Financial Services Industry

Debate between Mark Reckless and John Bercow

Wednesday 4th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Minister.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (UKIP)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. That would be the normal course of events. It is possible for another hon. Member to speak if there is time to do so, but ordinarily that is on the understanding that the Member concerned has the agreement of the sponsoring Member and of the Minister. I am not sure whether the Minister’s agreement has been sought. If the Minister were content for the hon. Gentleman to speak, I think he would intend to do so extremely briefly. Is the Minister content?

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[Mr Speaker]

The Minister is an accommodating Minister, and therefore a suitable expression of gratitude I know will be forthcoming from the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood, Mr Mark Reckless.

[Mark Reckless]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. May I first clarify whether the time limit of half an hour or 7.30 pm applies? It is not entirely clear from the Order Paper.

[Mr Speaker]

The answer is very straightforward: until 7.30 pm. That is the factual position, but the norm in these circumstances is for agreement to contribute to have been achieved in advance. In this instance, in which the Minister is graciously agreeing to accommodate the hon. Gentleman—and it is a case of graciously agreeing—luck should not be pushed. I am always happy to hear the hon. Gentleman in an orderly way. On that basis, we will now hear his thoughts briefly.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (UKIP)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I have no intention of speaking at any great length or keeping the Minister from her dinner or from her very important duties.

My hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Douglas Carswell) talked about competition and breaking up a cosy cartel in banking. I have heard him use similar language about our political system. I think there is some commonality between what we see in banking and what we see in politics. I would like to add to his remarks on solvency II. As well as the risk of starving corporate sectors of credit they might otherwise receive, I have a concern that if there is a regulatory push to force insurers to hold Government bonds, particularly when they are required to hold those only within the eurozone for certain purposes, that actually may increase risk relative to holding diversified global corporate bonds.

I want to make three brief points. First, the barriers to entry in financial services, particularly banking, so often stem from regulation—in banking, there are minimum requirements in terms of assets, time and other things—and I credit the Minister, the Treasury and our regulators with reducing them in recent years. Will she give an assessment of how that has worked? Have we managed to relax the requirements without problems developing, and might it be possible to relax them further?

Secondly, the extent of competition in banking seems often to be the product of the state of the monetary cycle, whether globally or in a particular country. In the late 1980s, we saw what happened with the Japanese banks that kindly built Eurotunnel for us but made enormous losses in doing so. In the 2000s, we saw the explosion of credit, and particularly in this country, from 2001, we saw what happened in the inter-bank credit market and across Europe. In some ways, there were positives to that—for example, greater cross-border competition between banks in Europe—but it was driven by over-optimism about the eurozone and the state of monetary policy. Since we have retreated from that position, if anything the euro appears to have driven banks back to national markets, and it is the individual sovereign—the taxpayer—who has been required to bail out the banks, which I fear has reduced the competition we were otherwise seeing from that source.

Thirdly, my hon. Friend spoke about the limits and restrictions on the current account market. I am also concerned about the small and medium-sized enterprise market. A constituency case concerning the potential mis-selling of interest rate swaps and a company called Port Medway Marina has taught me that a small business can become so entangled with a bank that, when it gets into a dispute with the bank, even if over only one aspect of their relationship, it can be difficult to disentangle from the bank and move to another one. That is a limit on competition that I fear banks too often exploit. If the Minister could say something about that, I would be very grateful. I concur with my hon. Friend’s comments about her record in the Treasury.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his courtesy.

Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council

Debate between Mark Reckless and John Bercow

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mark Reckless]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

Points of order come afterwards; I will take one then.

Points of Order

Debate between Mark Reckless and John Bercow

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (UKIP)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) was shouting in my ear, so I did not hear the Secretary of State’s answer to my question—will councillors elected in Rotherham in 2011 be held to account at the ballot box in May, or is the Secretary of State extending their term by a year?

[Mr Speaker]

I appreciate that. I think the Secretary of State did give a clear answer, although I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. It is a perfectly reasonable question and I am sure the Secretary of State is happy to repeat his answer.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Reckless and John Bercow

Wednesday 26th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (UKIP)]

I am grateful to the Prime Minister—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. A Parliament, if it believes in anything, believes in free speech. I do not need the heckling: it is tedious and low grade. The hon. Gentleman will be heard, however long it takes—it is as simple as that.

[Mark Reckless]

I am grateful to the Prime Minister for spending so much time in Rochester and Strood. Dr Phillip Barnes, the acting chief executive of Medway Maritime hospital, said this morning that what our hospital needs is a period of patience and stability. Does the Prime Minister agree?

Point of Order

Debate between Mark Reckless and John Bercow

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I do not consider that I received a proper reply from the Home Secretary to the question whether the Supreme Court should decide the key constitutional matter, as she descended to what some might describe as personal abuse. May I ask your advice as to whether this is an appropriate matter that I might seek to raise on the Adjournment?

