World Menopause Day

Martin Whitfield Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered world menopause day 2018.

As always, I thank the Backbench Business Committee for facilitating the debate and all those from across the House who supported the application, including my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris). Today is World Menopause Day, the day that the International Menopause Society, in collaboration with the World Health Organisation, has designated for a focus on the menopause—from hot flushes through to heart health and everything in between. It was only in July 2018 that the hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), who is in her place, discussed her experiences with the menopause in this House. I want to take this opportunity to congratulate her on her honesty and, I must say, her bravery in raising the matter in this Chamber. It is my hope that we will no longer have to note or make newsworthy such honest representations and statements.

Discussions and understanding of the menopause should be commonplace and should go almost unnoticed but not unactioned, which is the important point. Many women spend a third of their lives postmenopausal, often at the peak of their careers and still with huge plans and ambitions for the future. In fact, as the pension age for women increases to 68, our society is demanding that women have those careers and those ambitions. Women could now spend well over 20 years of their working lives living perimenopausal and postmenopausal. Three and a half million women over 50 are employed in the UK, and 80% of them will experience notable changes due to the menopause. Recent research has found that 50% of working women reported finding work difficult due to the menopause, and 10% give up work altogether as a result.

I embarked on a new career in my 50s as a newly elected MP. I was privileged to enter this House of Commons just over a year ago, and I cannot imagine embarking on a new career struggling with some of the symptoms that my female counterparts experience and suffering them without help and support. Indeed, it is unthinkable that society would ask men at the height of their careers to simply tolerate the symptoms, to carry on and, actually, to do so quietly. Why should women? All too often, the menopause is seen as something women need simply to cope with. They are afraid to discuss the symptoms openly with their friends, family and, sometimes most importantly, work colleagues, because they are afraid of being undermined and perhaps marginalised. Some 70% of women do not discuss their symptoms at work, a third do not visit their GP and 50% report that the menopause affects their mental health and their ability at work.

Michelle Heaton, who went through the menopause in her 30s, is a diligent and vocal campaigner who is doing an excellent job of raising awareness of the menopause today in a white paper report with Glenmark Pharma—a critically important document.

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that raising awareness of early menopause among the general public and, crucially, the medical profession is critical for women who need diagnosis and support while they are going through it?

[Martin Whitfield]

Absolutely, and I am grateful for that intervention. I will come to the matter of the medical profession in just a moment.

The report that Michelle is promoting is intended to increase understanding of symptoms and, in particular, the age at which the menopause begins. Too frequently, it is considered a condition of a certain age, which is so far from the truth. Indeed, when the symptoms start to show, we need to educate not just the general population but health providers in particular so they understand what is being presented.

Just yesterday, a colleague from the Scottish Parliament, Monica Lennon MSP, lodged a motion requesting “equal access” to the menopause clinics that exist up there. I compliment her and the unions for their work up there. They raise the issue that employers have been slow to recognise that those experiencing menopausal symptoms may need special consideration. For too long it has been a private matter. As a result, it is rarely discussed. Many managers will have no awareness of the issues involved, which means that many workers feel they have to hide their symptoms and are less likely to ask for the adjustments they need in order to work. I agree with the motion when it says that this must change. The menopause is an occupational health issue that rests on the desks of managers—male as well as female managers, and managers who are frequently younger than the person who presents before them. There needs to be education about this so that it can be dealt with sensitively but positively, as it will affect 50% of our population at some stage.

Gender equality is not just a women’s issue, it is an issue for society as a whole. We should all wish to live in a society that is fair and equitable for all. There is nothing equitable about a large proportion of our workforce being forced to suffer these health issues in silence. Women are often not comfortable disclosing these difficulties to managers, particularly if they are younger and particularly if they are male. Women still sometimes require time off work to deal with the symptoms, and many are not comfortable with disclosing the real reason for their time off, so it goes unnoticed by employers.

