Future Relationship with the EU

Kirsten Oswald Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I agree with my hon. Friend wholeheartedly. Remember, we are not starting from scratch; there are many precedents and it is perfectly possible for us to make progress. I sincerely hope we do so.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP) [V]]

Last week, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster told me we did not need a Brexit extension, just good will on all sides, but this Government keep making commitments and then ditching them—hardly the way to encourage good will. Will the UK Government finally admit that they cannot deliver on their own commitments and just come clean that the real strategy is to crash out of the EU, leaving the rest of us to pick up the pieces?

[Penny Mordaunt]

No, that is not the strategy. The strategy is to escalate the pace of the negotiations, which the EU is aware is required, and make progress. As I say, in the latest rounds last week we had very constructive discussions on all workstreams, but there remain areas we need to focus on in the coming days and weeks. That is what we need to do. It is in everyone’s interests—not just ours in the UK, but the EU’s—that we secure this deal, and I remain confident that we will get there.

Bank Branch Closures

Kirsten Oswald Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) for securing this important debate. Like him, I have a sense of déjà vu, having spoken in similar debates a number of times before.

I am aware of the very serious situation that we are dealing with. People at home will be watching and thinking about the difficulties that the covid-19 crisis presents us. We are well aware of that, and I encourage people to follow the most up-to-date advice at every point. Bank closures is quite a pertinent issue at the moment. This is not quite the speech I might have given under different circumstances, but it is possibly even more pressing that banks do not abandon our high streets—goodness knows, they have troubles enough without banks upping sticks and leaving behind all the businesses that are struggling so much.

I am really scunnered on behalf of my constituents; there have been repeated bank closures in towns all over East Renfrewshire over the past few years. When I served a previous term as MP, East Renfrewshire was apparently one of the worst hit areas for bank branch closures, yet here I am again because more closures are planned. When MPs and members of the public are notified of bank closures, there is no acceptance or acknowledgement of the actual impact on local residents and businesses. There is no consultation; it just hard lines, and that makes a difference to people’s lives.

Knowing that I would speak in this debate, somebody told me that after the closure of a bank branch of which they were a customer in East Renfrewshire, they got some text messages asking what they thought about bank branch closures. They could only click the boxes provided—there was no free text option for whatever reason—and the options, to paraphrase, were, “They’re good,” “They’re fine,” and “They’re okay”. They are not okay. That kind of ridiculous box-ticking exercise really does not give people any comfort that they are being listened to, and will come as no surprise to any Member of the House who has had to deal with bank closures. It feels as if there is a disregard for the needs of our communities and often of basic geography.

In East Renfrewshire, we face three additional closures, which is the last thing that people need. According to Virgin Money, it is closing the Giffnock branch because it is shutting up shop in locations where it has duplicate provision. The difficulty is that there is no duplicate provision in Giffnock because Virgin Money closed the other branch three years ago—it is now a bistro, which I wish every success, and which I am sure could use the support of a local bank. Virgin has suggested that people affected by the closure in Giffnock can use the bank in Newton Mearns. The implication was that Newton Mearns is the same as Giffnock, but they are different towns. I wondered, “How might people get there? They could go on the bus.” I checked, and it is a 50-minute round trip on the bus. That is really not a practical solution or a sensible way for people to be told to proceed.

TSB is closing branches in Barrhead and Clarkston. To my surprise, TSB suggested that customers who used the Barrhead branch could use the one in Pollok. That is a round trip of at least an hour by public transport. I can only assume that TSB does not want those customers to remain its customers and anticipates that they will all march across the road to the first-class credit union in Barrhead, Pioneer Mutual, which I have no doubt will not abandon the people of Barrhead and will continue to provide the wide range of fantastic services for which we are grateful.

TSB suggests that when its Clarkston branch closes, people can go to Thornliebank, but they would need to take the half-hourly train or the hourly bus. None of those things are what people need. It is unhelpful in the extreme for banks to suggest that those are somehow substitutions. Like when someone orders teabags in their online shop and the supermarket sends a dishcloth, the solutions are absolutely ludicrous and really quite upsetting to people who are accustomed to banking locally.

The people who need the service most are always the worst affected, as my hon. Friend said. Among them are older people, who are accustomed to dealing in cash and who should not be prevented from doing so; people who are less mobile; people who do not have cars; and of course local businesses, which absolutely rely on high-street banking services. People who run local businesses are genuinely concerned about bank closures, which make a significant difference to what they can do.

As my hon. Friend said, despite the significant difficulties that businesses currently face, they are doing great things, such as delivering things to people and being flexible in their services. They are going above and beyond and being imaginative in the way that they do business, so this is the very time when they need an assurance that the banks are there and will still be there afterwards. They need the banks upping sticks like they need a hole in the head.

Businesses will rely on Government support in the coming weeks and months—that will be so important. If we hope—and we do—that our businesses find ways to sustain themselves, surely that necessitates the availability of banks so that discussions and banking can take place in communities where those businesses are rooted. The Government stepped up when we bailed out the banks, so now it is their turn.

