Financial Services Bill

Debate between Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts and Lord Tunnicliffe

Wednesday 25th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, Amendment 138C proposes a new paragraph (g) to the regulatory principles referred to in new Section 3B. It would ensure that,

“each regulator employs staff with the necessary knowledge, experience and expertise of the sectors that they regulate, and of policy making at the European level”.

The FSA has had issues in retaining quality staff in recent years, and recruitment will remain one of the biggest challenges facing the new regulatory bodies. A failure to address the issue of experience and expertise will undermine the introduction of the new regulatory framework—in particular, the proposed move towards a more judgment-based supervisory approach. The amendment is intended to probe the Government on how they and the regulators plan to address those staffing challenges.

I argue that there should be a commitment that the regulators will ensure that they recruit and retain staff with the necessary knowledge, experience and expertise to apply the regulatory regime in an appropriate and proportionate manner. It will be particularly important that the staff have a balance of sector expertise reflecting the range of industries that they cover, and that appropriate expertise is present at all levels and in all functions. Without proper staffing the regulators will be unable to make sound judgments about the strategies, plans and actions taken by individual firms. They will also struggle to understand the potential impact that regulations and supervisory actions taken against individual firms might have on the financial system as a whole.

Staff employed by the new regulatory bodies will also need to acquire skills and expertise to aid their interaction with the new European supervisory authorities. The ESAs will drive more of the regulatory agenda in future and it is essential that the new authorities play an increasingly influential role in the early stages of development and throughout the process governing the agreement of new regulation. To succeed in this area staff will need the necessary negotiating and influencing skills and require a high level of awareness of the political processes at a European level. We touched on this point during our debate on Amendment 96A, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, at our meeting on 10 July.

I have already referred in slightly unflattering terms to the significant influence of the function committee that authorises individuals on a case-by-case basis before they can take up their roles. A major part of the interview with the SIF committee is taken up with questions designed to discover if the interviewee has the necessary knowledge, expertise and experience. If this test is to be applied to those who run the financial services industry, it should surely also be applied to those who regulate it. I beg to move.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My Lords, I am somewhat surprised to find myself agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts. I have been involved in a lot of reorganisations and all too often people do not think about the human content of the organisation, the size of the jobs that they are creating and the extent to which a reasonable human being can do them—whether even an unreasonable human being can be found to fill those roles.

At first sight it is a matter of motherhood and apple pie. To try to get a feel for this Bill and speaking particularly about the PRA, I searched the internet and came across a splendid document by the Bank of England and the FSA, published in May 2011. It is called The Bank of England, Prudential Regulation Authority: Our Approach to Banking Supervision. It is written as a narrative and really it is a gripping one. All that the Minister says about the PRA is that it is going to be focused. It is going to be much more than focused. It is going to be based on a judgment-based supervision, and I quote from paragraph 15 of this document:

“The PRA’s proposed approach has, at its centre, supervisors making judgements, when needed, about current and future risks to an institution’s safety and soundness and about the action it should take to address these risks. It is recognised that this will mean that, at times, the supervisor’s judgement will be at variance with that of the institution. Furthermore, there will be occasions when events will show that the supervisor’s judgement, in hindsight, was wrong. This is inherent in a forward-looking system”.

This is a very significant intervention. Later the document describes the proactive intervention and at stage 3 points out where,

“significant threats to a firm’s financial safety or soundness may have been identified”.

It continues:

“The PRA may require any of the following actions: a change to management and/or composition of the board; limits on capital distribution; restrictions on existing or planned business activities; a limit on balance sheet growth and/or stricter leverage limits; and setting tighter liquidity guidelines and/or capital requirements”.

I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, is not with us at the moment, but he said that the PRA will not become a shadow director. It is pretty clear that I do not understand what a shadow director is, but this is a significant level of intervention. Then you look at the role. A lot of the time, the people in this role will be doing base-level supervision. Let us hope that we have some financial tranquillity. We are now looking for people who will be capable of taking that level of intervention at pretty short notice, interfering in major institutions’ affairs, and having effects which, it is admitted, could be wrong decisions. That will have to be done with enormous care by people of very high quality.

I am pleased that the amendment brings Europe into play. In front of us we have a very complex set of organisational changes. It is not clear how it will fit with Europe. There will almost certainly be a number of jarring edges. We need people in this organisation who are capable of overcoming the ambiguities and smoothing the path of the relationship with Europe.

I am sure that the Minister will say that this is not the sort of thing that should be on the face of the Bill. If I were in his place, I know that my brief would say that. Nevertheless, it is for the Minister to assure us that processes will be in place, particularly in the PRA, given the intention to use these powers, which already exist, in such a significant way to meet these very serious challenges.