The menopause should be recognised as, among other things, an occupational health issue. With all due respect, employers have been far, far too slow to take on board the requirement to recognise those who are experiencing symptoms. Today is World Menopause Day and a number of things are being asked for, all of which are based on the simple hashtag that has been adopted today: #makemenopausematter. It is a simple request, and it spans schools and education, the workplace and our health professionals, who have a duty and obligation to understand the symptoms presented to them by women who are finding the menopause frightening and challenging and who often find it difficult to discuss the matter within their own families. Today is an opportunity to look at that and address the educational needs that the whole of society requires.

I stand here introducing this debate as a man, and it has to be said that it is time for men to show their solidarity and to break a taboo about talking about the menopause. I ask every man in this place, every man who is watching on and every man in the UK—let me go further and just ask all men—to be brave enough to have the guts to say, “Can you tell me? Can you explain? Will you please share?” I ask them to do that while listening with sympathy and empathy. Sadly, I am all too convinced that if the menopause affected men, it perhaps would not be the problem it is today and we would not be having this debate—it would have certainly have been first raised in this House before July 2018.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

My mother has six daughters, the eldest of whom turns 55 tomorrow—happy birthday, Claire. The youngest turns 44 at the end of the month—happy birthday Aimi. I am clearly intervening just so that I can say happy birthday to my sisters in the House. I get plenty of discussion about this issue at home, but I want to thank my hon. Friend for making the point that men need to talk about it, too. He has been brave in bringing this debate forward today.

[Martin Whitfield]

I am grateful for that intervention. It is true that men need to discuss this, but not dominate. It is also important that they listen. I have often stood here and been critical of social media, but if we examine social media today, we see that the support for World Menopause Day out there is very positive. A huge amount of work is being done; there is a huge amount of medical and academic research, and it is good to see people drawing attention to it. Today has also been an opportunity for women to share their experiences on television, radio and social media, which in itself is a huge step forward in breaking the taboo, and it is for men to listen.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for bringing this debate to the House. He is making some very good points, but I just want to ask that we do not lose sight in this debate of women who have the menopause brought on earlier in life than they may have anticipated by chemotherapy treatment. Some younger women also experience it earlier than others might expect, so we need to have an understanding of the full spectrum of the menopause and not just assume that it affects only women of a certain age.

[Martin Whitfield]

That is an excellent point. One of the most important things to come out of today, particularly with the work that Michelle is pushing forward, is that society’s view of what the menopause is just happens to be wrong—I use those words carefully. We need open discussion, with women being able to talk about symptoms when they attend clinics and go to their general practitioner. On behalf of the NHS, I must say that a huge amount of good work is going on in explaining to women who present for other matters what the potential outcomes of treatment are, but this should never be a frightening experience for a woman to speak about, whatever her age. We should live in a society where women can share that and expect to be heard empathetically and with respect.

As I move on to the request being made of employers, let me say that society should be able to amend its ways to facilitate dealing with these symptoms, because women who are going through the menopause have enormous amounts to contribute, and employers should not see it as a barrier and as an excuse to leave work. We should have facilities and methods of support—it does not take a lot to provide those. I know some of my colleagues have fans, but here we are in 2018 unable to cool or heat buildings to a point where they are acceptable to work in. These are the simple things that would make a huge difference to people’s lives. As I have said, these are people who are still expected to contribute to society, to be driven and to make changes and take steps up—and why shouldn’t they? The menopause should not be a blockage to that.

I am aware that others wish to speak, and it would unforgivable for a man to steal all of their time. I would just like to finish by saying that I ask all men, myself included, to take up the challenge of discussing the menopause with the people close to us. We should discuss it openly at home and in the workplace, so that for once our mothers, wives, sisters and friends do not need to feel that they suffer in silence.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I was surprised and very pleased when I saw that a man had tabled this motion, and the hon. Gentleman has been courageous in standing up and saying what he has said. I am also delighted that we have a male Minister answering in this debate. We all look forward to hearing what he has to say, too. We are making breakthroughs in this place that people would never have imagined.

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[Rachel Maclean]

Yes; thank you.