Banks and bank bosses need to step up and recognise that the situation is unique. This is the time for them to reconsider any plans to close bank branches and to think about what they are really for and whether they should be turning away from our constituents. They should not be turning away from our high streets now. We need them to be with us when things are difficult; now is certainly not the time for them to walk away.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

Thank you for allowing me to catch your eye, Sir David. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) on bringing forward the debate. I want first to touch on the potential closure of the Bank of Scotland branch in Galston in my constituency. It is not just the last bank in Galston, but actually the last bank in town for nine settlements. Kilmarnock, the major town in my constituency, will be the only one left with banks. That is unacceptable. Settlements with a combined population of more than 40,000 people will be without access to a bank.

The Bank of Scotland always uses the same mode of operation; it sends out a letter to notify its customers and produces statistics that say that the branch has had a drop in numbers and performs less well than the average bank. I pointed out that if it keeps reducing branches and concentrating on big urban centres, the remaining rural branches will clearly have less footfall than the urban branches. They also have less overheads, and possibly less staff. It is not comparing apples with apples.

[Kirsten Oswald]

My hon. Friend is making some fundamental points. Does he share my utter dismay that banks repeatedly tell us that more people bank online while not realising that they of course have to because banks keep closing their branches?

[Alan Brown]

I agree 100%. The banks are forcing a change in behaviour. In Galston, Bank of Scotland also highlighted that businesses are now using the cash machine to lodge more money. Why is that? It is because the staff have advised businesses to do that. Guess what? It is now taking away that cash machine anyway, so that argument is completely undermined.

It is really frustrating for people when they get a letter with fancy pie charts and statistics that are frankly meaningless. I believe that I have got some analytical skills, so as an MP I contacted the bank to ask a number of questions about the statistics it provided on changing behaviour. I got the most ridiculous, bland response, all dressed up in woolly words and ignoring my questions. I call on the Bank of Scotland at the very least to up its game, increase engagement and answer questions that come from the likes of me and the members of the community who are lobbying hard.

In concluding, I would like to raise another issue that is pertinent to people who have worked for Royal Bank of Scotland. Many women who worked in banks were part-time workers who had less wages. They had to suffer redundancies through bank closures. Some of them might be WASPI women—Women Against State Pension Inequality—who will have to wait longer before they access their state pension. Those who were RBS employees discover that, once they access their state pension, RBS initiates a clawback on their private pension. I met constituents on Friday, and one of them loses up to 25% of her pension. It turns out that is legal—it goes back to an agreement that RBS put in place—but it is also immoral.

Royal Bank of Scotland is part of the NatWest group—that is how it is to be rebranded—and NatWest does not employ such a clawback. I urge the Minister to think about that and the impact it is having on people. Given that the Government are the major shareholder in Royal Bank of Scotland, and it is now returning a profit of billions of pounds, the very least they could do is look after those workers who were loyal to Royal Bank of Scotland but got a kick in the teeth when bank closures were implemented.

Beer and Pub Taxation

Kirsten Oswald Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I congratulate the hon. Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) on securing this most important and popular debate.

In the brief time available, I want to make a few points about the value of supporting and expanding the resurgence that we have witnessed in British brewing. The debate is of interest to me on several levels—my interests are very well known. I am fortunate to have the exceptional Castle Eden Brewery in my constituency, under the excellent leadership of Cliff Walker and David Travis. They have provided me with an insight into not just quality beer—I hope we will be able to sample it in the Strangers’ Bar at some point— but some of the problems that the industry faces.

As we have heard, British beer is being exported to markets right across the world in traditional markets such as the USA and the EU. In more recent years there has been significant growth in new regions, particularly China. Some years ago, before I was a Member of Parliament, I had the opportunity to visit the huge Tsingtao Brewery in Shandong. Beer is the UK’s third largest food and drink export. The brand of “British beer” is a global trademark of excellence and innovation, which we must exploit, support and promote post Brexit.

I fully support the points that have been made by Members across the Chamber today. I support the campaign to reform business rates and freeze beer duty to support our local pubs. I am also a proud supporter of the Long Live the Local campaign, and I want to highlight the importance of small breweries relief. I am grateful that my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) mentioned that it was Labour that introduced small breweries relief in 2002—some credit should be given. That has seen some success in that we have seen a resurgence of the British independent craft brewing industry, with a fivefold increase in small brewers.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

Would the hon. Gentleman agree that, in setting alcohol duties and regulating the price of alcohol, which the Scottish Government are leading the way on, it is important that we protect small-scale breweries, craft brewing, high-quality products and local jobs, including those provided by the Kelburn Brewery in my constituency?

[Grahame Morris]

Absolutely, and there are a number of measures that the Minister can take. Despite the success that we are all very proud of within the craft brewing sector, it accounts for only around 7% of the UK market, compared with the 88% share of the market controlled by the big four global brewers. Small breweries relief has given small brewers the opportunity to compete with their larger multinational counterparts, but they benefit from economies of scale, brand recognition and huge and expensive advertising campaigns on a scale that small brewers simply cannot compete with, and which allow the big four to dominate the market and to offer significant discounts to wholesalers.

The other challenge we face across the country is the shrinking number of outlets that the brewers have for their products, with the number of pubs falling from around 54,000 in 2012 to 46,000 last year. That is a separate debate, and I know we are very short of time, Mr Gray, but I must take the time to criticise the large pub companies and the unfair rents and terms that they offer their tenants, which has contributed to the situation.

