Financial Services and Markets Bill

Debate between John McDonnell and Bim Afolami

2nd reading
Wednesday 7th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I hope there will be plenty of time to discuss the detail of the Bill both in Committee and on Report, so I wish to make some general comments on my worries about where it is situated. When J. K. Galbraith wrote about the 1929 crash, his advice for the future was that people could set up all the institutions they needed to try to prevent it from ever happening again, but the greatest protection would come from memory. I therefore want to go back in time to some of the lessons that we perhaps should have learned but did not.

I wrote about the big bang in the 1980s and I can remember the concerns we expressed about a wave of enthusiasm for deregulation similar to what we see today. That enthusiasm resulted, in effect, in a casino economy. The City of London and the finance sector are the most successful lobbyists in the history of politics in this country and they are incredibly powerful. Sometimes, that results in corporate capture, not just of Governments but even of Oppositions at times. That period of enthusiasm for deregulation resulted in a casino economy that eventually resulted in a series of crashes—we endured not just 2007-08 but other crises.

I was in this House in 2007-08 and was the first Member to raise the issue of Northern Rock. I remember that in the debate after Northern Rock, the Treasury itself spoke about the “excessive concern for competitiveness” that brought about elements of that crash. I worry that we are re-inserting into legislation an emphasis on competitiveness that could override so many other issues of concern.

Here we go again. We are introducing legislation and placing in it a reliance on the structures that we established after the 2007-08 crash, particularly the FCA. I believe the FCA has been a catastrophic failure. My constituents have gone through London Capital & Finance, Woodford and Blackmore Bond. We saw the FCA’s failure to address HBOS and RBS properly, and we are supposedly still waiting for the independent review of Lloyds that was established in 2017, yet the FCA has moved not one inch to take further enforcement actions. As I have made clear on the Floor of the House, I was concerned that the FCA chief executive at the time was accused—rightfully, I believe—of being asleep at the wheel. Before we even had the report on London Capital & Finance and so on, we appointed him as Governor of the Bank of England.

[Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making an important and interesting speech. On that point about the FCA, will he explain to the House whether he supports changing the regulatory structure and having one super-regulator, or something of a similar description?

[John McDonnell]

The hon. Gentleman knows where my mind is going. We instituted a regulatory review a couple of years ago, and Prem Sikka, a professor of accountancy, and a team of corporate specialists and finance specialists introduced an excellent report. He is now in the Lords and I warn Members that he will shred this legislation when it goes up there. He outlined that 40 bodies are regulating our finance sector in some way and that there is a need for consolidation and to learn the lessons of the experiences of some of these bodies so far. That job is still to be done. I was hoping that the bringing forward of this legislation would coincide with the Government’s clear recommendations on where we go on that structure and, in particular, the role of the FCA.

I am also concerned about the fact that, although we are having the debate about this legislation, we are not debating potential future threats. I am anxious that in this legislation we are not addressing shadow banking, where we have already seen elements of individual firm collapses, particularly in respect of equity firms, that could create a domino effect and then produce a significant collapse.

I am also anxious about the move away from MiFID II. That issue has been raised and was derided by some in the House. We have recently seen the evidence with regard to speculation on both energy and food prices. Of course the cost of living crisis has been caused by a combination of the breakdown of supply chains, covid and the war in Ukraine, but there is significant evidence now that these increases in energy costs and food costs have been exacerbated by speculation in the markets. This is speculation where the paper markets are distinct from the reality of commodity supply. It is not just me expressing that; it has been expressed elsewhere, particularly in the States, but also by a number of global institutions. I regret that we have not addressed that issue in this legislation. We need to hold to the MiFID II, particularly the constraints on asset holding with regard to food commodities, as I am anxious about price speculation forcing prices up.

I was critical of Gordon Brown on some of his response to the banking crash in 2007-08, but one thing he did successfully was bring the world together, and there were international meetings where we looked at a global response to these problems. I believe that we now need to look at a global response to the food and energy speculation that is taking place, which is exacerbating the cost of living crisis that our constituents are facing. In that way, the Government’s approach is lacking. We will have the discussion tomorrow about their response to the energy prices increase and the cost of living crisis. I am hoping that from that, and as we move forward, we will recognise that there is an international role to be played by this Government in bringing people together, in the same way as Gordon Brown did.

I am particularly concerned about the issue of food. The UN special rapporteur Olivier De Schutter has said that what is happening now is that people are betting on people’s hunger. That cannot be right. Anything that we do that undermines in any way our own national legislation, which is against speculation in essential products such as that, is dangerous, but if we fail to ensure that we take up our international responsibilities, we will regret that for the future, as our people increasingly confront the problems of hunger and starvation.

Budget Resolutions

Debate between John McDonnell and Bim Afolami

Thursday 12th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

That is an extremely important point. For those of us who remember the social fund, it was a resource that many of our constituents fell back on in times of need. It did give them the support they needed, and in many ways it was administered relatively well. It got resources to the people with needs, and it did so with minimal costs.

The Government urgently need to provide the certainty that the public deserve on all these matters. Our worry is that, because this package does not at the moment appear to be comprehensive, it ultimately will not make us all safer, and it may put people at risk, as especially those in low-income groups may have to make the very difficult choice, as I have said, between health and hardship.

Although it has been reported that there has been some communication between Finance Ministers internationally, it is certainly not clear whether it is of the scale or depth of co-ordination in, for example, the crisis in 2007-08. As a result, whatever statements have been made have not had the effect of steadying markets or reassuring people more generally that, basically, there is an internationally agreed strategy to address the economic consequences of this emergency.

[Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the co-ordinated action that has taken place between the Treasury and the Bank of England could now be used as a model to show our international friends and partners how to do it, so that we can build on what we have already done?