The hon. Member for East Lothian said that social media plays a big part in this, and it is where I started my journey. From my research and conversations, I recognise that millions of women in this country do not feel listened to at this time of their lives. That was where my campaign started—from a place of wanting to represent those women.

We still have a long way to go. Last night, when I was voting in the Lobby, wearing this #MakeMenopauseMatter badge, I was approached by a very senior colleague, who shall remain nameless. His comment was: “Why—are you having a hot flush, dear?” That was said to my face. My goodness, does not that illustrate how we need to raise awareness? This is not a women’s issue; it is a society issue. It is for everybody, because every man works with a woman, is related to a woman or lives with a woman. People cannot just denigrate and belittle experiences that can be incredibly difficult for women to push through. I pride myself on being quite a feisty person. I am not afraid to say what I think and I definitely told that Member what I thought about that comment. I said, “Please, come to the World Menopause Day debate and find out why that comment is completely inappropriate and, hopefully, learn a bit more.” I am delighted to say that he is in a minority. I pay tribute to the many male colleagues from all parties who have been supportive of the debate and this issue.

I am not asking for a lot—perhaps I am, but I do not regard it as a lot. I regard these things as quite basic. The hon. Member for East Lothian has already touched on the key issues, the first of which is the workplace. We are in an extraordinarily unusual workplace where there are issues for not only the people who work here, but Members ourselves, but there are many more workplaces up and down the country. It is not too much to ask—is it?—for workplaces to be better prepared for women going through this change of life. The process can be extremely positive. If women get the support, understanding and empathy that they need from their colleagues, there is absolutely no reason why they cannot make this into a fantastic time in which they can move on to a new chapter of their lives, and flourish and contribute in different ways.

[Martin Whitfield]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech. Does she agree that it is strange that our high schools and education system are perfectly set up to support young people through their teenage years, when substantial changes are going on in their bodies, and to launch them into their careers, but society seems unable to have the same sympathy and empathy at a different part of someone’s career?

[Rachel Maclean]

Yes, I completely agree. The hon. Gentleman must be psychic, because he has made a point that I was going to make. Before I do so, however, I want to speak about the workplace.

Let me pay tribute to some organisations that are doing an absolutely fantastic job in this regard. I have had quite a lot of contact with West Midlands police through various women who have championed this issue in the workplace. There is a lady called Lesley Byrne—Lesley, if you are watching, keep going! Yvonne Bruton has been running menopause awareness workshops for the police. Imagine the West Midlands police—a very male-dominated and, in many ways, traditional organisation. Female police officers are incredibly brave to say, “I have these experiences. I am not supported and I need adjustments to my working patterns.” They are working through the issues and finding ways to support their female colleagues. At the end of the day, we need good police officers and we need them to stay in the police force, to be motivated and to progress to higher levels.

That work is absolutely brilliant, and there is no reason why every single police force in the country could not talk to West Midlands police, find out what they are doing and disseminate the information among themselves. Indeed, there is no reason why other organisations cannot have a menopause policy, just as they have policies on childcare and maternity leave. It does not cost anything; it is a question of saying, “We’re here and we will listen to you if you need support.” That is my first ask.

My second ask is about education, which the hon. Member for East Lothian just spoke about so eloquently. We of course talk to young girls and boys—I presume this still happens; it is a long time since it happened to me—about puberty, periods, where babies come from and so on. We educate our young people about all those important issues to equip them for life and relationships; why can we not educate them about what happens at the end of their reproductive lives? It is very simple. I spoke to a male colleague earlier who said, “I have no personal experience of the menopause, so how can I talk about it?” I said, “Well, okay, your mother went through it,” but then we did not talk to our mothers about these sorts of things. This needs to come into the school curriculum and to be part of what schools are talking about. Let us look at how we can do that, because surely it is not that hard.