Post Brexit, manufacturing and exports will be vital in determining whether the UK will be successful outside the EU. I hope the Minister will take on board the comment made here today. There will be consensus across the House, if he comes up with a suitable formula.

Lloyds, HBOS and the Cranston Review

Kirsten Oswald Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. The biggest learning we have is that the whole process must be independent. It simply cannot be fair to have any review carried out within the bank’s boundaries that provides compensation for victims. It must be independent and independently verified. I very much appreciate her work and support on the all-party parliamentary group on fair business banking.

The all-party group, which I co-chair, made many calls saying that the process simply was not right. The Minister supported those calls, and we commissioned a review. Andrew Bailey, head of the Financial Conduct Authority , and the future Governor of the Bank of England, engaged in constructive collaboration with us and made an excellent choice of reviewer in Sir Ross Cranston, who has done a tremendous job. Most importantly, he got every stakeholder round the table before he properly commenced the review. He consulted us on many occasions, and we had great confidence in his ability to assess properly whether the review was fair.

Sir Ross’s findings were shocking—that is, shocking to anyone not familiar with the process. Anybody familiar with it, whether a victim or victims’ support group, knew exactly what he would say. We should be very grateful to him. It is a long report, but its essence is that: the Griggs review did not deliver fair or reasonable offers of compensation; it was not open or transparent; it had serious shortcomings; it took too adversarial an approach to assessing consequential loss; and, crucially, its design meant that it could never deliver fair and reasonable outcomes. Those were his findings.

We are pleased that the chief executive of Lloyds, António Horta-Osório, has written to us and the victims, and he met us. He has apologised unreservedly for the bank’s conduct in the review and committed himself personally to getting this right. It should not have been a surprise to anyone—he had been warned on many occasions that the process was flawed. Nobody should be surprised about the result if we allow a business to mark its own homework—it shows a fatal misunderstanding of how businesses operate. I speak as a businessperson who has been in business for 28 years and is still in business today. I do not think I should be allowed to regulate my business or regulate where I have customer complaints; independent oversight is critical.

Milton Friedman, the leading economist, once said that the social responsibility of business is

“simply to increase its profit”.

Warren Buffett recently said that the Government have to play their part in modifying the market system. We cannot simply leave this stuff to business; we must ensure independent oversight and fair regulation. Business is not afraid of regulation; it just wants stable, fair regulation, not over-regulation.

A bank found guilty in court of defrauding its own customers, which denied that fraud and even disgracefully mistreated whistleblower Sally Masterton in her efforts to keep the fraud out of the public eye, is allowed to compensate its victims, through its own process. The lessons we learn from the process are not just about how to compensate victims fairly and give them justice for their mistreatment but about how the regulators have dealt with it. We undermine our system of free market capitalism if we let these powerful and dominant capitalists go unchecked.

I will briefly list some of the representations that the all-party group has made over the years. My predecessor as chair wrote in February 2017 to António Horta-Osório about Lloyds’s plan to take forward the review. He said that there were unacceptable exclusion clauses, the process would be poor when it came to the consequential loss and it was critical that redress was transparent, balanced and legally binding. That was three years ago. We recommended the use of an independent process through the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators which would have been much fairer.

We did not leave it there. Over the past three years, I have had many meetings with the senior management team at Lloyds—I recently met the chief executive—including Lord Blackwell, the chair of Lloyds, as has the director of policy for the all-party group, Heather Buchanan. There has been much correspondence between us. In July 2018, we wrote again to Lloyds and said that the victims were still being treated with contempt. The reply from Lloyds—from Adrian White, the chief operating officer—said:

“We strongly believe that the offers made are both fair and reasonable.”

That demonstrates the institutional arrogance of Lloyds and the wider sector, as people were constantly pointing out that the review was not fair. Any protests about the process were simply ignored. For us, it is not that the bank did not know about it; it simply chose to ignore us and many others.

The key is where we go now. Perhaps this is not the first step, but it is incredibly important that the FCA undertakes an investigation under the senior managers regime on both the Griggs review and the people responsible for that review within Lloyds. Lloyds must take responsibility for the review and other things connected to the whole saga, including the disgraceful treatment of Sally Masterton, the whistleblower, who was mistreated for five years. She was discredited by Lloyds to the FCA, for which she was finally compensated in 2018, yet nobody has been held to account for the mistreatment of a whistleblower pointing out some of these very issues.

Another thing we will need to look at is the people who are not part of Lloyds but are connected to the review. The legal advisers Herbert Smith Freehills are clear that they misled the Financial Conduct Authority about Sally Masterton, the whistleblower. They advised Lloyds on the establishment of the Griggs review, on its operation and on some legal points incorrectly, according to Sir Ross Cranston. It is unthinkable that Herbert Smith Freehills should have any influence on the future redress scheme. That must be an absolute minimum; it cannot happen as we go forward. They should also be the subject of an investigation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

The Cranston review offers us a crucial opportunity; it is a watershed moment. It is not just about Lloyds but about the wider banking sector.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that a freedom of information request to the Financial Ombudsman Service showed that, between 2015 and 2018, complaints about Clydesdale Bank, now Virgin Money, were disproportionately high in comparison with their larger competitors? There were 404 complaints in total and, worryingly, the percentage of those upheld was only 13%. Does he agree that it is time for the chief executive officer of Virgin Money, as a self-professed challenger to the status quo, to step up and make sure that these legacy cases are dealt with?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady. This is not just about Lloyds. A number of independent reviews have taken place, but they have been undertaken by the relevant banks. That simply cannot be right, in terms of justice for victims or their feeling that justice has been done. Justice being seen to be done is a basic principle that, it seems, the banking sector does not have to adhere to.

