Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill

Lord Garel-Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Garel-Jones (Con)]

My Lords, I rise with some trepidation to take part in this debate. Earlier in Committee my noble friend Lord Lawson referred to Paul Volcker as a “wise old bird”. Someone like me is bound to observe that most of the wise old birds in this particular field in our country have taken part in this Committee, so I feel slightly out of my depth. I want to introduce a small piece of anecdotal evidence that casts some dubiety on the amendment just moved by my noble friend.

I also declare an interest, in that I work for UBS. UBS was one of the lead banks in the recent transaction that placed £3.2 billion of shares in Lloyds Bank into the market, although I was not part of the team working on that transaction. When it was all over I spoke to one of the team and congratulated him on the success of the operation. Without any prompting, and for no reason at all, he said to me that UKFI had played a crucial part throughout the whole process. He had no need to say that to me; I had no connection with UKFI whatever. Although I am simply an observer in these matters and no expert, it makes sense to me for there to be some sort of independent buffer between the banks themselves and the Treasury. Your Lordships will no doubt be aware that UKFI has recently recruited James Leigh-Pemberton, who has a distinguished career in the City, as its chairman. I very much hope that the Minister will convey the message that UKFI is well regarded and has a secure future.

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, I will comment briefly on this amendment and will not comment, of course, from the perspective of the Royal Bank of Scotland. I will take your Lordships back to when I first worked at the Treasury, many years ago, when I was on secondment from my firm at the time. That was when there were lots of nationalised industries in the public sector. Worthy civil servants—and worthy Treasury civil servants, too—thought they knew how to manage the relationships between these large, complex, commercial organisations. They did not do it well. It was the right decision, therefore, when the previous Labour Government started to accrete new, substantial holdings in commercial organisations, to set up an arm’s length relationship to professionalise the handling of those organisations and their ultimate disposal, and to recognise, as that Government did at the time, that those holdings were not to be long-term holdings. I criticised the previous Government because it was not set up by statute, but in a shroud of secrecy without proper accountability arrangements in place. I believe, however, that the principle that civil servants are not the right people to manage these complex relationships with sophisticated organisations is the right one.