The third aspect of my campaign is around access to advice in GP surgeries. This is where we really do need to do more. I have been absolutely inundated with people contacting me. I have heard quite horrific stories from women who did not get the treatment that is medically proven to be effective, which is hormone replacement therapy. HRT is available on the NHS and actually advocated for women in the guidelines of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. However, it seems that there is—I don’t know—a lack of awareness, a lack of information and a lack of empathy among GPs who are not prescribing HRT for women when they need it. I have heard story after story from women who went to their GP, saying, “Look, I am suffering these symptoms.” Again, the reason might be that they are not having hot flushes or night sweats, but they have the other symptoms that are associated with the menopause, and they are just not getting that treatment. GPs are sending them away. Why do some women battle for years to get HRT?

I am delighted to say that the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), has already met me to discuss this issue. We very much hope to move things forward with the all-party group on women’s health, which is led by the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff), and obviously with any other Member who wishes to take part. We really need to do more.

If I may, I will draw my comments to a close by quickly paying tribute to a few campaigners who have given me so much support and information.

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[Marion Fellows]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and this is a wonderful occasion to highlight such things and to motivate women to speak more frankly, because every woman has a different menopause. We all have to accept that and to share our experiences so that no one feels that they are the only one going through this.

The Scottish National party and the Scottish Government support World Menopause Day. Through the Scottish Primary Care Information Resource, the Scottish Government support general practice to identify patients with conditions such as osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease, which are clearly and directly associated with the menopause. We need to anticipate health needs for women in this situation and ensure the best possible care for them. There are some NHS menopause clinics in Scotland, located in Dumfries and Galloway, Fife, Grampian, Lothian and Tayside. In other areas, health boards provide menopause help through general practice and specialist referral if needed. The British Menopause Society really wants to encourage that, because doctors and other health professionals also need to be trained in how to talk to women and encourage them to talk about their symptoms.

There are also some great initiatives at a local government level. For example, South Lanarkshire Council is today launching its menopause policy, and it is to be very much commended for that. The council worked out that 68% of its workforce are women, who could go through the menopause at any point, and it sees it as its duty to take care of these women and to allow them to talk to managers. In fact, they are training managers properly to help with this issue. It can be very difficult for some women to talk to a younger man, as the hon. Member for East Lothian has mentioned.

South Lanarkshire Council’s plan includes the provision of fans for women to manage hot flushes and the ability to take time out when coping with low moods. There is also a requirement to ensure that women experiencing menopause have easy access to toilet facilities. This is not difficult; it is something that all employers should be doing. Women will have somewhere to rest or to go for a little while if they feel tired due to a lack of sleep caused by things such as hot flushes, and if they are suffering from anxiety at this time, they will also be able to access the employee counselling services. This is a great initiative that I wholly commend, and it should be emulated by other employers right across the country. This is exactly the kind of proactive support that both the public and private sectors should be adopting.

A BBC survey earlier this year found that 70% of respondents do not tell their bosses that they are experiencing symptoms when they are going through the menopause. I certainly did not, but then I am well beyond menopause and have seen quite a large variety of changes in how we speak about women’s issues throughout my lifetime, so I am really happy to be able to speak on the subject today. Employers must take the lead in creating a safe environment for women to speak up if their symptoms are making their work difficult. It is actually better for employers to do that, because if they treat women with consideration at this time in their lives, they will get the best possible work out of them.

[Martin Whitfield]

Is it not the case, though, that a woman should never feel obliged to tell her employer? She should work in an environment that is open and sensitive enough for that to be understood, so that she has the confidence to share that, rather than it being an employment requirement to announce it.

[Marion Fellows]

Yes, I agree; but it does have to be a two-way process. Employers have to create workplaces where people feel confident talking about mental health issues and about the menopause.

Women’s health issues often do not see the spotlight due to ongoing taboos, and it is time for women—younger and older—to speak out. Women are often expected to put up and shut up about the symptoms associated with the menopause or periods, and to feel that talking about it is inappropriate or just moaning, when it is clear that this attitude is just thinly-veiled sexism. The fact is that the menopause and periods, as well as other hormonal conditions such as polycystic ovary syndrome, can have a really debilitating effect on women day to day.