When the APPG was initially talking about future redress, it proposed a financial services tribunal, similar to an employment tribunal, where there would be no adverse costs, so a claim could be taken forward more easily. That would help to reduce the power imbalance between banks and businesses. A comment that came back from one of those commissioning the review on behalf of UK Finance, the banking representative organisation, was that the courts were not the right place for banking disputes to be settled. Well, they are the right place for the rest of us to settle disputes—that is what our system is built upon.

We need impartial, independent processes. I will talk about the right process for that moving forward, because there is an obvious new alternative approach we can take.

Breathing Space Scheme

Kirsten Oswald Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst) on securing this debate, which is critical to many individuals and families. I also recognise her commendable work in initiating and progressing the Families with Children and Young People in Debt (Respite) Bill, which has the potential to form part of a much needed solution to the escalating levels of personal debt.

As several hon. Members have already outlined, we face a growing crisis with the levels of unsecured household debt. In January, the TUC released analysis that showed that it reached record levels in 2016, according to data provided directly by the Office for National Statistics. Total unsecured debt, which does not include mortgages, reached a record level of £349 billion during the third quarter of 2016. Unsecured debt per household increased to an average of nearly £13,000 in that quarter, which was an increase of more than £1,000 on the previous year and according to the TUC was the largest annual increase since 1997. As a share of household income, that represents an average of 27.5%, the highest figure for eight years.

It is clear to Opposition Members that the Government’s policies have created a perfect storm for those conditions to worsen. Weak wage growth has left many households struggling to get by as the cost of living continues to increase and the poorest continue to bear the brunt of Government cuts. It is therefore hardly surprising that personal borrowing has increased to fill the gap. As we have heard, sometimes people have no other option as a means of putting food on the table.

As we have said previously, the Government need to reassess their policy programme urgently, with specific consideration for the impact it has on the most vulnerable in society. However, in the interim, some sort of remedial approach is needed to give a helping hand to people who find themselves in a vicious circle of debt.

There is currently too great a gap between struggling with debt repayments and formal bankruptcy proceedings. Insolvency proceedings are typically suitable for only a small number of unmanageable personal debt cases. In particular, as my hon. Friends the Members for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) and for Blackburn (Kate Hollern) said, a single event can often serve as the trigger for a spiral into debt problems. That is typically a change in circumstances such as family breakdown, redundancy or bereavement. The individual suffering from such problems can often be back in employment or have support from the welfare system arranged in a period of six months to a year, but at present the challenge of having to deal with the initial personal problems alongside that mounting debt can have an adverse effect on getting back into employment and cause serious mental health issues, which slows the process down. Those factors combined demonstrate that a breathing space scheme would help to alleviate the pressure on individuals while they get back on their feet.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that schemes such as the debt arrangement scheme that my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) spoke of are hugely important in alleviating the stresses and strains that impact on not only the family members who are dealing with the debt but the children themselves? If we do not put steps in place to try to deal with that, the impact on the children could be long standing; it could have a lasting effect on their life chances.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I endorse those remarks in terms of what the objectives of such a scheme should be. We believe that, for it to be as effective as possible, the Government must undertake some further exploration of the technical details. In current versions of the scheme under way elsewhere, I understand that public sector debts such as council tax debt are excluded as well as self-assessment fines, benefit overpayments and so on. Those debts can often cause the most serious stress to individuals, so it is important to include those obligations alongside consumer credit.

Equitable Life Policyholders: Compensation

Kirsten Oswald Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

I am pleased to be able to speak today and to keep up the pressure on behalf of constituents who have been hard hit and who deserve better. I thank the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for initiating the debate and for his continued hard work on behalf of all those affected.

Like, I am sure, other Members, I remember the reassuring adverts that must have attracted many people at the time. They were warm, homespun and affirming, telling us that “It’s an Equitable Life,” which it clearly was not. If there were any equity or justice in life, we would not be here today on behalf of our constituents whose lives have been changed in such a damaging way. Although I understand the steps that have been taken so far, their confidence in both government and financial regulation has been shattered.

I think of constituents of mine, such as James Moore of Newton Mearns or Howard Lyle, who lives in Eaglesham. Howard is now 81, but he was a self-employed business man. He worked hard for his living and did all the right things to provide financial security. In fact, he ended up working until he was 72 years old. He felt that he had done everything possible to ensure that he had good financial plans in place and would not be dependent on the state in his retirement. But, of course, all his well-laid and well-paid-for plans are in tatters. Howard says:

“All I am looking for is a repayment of what I and hundreds of other pensioners are owed.”

Who could possibly argue with that? I have named only two constituents, but, like other Members, I know of many others who are similarly affected and have been similarly failed by what is clearly a toothless regulatory system, which has utterly let them down.

