Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill

Lord Higgins Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Eatwell (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for introducing this set of amendments about pension schemes. The argument for the amendments raises two significant questions. We are talking here about transitional arrangements: about moving from a group pension scheme to what might in future be deemed to be necessarily separate schemes for the ring-fenced and non-ring-fenced components of a group. There must therefore be other transitional arrangements as well—for example, property leases which are relevant to a group. Are they, too, to be separated and decomposed? What are we going to do about all those group liabilities similar to pension liabilities during the period between the implementation of legislation for ring-fencing and the conclusion when ring-fencing has been in place for some time? Over that period, there have to be transitional arrangements. Clearly, pensions are a very special case because the people will presumably stay where they are, but there must be other elements of liabilities which are also rather difficult to untangle. My first question is therefore: what is the Government’s thinking about such transitional problems?

The second question, which is much more specific to pensions and immediately arises, is whether the separation will be to the detriment of members of the pension scheme. This is precisely an area in which scale can become enormously important in a pension scheme, especially with respect to diversifying risk. The sheer scale of a pension scheme can be a component of the commercial success of that scheme. If the scheme is to be broken up, will it be to the significant detriment of the pensioners? There must surely be some consideration of whether it is to be their detriment and, if so, of what measures are to be taken to remove that detriment.

[Lord Higgins (Con)]

The role of the trustees will be very important in this context. Is it envisaged that the two parts of the bank will have separate trustees?

[Lord Deighton]

On the noble Lord’s question about transitional arrangements, the structure with respect to group liabilities will generally be to ensure that liabilities that are particularly relevant to the newly structured organisations that fall out of the ring-fencing arrangements are consistent with the businesses that they are in, so that an operating unit is created which has liabilities which match the business that it is running. If there was a lease at the group level and the ring-fenced bank was the organisation leasing the building, you would expect there to be an inter-company arrangement which would pass the cost down to that level. That is the principle and I think that most banks operate on that basis anyway because one is trying to put the costs and revenues where the business is. There is a provision under Part 7 of FiSMA which allows for transfer of business schemes if one is moving other businesses, but that is a separate point.

On the question of banks and trustees, it is for the banks to work out the practicalities. The legislation defines the objectives to make sure that the ring-fenced bank is protected and that the trustees and pension arrangements are protected in each case, which is why the provisions here ensure that the regulator is contacted in each case. Essentially, the cost of making this work, so that the pensioners are, at a minimum, indifferent to the outcome, will sit with the bank. That is the principle behind this. There may be some costs involved for the banks to leave the pensioners no worse than indifferent, and those costs are an intrinsic part of this separation and the advantages that it brings us.

[Lord Higgins]

Will my noble friend perhaps consider between now and Report whether there is not a strong case for the two schemes to be quite separate? There may well be a conflict of interest between the pensioners of one part of the bank and those of the other part; for example, on whether it should be a final salary scheme or a defined contribution scheme and so on. Will he consider whether one should not leave it to the banks but determine that they shall be separate pension schemes?

[Lord Deighton]

We will certainly review the question in that light. The principle behind this is that they would be separate pension schemes. They may be very similar schemes which are separated, but the notion here is that the ring-fenced bank would have one scheme and the rest of the group would be under different arrangements, the key objective being that the ring-fenced bank would not have an exposure to the pension liabilities that arise elsewhere in the group. That is the key principle here.