Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [HL]

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

5: Clause 5, page 4, line 26, leave out subsection (2)

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 5 I will speak also to Amendment 6. Amendment 5 would omit the subsection that transfers the power for the creation of the financial stability strategy from the court to the Bank. Amendment 6 would specify in the Bank of England Act 1998 that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should be consulted in relation to the development and production of the financial stability strategy.

The maintenance of financial stability is arguably the overwhelming role of the Bank of England and its committees. If you look at what has gone wrong in the recent past, it has overwhelmingly been issues of financial stability that have impacted on the financial system and, much more importantly, on society as a whole, both in our country and across the world.

It is interesting to look at what is supposed to happen now. The appropriate part of the Act, which I can read from the consolidated document that the Treasury was kind enough to provide us with, is Section 9A—“Financial stability strategy”—which says:

“The court of directors must … determine the Bank’s strategy in relation to the Financial Stability Objective (its ‘financial stability strategy’), and … from time to time review, and if necessary revise, the strategy … Before determining or revising the Bank’s financial stability strategy, the court of directors must consult about a draft of the strategy or of the revisions … the Financial Policy Committee, and … the Treasury”.

That seems quite straightforward. It seems to put the court at the centre of the creation of the stability strategy, and to invite the right other parties to be involved.

Indeed, the importance of that process is demonstrated by the fact that it gains a place on my favourite piece of paper, which is a print-out of a splendid one-page summary on the Bank’s website, called “How we are governed”. It says:

“The FPC is a sub-committee of Court and its objectives are set by reference to the Bank’s Financial Stability Objective. The Bank’s Court is required by statute to prepare and publish a Financial Stability Strategy, in consultation with the FPC and HM Treasury”.

That is all very straightforward. Sadly, it has not been a great event so far. A strategy document was produced in 2013, called The Strategy for the Bank’s Financial Stability Mission 2013/14. It was five pages long and it was approved by the court on 25 September 2013. The strategy was revised and published in the 2014-15 report, which was signed by the chairman on 4 June 2014. If I read that document correctly, the strategy was reduced to one column and, while asserting a negative is always rather difficult, in the Bank’s 2015-16 report I could find no mention of a financial stability strategy in the ownership of the court.

It looks as though the Executive have to some extent pre-empted this part of the Bill by letting the responsibility of the court wither on the vine. My amendments are really simple and probing. What has happened to the financial stability strategy and what will happen under the new arrangements? Who will produce the financial stability strategy or have the Government effectively decided that the role of producing it should be subsumed into the FPC and, if it is being subsumed, where in the Bill or in the subsequent amended Act is that enabled?

My other area of concern about the situation is that, reading through the document, we find increasing references to HM Treasury’s input to the strategy. So on the one hand, you have responsibility for the strategy clearly drifting away from the court. As far as I can see, the Bill intends to take it away totally from the court and I would value confirmation of whether that is true. On the other hand, one seems to be having increasing input from Her Majesty’s Treasury. I do not wish to comment particularly strongly on whether that is a good or bad thing but I would certainly value the Minister confirming whether the Government intend to take this role away from the court and increase the role of HM Treasury in this important area. I beg to move.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Lord Bridges of Headley) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, for his introduction to his amendments. We discussed the Bill’s changes to the arrangements for the financial stability strategy at Second Reading. I hope to address the issues raised during that debate and some of the points that the noble Lord has just raised again. As I said earlier, legislation generally confers powers and duties on the Bank of England in two ways: either directly on the Bank or on a statutory committee of the Bank, such as the Financial Policy Committee. Consistent with this approach, Clause 5 moves responsibility for determining and revising the Bank’s financial stability from the court to the Bank. I reassure the noble Lord and the Committee that the court, as the body responsible for managing the Bank’s affairs, will retain ultimate responsibility for determining the financial strategy. But by naming the Bank instead of the court, we would grant the court the ability to delegate production of the financial stability strategy to those best placed within the Bank.

I argue that this flexibility is important given the broad range of policy that the financial stability strategy covers, which obviously extends beyond the responsibilities of the Financial Policy Committee. For example, responsibility for resolution policy, regulation of financial market infrastructure, note issuance and macroprudential policy are held within separate parts of the Bank, but the financial stability strategy will need to cover all these areas and others to be truly comprehensive. The clause as drafted does not affect the court’s ultimate responsibility for determining the Bank’s strategy, while granting the court additional flexibility as to who within the Bank undertakes the work to pull together the actual document. As I have said, the court will be able to delegate production of the strategy within the Bank but, as the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, asks, who will be left holding the pen? It is for the court to determine who is best placed to produce the strategy, and this may shift over time as the Bank decides to prioritise particular elements of its responsibilities. However, it is clear that a document of this importance will require significant engagement by the Bank’s senior management. I expect that the Bank’s governors will all be heavily involved when the strategy is determined or revised. I should add that there is no intention to increase the role of the Treasury in the Bank’s financial stability strategy. As I have just said, the court will be responsible for the strategy, although it will be required to consult Her Majesty’s Treasury, as now.