[Stuart Blair Donaldson (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is making some great points. Given the hardships that some of our constituents have faced, given the injustice and, indeed, the age that some of them are reaching, will she join me in expressing admiration for their tenacity and their determination to keep the issue on the political agenda and to continue to fight this injustice?

[Kirsten Oswald]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We should commend those people for all their continued work in keeping the issue at the forefront of our minds.

A cynical person might wonder whether—as with the collapse of the Connaught Income Fund, which was mentioned by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry)—there is a strategy of dragging action out for an extraordinarily long time to ensure that fewer of those affected are still with us. It is simply not good enough for this sorry saga to continue for even longer. The UK Government must now finally deal fully with the outstanding injustices experienced by these unfortunate policyholders.

We really do need to grasp the nettle, and acknowledge the wrong that has been done and the impact that it has had on people’s lives. It is essential for action to be taken on behalf of the people who have lost out, but we also need to ensure that they can maintain confidence in our pension provision and in financial and regulatory bodies.

[James Heappey (Wells) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making some powerful points on behalf of her constituents. Many of my constituents have also been in touch to say that they see this as such an unfairness because they did the right thing. They worked all their lives, and they paid into a scheme that they thought was the right one. That sense of unfairness is compounded by the way in which so many other schemes that have failed have been dealt with. Banks have been bailed out by the Government, and policyholders have been refunded. Does the hon. Lady agree that the grievance of these policyholders is perhaps all the more because so many other organisations have already been bailed out?

[Kirsten Oswald]

The point is well made. I think that Equitable Life policyholders, like Connaught Income Fund investors, feel particularly hard done by, and that is perfectly understandable. We need to deal with the compensation, and that can only happen when we have fully quantified the loss by negotiating the sums involved. At present, we are simply not there. After all this time, the Government need to acknowledge and deal with the injustice that people understandably feel. They have worked hard, and they have saved hard. They have done all the things that Governments emphasise are financially responsible and the way to guarantee security in retirement. Imagine how they must have felt when not only did their hard-earned money vanish, but the Government failed to protect them and then, to compound the problems further, failed to offer fair compensation.

Of course I recognise that there has been some compensation, but those affected understandably feel that that is not good enough and that it is not right for them to lose out because the Government claim that there are financial constraints. Why should they pay the price for failures of Treasury regulation in the 1990s? The Government must realise how much damage scandals such as this cause to public confidence in saving and in regulation. Surely, as the hon. Member for Harrow East said, righting wrongs like those suffered by Equitable Life and, indeed, Connaught investors is part of the way to restore that confidence.

There is real confusion, much of it arising from inaccurate communication from the Department for Work and Pensions, about the national insurance contributions that are needed for the new state pension. As we have heard from a number of Members today, WASPI women are marching on Parliament because the UK Government have whipped the pension rug from under their feet. Here, the saga of the Equitable Life policyholders drags on and on, and their pension provision has also vanished into the ether. If the Government are at all serious about pensions and about people saving for their future, they must listen and they must act now, finally, to deal with the Equitable Life scandal once and for all.

Leaving the EU: European Social Funding in Scotland and the UK

Kirsten Oswald Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[Natalie McGarry]

The hon. Member makes a very compelling case. He is a doughty fighter for his constituents in Argyll and Bute.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

Before coming to this place, I worked at South Lanarkshire College, and I saw for myself the immense difference to people’s lives that ESF funding can make. Does my hon. Friend agree that there are many people in our local communities, including mine, whose lives are on a very different and more positive trajectory because of the benefits of colleges such as South Lanarkshire and the work they do with European funds?

[Natalie McGarry]

The hon. Member makes a very important point. The post-Brexit discourse has focused on higher education and other sectors, but not much on further education and the invaluable work that is done in local communities—at the very coalface, in the sense that people in colleges and community groups go into the very hearts of communities, where people are hardest to reach. That work is invaluable, and the hon. Member’s point is well made.

The projects that I mentioned are only a few of the many supported through European funding that make a tangible and real difference to the lives of people in Scotland and across the rest of the UK. This year alone, Glasgow Kelvin College, a further education institution that serves my constituents and has a campus in the Easterhouse area of my constituency, secured £1.5 million-worth of European social funds, on top of £1.9 million last year, which enabled it to continue its fantastic work on employability and vocational skills across Glasgow. That European social funding directly supports real jobs—more than 10 of them—and helps to create opportunities for many more.

In the past few months, I have met the principals of colleges in Glasgow with groups and organisations whose work relies on European social funding. They are worried about the future. They should currently be considering future bids for funding, but little or no information has been forthcoming about where they stand. The Government can provide certainty to Nissan and talk about guaranteeing research and technology funding to appease the higher education sector, but European social funding is the Kevin McAllister of the Brexit rush—drowned out by louder voices, trampled on in the rush to get out the door and left home alone.

The elephant in the room is, of course, the fact that the UK is leaving the EU, and that no non-EU country has ever received European social funding. Brexit is not the circumstance of Scotland’s or Glasgow’s choosing. Organisations across our city and throughout our country stand to lose hundreds of millions of pounds. Our people the length and breadth of Scotland and the UK stand to lose invaluable services and support, which will be to the detriment of their lives and our economy.

