legislation functions appropriately if the UK leaves the EU without a deal or an implementation period. I believe that I have dealt with Opposition Members’ points. I hope that the Committee has found the sitting informative and will now join me in supporting the regulations.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Benchmarks (Amendment and Transitional Provision) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.