[John McDonnell]

That is an extremely valid point. The co-ordination between the Bank of England and the Treasury is an example of what could be followed elsewhere, and it is being followed in some areas. However, the issue for me is that we can develop a United Kingdom strategy or an individual country strategy, but we are dealing with a virus that respects no borders. It is a global contagion now—a pandemic—so there needs to be international co-operation. What demonstrated the lack of international co-operation was the Fed cutting rates one week and the Bank of England cutting rates the following week, and the Fed cut had no impact whatsoever.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bim Afolami]

I agree with much of what the right hon. Gentleman says, but does that not show—because this is such a new phenomenon and such a new difficulty, and every country is struggling to find a policy response to it—that we may not have used the right tools? What the Treasury, the Bank of England and all our international partners are now having to do is to figure out what the right tools are, and we have to work together to try to figure that out.

[John McDonnell]

The hon. Gentleman makes exactly the right point. Not everybody supported the cut in interest rates, but the most important statement from the Bank of England was about the mechanisms with regard to the banks and lending, and about making sure that liquidity continues.

The point I am making is that, when we are dealing with what is in effect a global crisis, individual solutions in individual countries are not as effective as global co-ordination. I will give an example. Whatever criticisms people may have had of Gordon Brown’s individual policies during the banking crisis—I was here then, and actually I was giving a running commentary from the Back Benches, which perhaps at times was not welcome—no one can question the international leadership that he showed. There was a focus on and determination in bringing people together, and he brought to this crisis a mechanism by which, through the different international bodies, world leaders met and agreed a global strategy. Whatever people think of the outcome or about the merits or demerits of quantitative easing and so on, it did send out a message, and the markets eventually stabilised. I regret that we have not seen such a political and diplomatic leadership commitment or, indeed, such managerial ability from the Prime Minister or the Chancellor as yet.

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell]

I fully concur with the right hon. Gentleman. The various international vehicles that we could mobilise are available to us, and we just need to do it now. It needs to be done at a senior level, in a way that sends out a message of determination across the globe to people and families, but also to the markets. We need to ensure that this medical crisis does not create the long-term recession that some are predicting as a result of its global implications. I will now move on from the coronavirus.

In addition to the coronavirus, we face other emergencies, and we must not lose sight of the two other crises that we face. One is the crisis in our public services—it is a social emergency—with the levels of poverty and inequality in our society. The other is of course the existential threat of climate change. I have to say that yesterday’s Budget failed to address the social emergency. We have discussed it on the Floor of this House before, but this social emergency sees 4.5 million of our children living in poverty, with 70% of those children living in households where an adult is in work. We have—I do not know how else to describe it—a crisis of in-work poverty that perhaps we have not seen for generations in this country.

I have to say that there was nothing in the Budget to relieve the hardships inflicted on our community by universal credit, the bedroom tax and, especially for disabled people, the brutality of the work capability assessments undertaken against them. In fact, the Government’s own table accompanying the Budget shows that the bottom 10% fare the worst as a result of tax decisions made in this Budget and the last spending round, which cannot be right. It cannot be right. It states that the bulk of the benefits are flowing to higher paid households. Yesterday some people were saying that this could have been a Labour Budget, but whoever said that was not looking hard enough at who wins and who loses in it. I believe that not one family will be lifted out of in-work poverty because of yesterday’s announcements. Yesterday we again heard the Government’s aspiration to get the national living wage to two thirds of median earnings, but that is not a real living wage; it is an aspiration for four or five years’ time. Some may also have seen the small print, which says, “if economic conditions allow”.

Worryingly, there is nothing of any substance in the Budget to tackle the long-term crises in our public services. Let us take the justice system, for example. In prisons there has been

“a sharp rise in deaths, violence, self-harm”

and suicides, which can all be

“linked to cuts”.

That is not my statement; it comes from the Institute for Government. The House of Commons Justice Committee has pointed to a £1.2 billion gap in justice funding, so the small sums in this Budget, such as £175 million for prison maintenance, just will not cut it. Not one prison officer will be safer on the landings because of this Budget, yet in some of our prisons, those people put their lives at risk on a daily basis.

On domestic violence, according to Women’s Aid, 10 domestic abuse victims are turned away from women’s refuges every day because of a lack of space. This Budget needed to commit £173 million to ensure that no survivor is turned away. It has not done that, and without that funding, the measures in the Domestic Abuse Bill simply cannot be delivered. Not one women’s refuge can feel assured that it will get the funding it needs from this Budget.

The National Education Union said that class sizes are rising, subjects are being dropped, and inadequate pay is making the education staffing crisis worse, but there will be few teachers from whom the pressure will be lifted as a result of this Budget.

On housing, the sums earmarked for rough sleeping are totally inadequate, and we know that at least £1 billion is needed to reverse cuts in homelessness services. Yesterday, the Chancellor said that he would end homelessness, but we heard that from the Prime Minister who, when he was Mayor of London, said that rough sleeping would be ended in London by the 2012 Olympics. Rough sleeping doubled during the Prime Minister’s second term as Mayor.

It goes on: not one library will be reopened as a result of yesterday’s Budget. Not one youth centre will reopen; not one Sure Start centre.

[Bim Afolami]

Forgive me if I have misunderstood the right hon. Gentleman, but I think that £13 million is going into community libraries across the country, and that will make a big difference. Will he address that point?

[John McDonnell]

I just say to the hon. Gentleman that that sum is minuscule in comparison with the cuts that have gone on. This will not be some immense revitalisation of our library services—far from it. Indeed, a lot of that will be swallowed up by the deficits that local authorities have developed by trying to maintain their existing services. I doubt there will be any new libraries; this might perhaps allow some existing libraries to keep their heads above water, but even that is difficult to envisage.