My constituency—indeed, our entire city and our country—voted to remain, yet our further education and communities face Brexit’s damaging consequences unless the Government stand up now and guarantee that they will protect the funding for projects at an equitable and comparable level. The true and full impact that the projects financed by the European Social Fund have may not be fully realised during one round of funding, but it will be undoubtedly real and lasting. That cannot be said of the impact that taking it away will have—it will be immediate and painful. EU funding has been an integral feature of Scotland’s educational, employment and economic landscape for so long that the removal of those key resources cannot be easily done—at least, not without substantial damage.

Commercial Financial Dispute Resolution Platform

Kirsten Oswald Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (George Kerevan) on securing this timely debate.

A key issue that we need to address is how we end the conveyor belt of actions by financial services companies that generate disputes. Far too often, the perpetrators seem to be left to continue as before, so if we are to address the issue, we need to improve performance right across the sector. I was pleased that the debate was sparked by comments from Andrew Bailey, the new chief executive of the FCA. I sincerely hope he will follow through on the interest he has expressed in changing how we deal with these issues.

From the cases that I have encountered, it is clear that the current ad hoc approach is not working. As we have heard eloquently expressed today, why should those who blow the whistle on wrongdoing end up losing out, not just through the actions of their peers, but through the actions, or inaction, of the regulator? From my surgeries and caseload, I am well aware of concern at the actions of RBS and other lenders. Some constituents have experience of banks tilting the balance of risk too far in their own favour. I am particularly concerned to hear of banks forcing customers to use their home to underpin commercial loans in order to avoid being pushed into administration.

I want to highlight two constituency cases of concern. The first goes to the heart of the basic service provided by the banks—safeguarding our money and paying it out only when authorised to do so. A young constituent, Calum Cheshire, has had a bank account with RBS since he was 12 years old and, as a student, he worked to build up some funds. In July 2015 he was shocked when his bank statement told him that someone had withdrawn £550 from a branch in the east of Scotland on a Saturday when he was at home in the west of Scotland. To cut a long and painful experience short, Mr Cheshire has been seriously let down. RBS disregarded the FCA-defined rules for such circumstances. Not only has it effectively accused its customer of fraud, but it has rewritten his evidence to suit its narrative.

According to the bank’s defence, it appears that the usual way to commit fraud using the bank’s branch network is to walk into a branch that one has never used, produce proof of identity that does not include a bankcard, and ask to clear one’s account—a most unlikely scenario, but one that was parroted back to Mr Cheshire by the Financial Ombudsman Service as a reason for refusing to order the return of his money. Despite vast sums spent to have the FCA write a regulatory framework and the FOS to keep financial service disputes out of the courts, Mr Cheshire is now forced to resort to the small claims court to secure the redress that has been denied him to date. I issue a challenge to RBS management—please don’t throw an expensive city lawyer at this case and price it out of Mr Cheshire’s reach.

The relevance of this case to the current debate is what it says about the quality of decision making in resolving financial services disputes. If we are to keep cases out of courts, let us, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian said, abandon some of the complex rules and procedures, but let us not abandon the requirement to apply rules fairly and to use the fullest evidence.

In looking at how we resolve commercial disputes, I suggest we look very carefully at the role of the Complaints Commissioner. This office receives too little attention, despite providing an external check on the quality of decision making in dispute resolution.

I am privileged to chair the all-party group on the Connaught Income Fund. Members may recall that the collapse of that fund saw the disappearance of over £100 million subscribed by investors at an average of £70,000 a head. Many of those investors, including my constituents, were making provision for their pension, attracted by a promised long-term investment, a good rate of return and limited risk. Unfortunately, the history of regulatory failure in relation to the Connaught Fund bears many similarities to that of the RBS Global Restructuring Group. The integrity of the Connaught offer was underscored by the involvement of major companies in the financial services sector. The initial operator of the fund, part of the Capita Group, holds major contracts with central and local government across the UK, was regulated by the FSA, and is regulated today by the FCA.

The Connaught fund collapsed in 2012. Yet, nearly five years later, investors still wait to hear what really happened to their cash. Who walked away with it? Why were they allowed to do so? When we follow a trail set for us by one of the largest companies in the UK, which must pass public sector due diligence tests weekly, we do not expect our funds to just disappear.

In the absence of answers from the FCA, those affected are turning to the Complaints Commissioner for answers. The commissioner recently released his findings regarding a complaint by George Patellis. In 2011, as the newly appointed chief executive of the company making investments on behalf of the Connaught fund, he reported to the FSA what he considered a systematic defrauding of the fund. This was an act of genuine integrity from a senior figure in the financial services sector, and the response by the regulator then and now should gravely worry all Members of this House, and particularly the Treasury. The finding issued by the commissioner describes the FSA’s response as unco-ordinated and fragmented, and condemns it for failing to prevent continuing detriment to investors.

I had the opportunity to discuss this, when I met Andrew Bailey recently. I highlighted my concern that there was a danger the FCA would be damaged by its handling of legacy cases such as Connaught, and the same may be said of the Global Restructuring Group issue. I was therefore disappointed to see the FCA’s response to the commissioner’s findings. He recommended that Mr Patellis receive a public apology. Instead, the FCA chose to issue a private letter of apology. Not surprisingly, Mr Patellis described that as “beyond disappointing”, and reiterated many of the failures of regulation by the FSA and FCA since he first blew the whistle on what he strongly believes was a process of fraud and misappropriation of funds. For the benefit of other Members, I am happy to lodge the Complaints Commissioner’s findings and the correspondence between the FCA and Mr Patellis in the Library.