It is great to see fantastic initiatives such as the menopause cafés mentioned by the hon. Member for Redditch that are now up and down the country after they were started by Rachel Weiss in June 2017 in her home city of Perth in Scotland. Weiss was reportedly inspired by “Newsnight” presenter Kirsty Wark’s documentary on the menopause, in which she talked about her own experience. This was a fantastic and brave project that no doubt touched many women across the UK who felt that their experiences were given a voice.

I draw the attention of the House to an article by Mandy Rhodes, the editor of Holyrood Magazine and columnist of the year. She has written, much more eloquently than I could, about some of her experiences, saying:

“One of my funnier moments in life was going to a menopause support group—a bit like an AA for women of a certain age—where one woman confessed she had no menopausal symptoms but was there to make friends. Why would you even do that? The idea that you might want to seek out new friends, from among a group of women who were in the middle of a hormonal-induced”—

expletive deleted—

“storm that had likely helped alienate them from all their own friends and family, smacked of a certain kind of desperation. But that is where this can take you…Over the last 20 years, many barriers have been broken down regarding a whole range of issues that impact on our working lives, including gender, race, physical and mental health. And whilst people feel more comfortable opening up about some of these issues, there are others that remain taboo. The menopause and the symptoms associated with it are, for many women, that last taboo. And it’s something of a paradox that on the journey women have travelled towards equality, that that same generation of women”—

Mandy’s generation, who are younger than me, it has to be said—

“who were at the fore of getting their voices heard in the fight for gender equality, are now, in middle-age, silenced by a uniquely female condition that has done more to disempower them than any male chauvinist could ever do. Many women live a third of their lives post-menopausal, often at the peak of their careers and still with big plans. And so, dealing with it…matters to us all.”

I echo that quotation in its entirety and recommend that hon. Members read that article, which is well written, personal and effective.

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[Carolyn Harris]

I do, and I was just coming to that.

Employers have a duty of care to all their employees. While no respectable company would even consider running their business without a maternity policy, very few will have given any thought to the introduction of a menopause policy. Simple adjustments, such as relaxed uniform policies, flexible working conditions and temperature control in offices, could have a huge impact on a woman’s decision to remain in work. It is a win-win situation: employers would benefit from retaining valuable, trustworthy and experienced employees, saving money on sickness cover and training new staff, while women would find it easier to cope with the physical symptoms of the menopause. With simple adjustments, such as being able to travel outside rush hour or to wear cooler, less restrictive clothing, they would also feel valued and supported in their professional roles, which in turn would help with the psychological barriers associated with the menopause.

Yet current figures show that two thirds of women going through the menopause say they have no support at all in their workplace. Some 25% of women say they have considered leaving their job because of it, and one in 10 actually ends up handing in her notice. Women in our emergency services, nurses, frontline retail staff and office workers—in fact, women from all sectors of industry—are leaving the workplace owing to a lack of support from their employers. These are not small businesses, but massive national and global companies. We need big business and workplaces to take this seriously.

Many unions are already championing the call for a menopause policy. An excellent example is the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, which I have worked with, and the very wonderful Julie Bird, who has encouraged Tesco to set up pilot menopause support groups. The scheme started in Swansea and is now being rolled out across the south-west.

Nottinghamshire police was the first force in the country to introduce a menopause policy that includes flexible working and lighter uniforms. The hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) talked about local authorities. I am pleased to say that I have just received a message informing me that my own local authority, City and County of Swansea—I think it knew I would want to say this—is going to introduce a menopause policy.

[Martin Whitfield]

These discussions can take place in local authorities, unions such as the CWU and the GMB, and employers such as the civil nuclear constabulary. This does not cost a lot of money, but it does require understanding.

[Carolyn Harris]

People need to talk. We must take the best practice from these examples, share them with other employers and ensure that menopause guidelines become compulsory for all businesses.