[Mr Speaker]

Nothing unparliamentary has occurred. The hon. Gentleman must make up his own mind. It is entirely open to him to apply for an Adjournment debate which realistically, if it were granted, would be in the next Session. I know that he is dextrous in his use of parliamentary opportunities.

Points of Order

Debate between Mark Reckless and John Bercow

Tuesday 4th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Yesterday, the Home Secretary met the deadline for appeal to the Court of Appeal in respect of Abu Qatada. She also wrote to me that rather than seeking to uphold the test confirmed by our own highest court, under which she could deport Qatada:

“A decision was taken to adopt the test laid down in January by the Strasbourg court, essentially because we considered the domestic courts were bound to follow it”.

Is it not the duty of Ministers to uphold the law as passed by this House and interpreted by our highest court rather than to surrender to Strasbourg?

[Mr Speaker]

Although I understand the hon. Gentleman’s extreme strength of feeling on this matter, I do not see a point of order there. I also think he is in some danger of veering or trending into areas that are essentially sub judice and I would urge him to be cautious about that. I know that he will find other ways in which to pursue his concerns on this matter and I am sure that will happen.

House of Lords Reform Bill

Debate between Mark Reckless and John Bercow

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman has accused the Deputy Prime Minister of being disingenuous, but he has also cited an instance in which, he says, he persuaded members of his Front Bench to change their minds and support a referendum. Is he telling our Front Benchers that they should do the same, but should then change their minds again and break their promise?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I say to the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), who is immensely versatile in his use of legitimate parliamentary language, that he might wish to reconsider his use of the word “disingenuous”? He has a very versatile vocabulary, and I feel sure that he can deploy another word.

University Technical Colleges

Debate between Mark Reckless and John Bercow

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

I am listening with great sympathy to what my hon. Friend says about his constituency, because in my area of Medway we have had a similar problem with the closure of the dockyard 25 years ago. We lost an enormous employer that had trained hundreds and thousands of apprentices, so for us, UTCs would provide a new opportunity to develop in that area. With the Royal School of Military Engineering and MidKent college, there is a real partnership approach. I look forward to learning—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is developing a most interesting argument, but I want to hear Mr Halfon.

Public Bodies Bill [Lords] (Programme) (No. 2)

Debate between Mark Reckless and John Bercow

Tuesday 25th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister said yesterday that if there were any treaty change to shore up the euro, we should press for the repatriation of social and employment policy. Given that he has just been completely contradicted by his Europe Minister, could you advise us how we might clarify Government policy in that important area?

[Mr Speaker]

I have known the hon. Gentleman since long before his election to this House last year—indeed, for the best part of two decades—and I know of no one who surpasses him in ingenuity. I trust that he will deploy his ingenuity through the use of the Order Paper and other mechanisms in order further to convey his own views and to highlight his concerns. I think the Deputy Leader of the House may now continue with his oration.

Points of Order

Debate between Mark Reckless and John Bercow

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The reason I will not is that the point that the hon. Gentleman makes, though very important to him and possibly to others, represents a continuation of the debate, and we must not use points of order for that purpose.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is it in order for a witness to refuse to answer a Select Committee question, as the noble Lord Macdonald did yesterday when I asked him how much he was being paid by News Corporation? Is it not in the public interest that he disclose that, given his role, as Director of Public Prosecutions, in limiting the police inquiry?

[Mr Speaker]

What I would say to the hon. Gentleman—this is the first I have heard of this—is that witnesses before Select Committees should seek to be as helpful as possible to Committees, and they have a general obligation to furnish Committees with answers to the best of their ability. I hope that answer is helpful to him.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Reckless and John Bercow

Monday 21st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The Secretary of State will resume his seat. This is not a debate—it is topical questions. I want brief questions and brief answers.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

T5. On Thursday, I saw the beginning of construction for Strood academy in my constituency. Does the Secretary of State appreciate the extent to which confirmation of that investment is appreciated in the local community, and would he visit my constituency to open the academy when construction is completed next year?

European Union Economic Governance

Debate between Mark Reckless and John Bercow

Wednesday 10th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman intervenes, I note that the Minister has been on his feet for 21 minutes and has attended most assiduously to a number of interventions, and that is perfectly in order. However, I emphasise that there is an hour and a half for this debate, and a substantial number of Back-Bench Members have indicated to me that they wish to speak. It would be a very sad and unsatisfactory state of affairs if contributions from those on the Front Bench were to exceed in total those from Back Benchers. On that basis, I feel sure that the Minister, who is an adroit fellow, will be bringing his remarks to a close ere long.

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[Mr Speaker]

Order. Members are free to try to intervene whenever they wish, and Ministers can respond accordingly. I simply want it to be understood that the House can do as it wishes, but it should do so with its eyes open.

[Mark Reckless]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Did not the Minister agree to take an intervention, before the intervention from the Chair?

[Mr Speaker]

That is not a point of order at all. The hon. Gentleman should resume his seat and not dilate. Mr Christopher Leslie.