The Complaints Commissioner refers to an internal assessment by the FCA that confirms the FSA delayed reporting this alleged fraud to the police for approximately 18 months. I would welcome a reassurance from Treasury Ministers that this assessment has been shared with them.

So, whether we are looking at the operation of financial services companies as payment services providers, investment managers or commercial lenders, we must expect integrity. It is not yet clear that the FCA is upholding that standard any more now than was the case under the FSA regime so comprehensively criticised by the Complaints Commissioner. That is the challenge facing Mr Bailey and his team as we head towards 2017. Our challenge here is to make sure that that integrity is delivered on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kirsten Oswald Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Simon Kirby]

Perhaps we should welcome the jobs to start with. However, in answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s question, it was, unfortunately, not possible to confirm this to the OBR in time to feed into the drafting process. Her Majesty’s Treasury therefore provided the same answer as it would to any query on contingent liability.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

11. What steps he is taking to increase the level of public infrastructure spending.

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr Philip Hammond)]

In the autumn statement, as I have said already, I announced the creation of a new national productivity investment fund to provide £23 billion of additional investment. That is on top of the £150 billion that is already baked into the baseline, and it is focused on the key areas for boosting productivity—housing, infrastructure and research and development.

[Kirsten Oswald]

I welcome the £800 million in Barnett consequentials, which the Scottish Government will invest on top of the £100 million they have already announced for capital projects, but what further steps will the Chancellor take to address the almost 10% cut to the Scottish capital budget since the Tories came to office?

[Mr Hammond]

The Scottish Government will have a full share of infrastructure spending through the Barnett formula, and we will work with the Scottish Government and all other devolved Administrations and regional entities, as we work to raise the UK’s productivity game. That is about infrastructure investment—both public and private. It is about raising skills. It is about raising management capability, and we announced that we would fund the Charlie Mayfield initiative to disseminate best management practice across small and medium-sized enterprises. It is about doing all these things to ensure the UK is match fit to prosper in the global economy in the future.

Bank Branch Closures

Kirsten Oswald Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Members for City of Chester (Christian Matheson), for Wells (James Heappey) and for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) on securing this debate via the Backbench Business Committee.

Like many speakers in the debate, my constituency is currently experiencing a new wave of bank closures. Fortunately, none of the three closures proposed in East Renfrewshire is the last bank in a town or village; unfortunately, that is because such closures have already happened in the villages of Neilston and Eaglesham. However, these closures will make yet another area reliant on just one branch, covering a large residential area, and providing access to the services of only one banking group. Regrettably, once again, the publicly owned RBS is leading the way in closures, on this occasion proposing the closure of branches in Barrhead and Netherlee.

The wave of closures described by the hon. Member for Wells continues the process of concentrating branches in close proximity to each other, leaving large swathes of our urban areas, and many of our most rural communities, without direct access to a bank network—a concern highlighted by the hon. Members for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) and for Ceredigion. Even the British Bankers Association recognises that the most digitally savvy customer sometimes needs access to a branch for specific types of transactions, but such access is becoming very difficult for many.

There has been a long-running debate, and a useful discussion today, about how best to ensure access to banking services, including the possibility of enforced or encouraged sharing of branches. The industry has resisted that, arguing that we should rely on competition, with the market rewarding banks that provide a good branch network. I share the dismay of the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) at the utter failure of RBS to honour its promise never to close the last bank in town. That certainly demonstrates the limits of this approach. What are we to do when a clear statement of intent is revealed as nothing more than a cynical marketing slogan?

The sector’s reliance on digital technology is understandable, and the number of customers who have downloaded a banking app is impressive, but what if someone lives in one of those areas where access to broadband is still difficult or the mobile network is stuck in the 1990s? Many Members are concerned about that, and my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) and the hon. Member for Wells spoke eloquently about it. Are we really going to stick to the position of having no regulatory influence to ensure that those businesses benefit from participation in the banking sector? We need to ensure that banking truly is accessible.

Even with the technological limitations of the time, the financial sector managed for many years to deliver accessible services, with a wide range of institutions, including building societies, savings banks and credit unions, such as the excellent East Renfrewshire credit union, emerging to spread financial services to all sectors of society. It is simply not acceptable, given our much more advanced technology, that we are leaving people behind and unable to make full use of the services that the rest of us enjoy.

The industry boasts of its investment in branch networks. However, the notice of a proposed TSB closure highlights £250 million of investment in branches and the digital offering. I wonder how much of that was invested in reshaping the branch network rather than in consulting bank users. We need to challenge the industry over whether it is doing enough to listen, to reflect the change in services and to use new technology to reshape its network. I echo the concerns of my hon. Friends the Members for East Lothian (George Kerevan) and for Paisley and Renfrewshire North about the failures of consultation on bank closures.

My perception is of an industry with many branches that continue to operate from traditional, large, solid buildings, designed when banks processed large volumes of cash and paper. Too often, it seems that the industry views the only alternative as shutting up shop and withdrawing services to a similar building a few miles away. The hon. Member for City of Chester made a valuable point about the impact on local high streets and small businesses. The tale told by my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) about the mobile bank is testament to a lack of interest in community need.