On this World Menopause Day, let us educate children—girls and boys—within the school curriculum so that for future generations the menopause ceases to be a taboo subject or a joking matter. Let us improve public understanding of the menopause and its symptoms so that women no longer feel that they need to suffer in silence. Let us ensure that our medical professions know how to diagnose and best treat these symptoms so that women’s experiences are less painful and less distressing. Let us pledge to work towards a mandatory menopause policy within workplaces so that women can carry on with a normal life, however severe their symptoms may be. On this World Menopause Day, let us make a commitment to make a difference.

[The Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty’s Treasury (Nigel Adams)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield) on securing this very important debate on World Menopause Day. This is a very welcome opportunity to discuss, and raise the profile of, the menopause. Is it not encouraging that a man has come to this Chamber on World Menopause Day and introduced this debate? Who would have thought, a couple of years ago, that that would happen? Who would have thought that a male Minister would be responding to this debate? Well, a week ago, I did not think I would be doing that, but it has been an absolute privilege for me to listen to the contributions made here today.

It is fantastic to see the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) in her place. She talked about how nervous her daughter was about what her speech might contain. I can tell the hon. Lady that there are those who are very nervous about what my speech might contain, not least in the Adams household, and also in the Whips Office. As Members can see, I am surrounded by Whips today, so I am going to stay on message, especially if I am to stay in the sisterhood referenced by the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris).

I am here today on behalf of the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price). She has responsibility for women’s health and would very much have liked to be here to discuss a topic that she is incredibly passionate about. She has taken a very close interest in women’s health, including the menopause, and I know that she will be watching this debate.

The debate has provided us with a number of positive opportunities. First, we, as Members of Parliament, can play a role by helping to raise awareness of the menopause and by encouraging people to have more open conversations about this topic. This is a very significant life stage for every woman, as we have heard, and it has been all too rarely discussed in the House. Today, we have this opportunity to put that right.

Secondly, this debate gives us the opportunity to reflect on the positive things that employers and the health system are already doing to support women who are suffering from menopausal symptoms. More women are likely to have a better experience of the menopause if we share and promote the best examples of existing support.

We also have the opportunity to discuss what more needs to be done. We know, for example, that there are inconsistent levels of awareness around the menopause, and that that reflects a history of stigma attached to the issue. The benefits of tackling stigma head on and having the right menopause support in place are clear. That is the right thing to do for women who are suffering from adverse symptoms or who feel unable to have open conversations about how they are feeling.

Openness, as we have heard, goes for men as well as women. It is important that we improve how we educate men about the menopause for the benefit of their partners, relatives and colleagues—and, crucially, for the benefit of their own understanding. There is also a strong argument based on economic inclusion. Our national workforce is ageing, and positive action by employers will benefit employee engagement, productivity and retention.

We cannot stress enough that the menopause is a natural part of ageing and will be experienced in one way or another by every single woman. As we have heard from several Members, every woman will experience the menopause differently, and the types and severity of symptoms can vary. The menopause can occur naturally or be triggered or accelerated by medical interventions such as some surgeries or cancer treatments. The menopause can have physical and non-physical symptoms, but both can cause discomfort and, in many cases, social embarrassment. There are clear consequences for wellbeing. Women experiencing troublesome menopausal symptoms report lower health-related quality of life and greater use of healthcare services than women without symptoms.

Let us look at the numbers. There are more than 3.5 million women between the ages of 50 and 65 in employment in the UK. One in four women in the workplace is going through or has gone through the menopause. Over half of those women report that they experience symptoms that impact their work. The number of women over the age of 50 continues to grow, and the employment rate for women in the UK has never been higher. Women go through the menopause at a life stage when they are often dealing with demanding responsibilities such as work, caring for elderly relatives and dealing with teenage and adolescent children. Difficult symptoms can really add to the challenges of life.

No two menopauses are exactly alike. That is why the guidance produced by NICE recommends adopting an individualised approach at all stages of diagnosis, investigation and management of menopause. NICE also recommends that information on menopause is given in different ways, to encourage women to discuss their symptoms and needs.