--- Later in debate ---

The second amendment tabled by noble Lords seeks to ensure that the Chancellor must be consulted before the strategy is set or revised. The existing provision requires the Treasury to be consulted, and this is the more usual provision. This does not mean that the Chancellor is not consulted: the Chancellor would obviously be kept fully informed of anything as important as the adoption of a new financial stability strategy by the Bank. However, where the Bank is proposing a minor revision of the strategy, it may be more appropriate for a junior Treasury Minister to take the lead in considering the Bank’s proposals. Retaining the existing drafting provides this element of flexibility. The Bank is required to produce a financial stability strategy not every year but every three years, so the 2013-14 strategy is still current. Given that, the amendment is unnecessary, and I ask that noble Lords do not press it.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

I thank the Minister for that response. He says that the court has delegated this to the Bank. The minutes of the court are now published, but when your total staff resource is half of one person, actually finding the information is quite difficult. I am not criticising the Bank, because I am all in favour of producing lots of information, and it is very open and all that sort of thing. However, the Minister has the machinery, while I do not, and I wonder whether he could dig out for me the appropriate minute which shows that transfer of responsibility and whether he can provide evidence that the court is responsible. The wording of the Act, as it stands before amendment, seems to suggest that this is an active responsibility, but I do not get a sense of that active responsibility. I am sure that could be evidenced with the publication of the minutes. I would be grateful for that.

I am sure the Minister is right to say that the 2013-14 statement is the current strategy, but there is a column in the 2014-15 account labelled, I think, “Strategy”. It would be good if he could look at these points and produce a letter which, like his first letter, references back into the parent documents to convince me about what he is saying and whether, although I am sure it is accurate, it is actively accurate in the way it involves the court. With those few comments, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 5 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sharkey (LD)]

My Lords, I will be very brief. This amendment would increase the number of non-executive directors of the FPC from the five proposed in the Bill to six. Exactly as with our proposal to preserve the NED balance on the court and our proposal to reject the abolition of the oversight committee, this amendment aims to preserve or strengthen the influence of the non-executive directors.

The Treasury has supplied a very helpful chart showing the current composition of the Bank’s governance structures. As things stand, the FPC consists of the governor, three deputy governors, the CEO of the FCA, one governor appointment—the executive director for financial stability—and four appointments by the Chancellor. These four people are the external members, the equivalent of non-executive directors. This means the FPC consists of five Bank officials, the CEO of the FCA and four non-executive directors.

The Bill before us changes this. It adds a deputy governor and one external member. In the words of the Treasury briefing note, it adds the latter to,

“maintain the existing balance between existing executive and non-executive members”.

Under the new arrangements, the composition of the FPC will be: six Bank officials, the CEO of the FCA and five NEDs. As the Treasury note says, this preserves the preceding balance, but it also highlights the position of the CEO of the FCA. We do not argue that she should not be a member of the FPC—on the contrary—but we are not convinced that she could be described as an external member, with the same independence of thought and action as the other truly external FPC members. Indeed, the Treasury note does not describe her as an external member. It simply lists her as “the CEO of the FCA”.

In many respects, the CEO is more like a Bank official than an external member. She depends for her job on the confidence of the governor and the Chancellor. What her organisation can or cannot do is in many respects controlled, or can be controlled or constrained, by the Bank or one of its organs. We saw what happened to the current FCA CEO’s predecessor: Martin Wheatley was summarily sacked by the Chancellor. I assume the governor, at the very least, did not oppose this. On balance, it would be entirely reasonable to conclude that the CEO of the FCA is not as independent of Bank influence as the truly external members of the FPC. In practice, that means that in the current and proposed FPC compositions, there will be a majority of Bank officials and Bank-dependent officials, and a minority of external members. We believe that that is unhealthy. We believe that accountability and scrutiny will be improved by having a more truly independent member on the FPC. It should also be true for the PRA, incidentally, and I will argue that case in Amendment 19. This amendment would raise the number of independent members of the FPC from the five proposed in the Bill to six. It does that to ensure a sufficiency of truly and unquestionably independent members on the FPC. I beg to move.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My Lords, I will try not to make this a habit, but I find the case persuasive.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a brief debate. I am sorry that it falls to me yet again to argue numbers with the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, and I am afraid to disagree with his argument.

This is a superficially simple amendment which seeks to change the balance of the membership of the Financial Policy Committee by increasing the number of external members from five to six. The noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, was again correct in outlining the numbers on the FPC as they stand today: namely, the governor, the three deputy governors and the executive director for financial stability strategy and risk, who are the internal members; and the five other members, who I would describe as external, who are the chief executive of the FCA and the four members appointed by the Chancellor. There is also a non-voting member from the Treasury. This gives an equal balance of voting membership between the Bank executives and those from outside the Bank. The Bill adds two new members to the committee—the deputy governor for markets and banking and an additional external member—which preserves the existing balance between the executive and non-executive members of the committee.

We think that that is appropriate: it strikes the right balance between ensuring sufficient input from the Bank of England’s executive and internal expertise and supporting the external, non-executive members’ role of providing a challenge to members’ thinking. Crucially, the committee can draw on the expertise and resources of the Bank, while the non-executive members provide a strong challenge function by bringing outside perspectives and expertise to the committee’s discussions and preventing groupthink.