Financial Services and Markets Bill [HL]

Lord Pitt-Watson Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 1st July 2026 Grand Committee

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, my amendment concerns the impact of prudential capital requirements on lending capacity, borrowing costs, competition and growth. Since my amendment was tabled, His Majesty’s Opposition have announced a new policy position in this area, which I shall speak to now.

Our new policy is straightforward. The statutory basis for post-financial crisis bank capital requirements should be amended so that UK regulators are required to take proper account of equivalent capital regimes in competitor jurisdictions, and to identify, justify and, where not justified, remove any UK-specific overcapitalisation relative to equivalent international regimes. We want to consider the position in competitor jurisdictions, to benchmark equivalent regimes, to publish detailed analysis and to explain clearly where the UK is imposing requirements above international standards or above those imposed by comparable financial centres. That seems a basic requirement of a serious competitiveness agenda, on which the UK is particularly reliant. The UK is the world’s largest net exporter of financial services, whereas comparable jurisdictions, such as the US, rely much more on their domestic markets. It is therefore imperative that we remain competitive on the world stage.

Capital requirements matter, but there is a cost. Capital held solely for statutory compliance is capital that cannot otherwise be used to support lending, investment, home ownership, business expansion or economic activity. The central question is therefore not whether banks should hold capital but whether the UK requires materially more capital than comparable jurisdictions without a clear and evidenced stability justification. If we do, we are placing the UK at a competitive disadvantage: we are constraining lending, increasing borrowing costs, making it harder for firms to access finance and weakening growth, and doing so in a way that may not be required by international standards or by the actual risk profile of the system.

The analysis behind our policy suggests that the UK capital framework may materially exceed international Basel III requirements and competitor regimes. It has been suggested that the resulting constraint on UK banks’ lending and financing capacity could amount to £250 billion across overlapping capital requirements and £200 billion across leverage ratio constraints. Of course, not every pound of capital released would automatically translate into new lending—we understand that. Some may be used for business investment, dividends, buybacks or balance-sheet strengthening. The key point remains that capital deployed productively in the economy is preferable to capital trapped by a regulatory framework that is more restrictive than it needs to be.

We appreciate that the Government recognise this issue and have moved a little on it already. They have made the bank resolution regime more flexible, allowing the Bank of England to reduce or remove MREL for some firms where the new FSCS recapitalisation mechanism can substitute for pre-positioned loss-absorbing resources. Our proposal is a step to unlocking a lot more capital. We already require the PRA, in some contexts, to have regard to the UK’s relative standing against competitor jurisdictions, but that duty is incomplete. It does not apply across the whole capital framework and, in particular, it does not fully capture Pillar 2A, the PRA buffer or systemic buffers. The FPC has produced useful comparative analysis, but there is not yet a binding requirement for regular, systematic benchmarking against competitor jurisdictions.

Our proposed review is also about transparency. If regulators believe that the UK should impose higher requirements than comparable regimes then Parliament, industry and the public should be able to see the analysis behind that decision. That is how we preserve independence while improving accountability.

The amendment is part of a wider argument. Prudential regulation must be understood not only through the lens of stability but through the lens of growth, lending, and competitiveness. A capital framework that is more demanding than necessary does not make the economy stronger. It may make it less dynamic, less competitive and less able to support households and businesses, especially SMEs and scale-ups. I speak from experience as a director at a responsible and careful challenger bank, where the UK capital rules were a significant constraint on what we could do. They also consumed a great deal of management and board time.

I would like the Government to accept that the UK should not impose capital requirements above equivalent international competitor regimes, especially if there is no financial stability justification for doing so. The first step is to undertake the necessary analysis. Ours is a serious and responsible policy. It preserves regulatory independence and protects financial stability but recognises that excessive or unjustified capital requirements carry real economic costs. If we want growth, competitiveness and banks to support businesses and homebuyers, then we need a capital framework that is robust but not overrestrictive. That is the balance that our policy seeks to strike. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Pitt-Watson (Lab)]

My Lords, both the amendment and the speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, were sensible in terms of making us think about bank capital requirements and whether we have got them right. As she says, the first step is undertaking proper analysis to be able to work out whether that happens. I noticed she caveated everything that they may not be right. They may be right, but they may not.

My worry is that that is a sensible position to take but it did not sound like the position being taken by the Leader of the Opposition when she made her speech last week saying that she was going to reduce bank capital requirements to release £450 billion in capital. Where did the calculation that hundreds of billions are sitting idly on bank balance sheets come from? Where do those hundreds of billions come from? If we are going to release £450 billion, what is the calculation in the reduction of bank capital requirements that sits behind that calculation? While I feel quite supportive of the issues that the noble Baroness was raising, we need to be sure—I hope she will agree—that we do not jump the gun on this.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Pitt-Watson, was rather generous in his comments. Sometimes it is important to speak truth to power. This is a lowest common denominator strategy. We have heard it before from the Conservatives, and it is repeated with enthusiasm today. I heard so many of these arguments back in the early 2000s. It contributed and was a fundamental part of the reasons why we ended up with such a major financial crash with huge financial and political consequences that echo through to this day. I could see the argument being made that we need to take proper care that we are looking at capital requirements and that we need to assess them and look at the consequences and do so on a regular basis. That is already part of the programme and certainly would always need to be part of it.

I notice that in line seven of the amendment the phrase is,

“while also considering financial stability”.

If ever there was a phrase lowering the significance of the primary objective with which we tasked the Bank of England, that phrase does it—merely a consideration of financial stability. I was afraid when the growth and productivity objectives were introduced as secondary objectives that quickly the attraction of the phrases would cause them to cannibalise the primary objective. This is a very good example of the way in which that, frankly, has been happening.

I have seen across so many of the measures in the Bill a step away from the precautionary principle—in this case, of looking for appropriate capital requirements, whether in equities or in MREL—to a notion that we deal with all this through a resolution regime. I am suspicious of resolution regimes and of after the fact ways of ensuring financial stability. I would much rather we did not have a bank failure that we must then attempt to remedy through the use of something like bail-in MREL, which I do not think will ever work. Frankly, MREL is held by insurance companies and pension funds, and we are never going to wreck them to save a major bank. I am very concerned about the change in approach that we are hearing today from the Conservative party.