Hormone replacement therapy can be an effective way of relieving many menopausal symptoms, as well as preventing osteoporosis. Usually, women may start HRT as soon as they begin experiencing menopausal symptoms, and their GP can advise on the different types of HRT that are available. However, HRT is not always the most suitable treatment, and women can discuss alternatives with their GP. Psychological interventions can be helpful for symptoms of anxiety or for those suffering from low mood. When making judgments about treatment, healthcare professionals can draw on advice from the British Menopause Society, a specialist society affiliated to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

But we can always do more. I know that the Mental Health Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock, is leading work on improving women’s health and their experiences of healthcare. Her work partly focuses on raising awareness and breaking taboos—we have heard that word many times this afternoon—around common health morbidities, such as problem periods and incontinence. She is working closely with the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to achieve that. I know that one of her concerns is that women’s experience of the diagnosis and treatment of common gynaecological issues is not always what it could be. The all-party parliamentary group on women’s health pointed that out in its report earlier this year, and I am sure that the Minister will have more to say about that when she returns to the Commons.

For many women experiencing the menopause, the best help often comes from other women. Services can build on that support so that women can make lifestyle choices that will help to give them a better experience of the menopause, including stopping smoking, exercising regularly and eating healthily. Partners in the healthcare system can also offer support. Menopause Matters is a website that provides up-to-date information about the menopause and treatment options, as well as hosting a forum for women to discuss their experiences of the menopause. The Daisy Network is a charity that provides information and support specifically for women who are going through premature menopause.

As has been mentioned several times this afternoon, we also need to look to workplaces as a source of support for women with menopausal symptoms. Many women report that they feel they do not have the opportunity to have open conversations with their employer about menopausal symptoms at work. That needs to change—I am specifically targeting these remarks at male managers in the workplace. This has to change. If two men can get up in the House of Commons and talk about the menopause, male managers in the workplace should be doing exactly the same.

We know from a 2017 review of the effects of menopause transition on women’s economic participation that the menopause is not well understood or provided for in workplace cultures, policies and training. Sources of guidance are available for employers who want to do more to support women with menopausal symptoms. The Faculty of Occupational Medicine has produced a factsheet and infographic on menopause and the workplace, as requested by the chief medical officer in her 2014 report on women’s health. It contains practical guidance for employers on how to improve workplace environments for menopausal women, and it stresses the importance of regular, informed conversations between managers and employees.

It can often be important for managers simply to acknowledge the menopause as a natural stage of life and reassure women that their employer is open to making adjustments that they may find helpful. Equally, some women may not be comfortable discussing their symptoms with a manager, and access to occupational health can also be very valuable. Specific actions that employers can take to help women experiencing menopausal symptoms include considering changes to working patterns or responsibilities, providing employees with sources of information about the menopause, and challenging taboos and negative expectations about the menopause.

There are good examples of employers—we have heard one or two in this excellent debate—who have taken action to make their workplaces menopause-friendly. We have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), who takes a really close interest in this issue. She spoke so passionately this afternoon, as she has done previously in this House. She highlighted the example of the West Midlands police, which provides tailored support that helps women to build their confidence and stay in the workplace. As the hon. Member for East Lothian mentioned, she has spoken openly and bravely on this subject in the Chamber on several occasions. I know she is also working closely with the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock.

I want to respond to the question my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch posed about GPs not prescribing HRT on some occasions for women who need it. HRT can help to relieve most of the menopausal symptoms. The guidelines from NICE—NG23 on the diagnosis and management of the menopause—recommend HRT as part of an individualised approach to treatment and management, and women must be able to access the treatment they need to manage such symptoms effectively.

My hon. Friend, like the hon. Member for Swansea East, correctly mentioned teaching children about the menopause in schools, which is absolutely critical. The Government are making relationships education compulsory in all primary schools, sex and relationships education compulsory in all secondary schools and health education compulsory in primary and secondary state schools. The Department for Education has launched a consultation on the draft guidance and regulations, which closes on 7 November. I am sure my colleagues in the Department for Education will have heard the well-qualified remarks made this afternoon.

