Building Societies Act 1986 (Amendment) Bill

Lord Livermore Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 10th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Kennedy of Southwark on his opening speech and pay tribute to him for not only sponsoring this Bill but his lifetime of commitment to building societies, mutual and friendly societies, credit unions and the wider co-operative movement. I note that some of the principles of this sector are democratic member control, autonomy and independence—not, perhaps, principles you might always associate with a Chief Whip.

I also congratulate my honourable friend in the other place, Julie Elliott MP. Drafting a Bill that generates strong cross-party support and, hopefully, becomes law, is the result of tremendous hard work, working painstakingly over many months and engaging constructively with civil servants and Ministers. I know that she has worked closely with Labour’s sister party, the Co-operative Party, and the wider mutual sector, including the Building Societies Association and Nationwide.

We enthusiastically support the Bill. As my noble friend Lord Kennedy set out in his opening speech—and as the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, said—modernising the legislation around building societies is long overdue. The Bill would enable building societies to compete on a level playing field with banks. It would cut red tape by removing outdated corporate governance requirements, which building societies face but banks do not. Crucially, it would also support first-time buyers by enabling building societies to lend more.

Building societies direct a greater proportion of their lending to first-time buyers than any other part of the financial services sector; it accounts for over 55% of their lending. They supported 70,000 first-time buyers in the first three-quarters of 2023 and a total of 360,000 first-time buyers since 2020. That is over £63 billion provided to help people buy their first home.

That is why the Bill is so important: it will empower societies across the UK to raise more funds. It could unlock billions of pounds of additional lending capacity, helping families and boosting the UK’s future prosperity and economic growth. For example, every £10 billion of new lending capacity secured through these changes potentially supports an additional 20,000 first-time buyers.

Building societies have never been more important in the UK’s economy and public life. During the cost of living crisis, many families have needed to use their savings in the face of rising energy costs and food prices. But building societies have continued to support people to save, bucking the trend of the decline in saving balances that we have seen across the wider sector. In the first nine months of last year, they attracted £18.9 billion in cash savings, supporting people to build financial resilience during this difficult period.

That is why Clause 1 is so important: it allows building societies to exclude funds accessed from the Bank of England in stress scenarios, types of loss-absorbing debt instruments, and sale and repurchase agreements from the funding limit. It will level the playing field with banks and provide that extra level of protection for building societies during difficult times, so that they can continue to support their members for many decades to come.

In recent years we have seen many building societies adapt to new challenges and adopt exciting technologies and digital ways of working. During the pandemic, Leeds Building Society, finding that requests for mortgage deferrals had increased to 2,000 a day, increased their use of robotic automation technology to create a fully automated web form for customers. At Nationwide, a team of mortgage, technology and AI specialists trained the society’s virtual assistant to handle common Covid-related mortgage queries. Principality Building Society has delivered an online mortgage payment holiday service, in partnership with the fintech company Podium Solutions. The service allows members to access a mortgage holiday repayment calculator to better understand their mortgage outcomes.

These are examples of why the changes introduced by Clause 2, which would allow real-time virtual participation in annual general meetings, are long overdue. Building societies have proven time and again their ability to innovate and adapt to changing consumer behaviours. There is no reason to subject the sector to outdated restrictions that do not apply to the wider financial services sector. Likewise, Clause 3 paves the way for reducing the administrative burden of executing documents, with similar provisions already in place for banks.

Labour has long called for modernisation of the Building Societies Act to level the playing field with the wider financial services sector. Indeed, it was a key commitment in our financial services review published earlier this year. We believe that more can be done to unleash the full potential of building societies and the wider mutual sector. That is why our financial services review set out Labour’s pledge to double the size of the co-operative and mutual financial services sector in government.

I once again congratulate my noble friend Lord Kennedy on his opening speech and thank him for his sponsorship of the Bill. It is a vital and important step forward, and we gladly give it our full support.