The British Banking Association talks of investment in refurbishing the network, but I see no reference to the four big banks investing in new locations for services in the community, either by downsizing branches instead of complete withdrawal, or by creating new branches. We are used to seeing the banks spend vast sums of money on corporate headquarters in London, Edinburgh and elsewhere, but are we really seeing investment to ensure that there is a modern branch network?

Like the hon. Member for Ceredigion, I am pleased to see banks working with post offices to provide coverage in areas from which they have withdrawn. As we have heard, however, the post office service is not a full substitute, with lack of privacy a particular issue. The apparent willingness to share services with the post office gives rise to questions about the industry’s failure to reach agreement on shared branches. Is that really such an insurmountable obstacle, or is the banking industry simply stuck in old ways?

Members may recall the talk of challenger banks helping to tackle the problem of access to branch banking. That seems to have amounted to little, with most challenger banks opting for specialist markets or, as in the case of Metro bank, with branches in only a small part of the country. There is a branch of Virgin Money in my constituency, in a location it inherited from Northern Rock. Given that it is in one of the best-served communities for banking services, it adds little to the spread of banking availability.

There are currently four branches of TSB in my constituency, one of which is proposed for closure. Some talk of TSB as a challenger bank, but the hon. Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) has noted that communities came together on a mutual basis to ensure that they could access banking services, and it was those communities that built up the original TSB network. The dismantling of that success story under the Thatcher Government was a result of an obsession with the market and contempt for co-operative and mutual effort.

I welcome the continued operation of the Airdrie Savings bank, which resisted the Conservative Government, stuck by its founding principles and continues to serve the community it has served for nearly 200 years. The next time Conservative Members are tempted by the view that the market is the solution to all problems, they may remember how well placed the Airdrie Savings bank is and think again. Having listened to him today, I am certain that the hon. Member for Wells will agree with me.

Much of the debate has been about an issue that the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Chris Davies) raised: the importance of the branch network to older people and those who are, perhaps as a result of disability, unable to use digital services. Hon. Members have described how such individuals are disadvantaged by the withdrawal of a personal service. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) described, such a service can be particularly important in dealing with the unscrupulous individuals who attempt banking scams on a daily basis.

One of my constituents, a lady in her 90s, was recently targeted in a telephone scam that involved her branch. A caller persuaded her that her branch was being investigated and she should move her money, so she visited her branch and moved money to an account number that she was given by the caller. When he got greedy and called back asking her to move more money, the branch staff, to their credit, realised that something was wrong and persuaded her to allow them to alert the police. In such a case, even if the money is recovered, the customer will have been put through torture for weeks waiting to see what the outcome will be.

That demonstrates the importance of a branch network and well trained and motivated staff who look out for their customers. That is what people would call real customer service from a bank. Surely, by now, we must realise that the “greed is good” approach to banking that has taken root in the UK is damaging. It damages our economy, as the crash of 2008 clearly demonstrated. As the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) so eloquently said, it also damages our communities as more and more people lose access to a real banking service in return for the use of ATMs or an over-the-counter-only service at the post office.

The bank branch network still receives almost 300 million visitors a year, and it provides a vital service. Is it not time banks thought again about how they can build on those visits and encourage more visits, particularly by those who need the most help to manage their money? The big four banks seem to be entirely focused on managing the decline of the bank network. A study by the University of Nottingham highlighted an issue that the right hon. Member for Tottenham raised about the damaging effects of that on communities. The report stated:

“As mainstream financial institutions continue to pull out of economically distressed areas as part of wider strategies of adjustment, so they are replaced by more predatory forms of financial institution.”

If the banks will not address all these issues on their own, the Government must take action to avoid the abandonment of our communities. I look forward to the Minister outlining exactly what the Government’s plans are to defend the bank network from further decline.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Harriett Baldwin)]

It is a great pleasure to be able to respond on the Government’s behalf to this really excellent debate. I congratulate the hon. Members for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) and for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (James Heappey) on securing it, and thank them for giving me the opportunity to update the House on what is going on in this area. I also thank the Backbench Business Committee for scheduling such an interesting debate on a Thursday afternoon. I also thank the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). It is a great honour for me to have the shadow Chancellor respond to the debate. He only lost one member of his team during it, so congratulations to him.

I need to start with a confession. I am a rural Member of Parliament. I spend four days a week up here in London. If I think about it, I actually cannot remember when I last went into a bank branch. I have been to the cashpoint, here and in my constituency, but I also ask myself when, these days, do I even use cash? The only place seems to be in the House of Commons Tea Room. I understand contactless is coming there soon, so where will we all be then?

Customer behaviour is clearly changing. The number of times that we all use a branch in any given year has dropped almost 30%. The most recent data that I have from the BBA show that branch transactions have fallen to 270 million branch customer contacts in 2016. If my maths is right, that is an average of four per year.

[Kirsten Oswald]

Does the Minister accept that some of the downturn in customer bank transactions is because bank branches have closed?

[Harriett Baldwin]

The hon. Lady is right to ask that question, but if customers were surging into branches and transacting valuable business, the banks would not be being as radical as they are.