The draft guidance currently does not mention the menopause explicitly, but at primary level it includes teaching about puberty, menstruation and changes to the adolescent body, and at secondary level pupils will be taught about sexual and reproductive health and wellbeing, including fertility. The underpinning focus in these subjects is to equip young people to develop positive attitudes to health, relationships and wellbeing both now and as they progress through adult life.

[Martin Whitfield]

Does the Minister agree that when there is teaching about fertility in high school or secondary school education, the fact that the menopause is not mentioned almost plays into the taboo he mentioned earlier? Such a discussion is not had, and our children are therefore not getting a full picture or understanding of what is going to come to most of them.

[Nigel Adams]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. It is absolutely crucial to have teaching about puberty, periods and reproductive health, which provides crucial opportunities for schools to refer to the menopause. I had no idea when my mother was going through the menopause, which was referred to as “the change”. She was very, very poorly. I remember being in the living room —my dad was at work—when the doctor was called. My mother was 50 years old and having a really bad experience. She was taken off to a mental institution. She was carted out of the house and ended up in what can only be described as a Victorian asylum. I am really glad that things have moved on in that regard—this was some time ago. It is absolutely crucial that we get to children early enough to make sure they understand the causes of a condition that affects every single woman.

Turning to the brilliant and characteristically brave speech by the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw, she referred to the fact that every woman has a different type of menopause. That is absolutely correct. She talked about breaking the taboo around menopause and women’s health. The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock, is leading work on improving the health of women and their experiences of healthcare. That work is partly focused on raising awareness and breaking taboos around common health morbidities, including problem periods and incontinence, not just the menopause.

The hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw also talked about sexual wellbeing during the menopause. It is important that women experiencing menopause have access to support and advice on that. It is common for women to lose interest in sex around the time of menopause, but treatments are available. We have heard that HRT often helps. If it is not effective, testosterone supplements can be offered.

The hon. Lady also rightly talked about the importance of the workplace. The hon. Member for Swansea East also wisely focused on that area. Workplace policies that take the menopause into account can benefit both women and their employers. The Government commissioned an evidence review into the menopause, which was published last July and highlighted the important role that employers can play in supporting women. Following that, the Women’s Business Council developed a toolkit for employers of all sizes, which enables employers to make the right adaptations to physical workplace environments, supporting flexible working and raising awareness to tackle this issue.

I want to close by restating the importance of approaching the menopause as a natural and normal stage of a woman’s life, while recognising that, as we have heard, for many women that life stage comes with some incredibly challenging symptoms. It is essential that all employers and health professionals are fully informed and ready to provide women with the best options for treatment and support. The right thing for individuals is also the right thing for our economy.

We have had a fascinating and fantastic debate this afternoon. It is important that we continue to speak openly and confidently about the menopause, so that embarrassment does not prevent women from accessing treatment and support where necessary. I thank all hon. Members for their brilliant contributions and for this opportunity to mark World Menopause Day.

[Martin Whitfield]

This has been a fascinating debate. As one of the two men here, I extend the hand of friendship to the Minister. We have survived the discussion, so any man can survive it. I would also like to take the opportunity to thank him for sharing his personal experience in a very moving part of his speech.

I would just like to pick up on two elements of the debate very quickly. One is humour. It can be used to hurt and as a punchline. However, as we heard in a lovely extract from Holyrood magazine, it can also be used to open up a discussion that is so very important.

I again thank the hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), and I would particularly like to speak to her colleague who said that we did not talk to our mothers about this. To quote from earlier on, Madam Deputy Speaker, this is a place where breakthroughs can be made. I think we have made a breakthrough today. It is a breakthrough that we should all, men and women, continue.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered world menopause day 2018.

Business of the House

Ordered,

That, in respect of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Bill, notices of Amendments, new Clauses and new Schedules to be moved in Committee may be accepted by the Clerks at the Table before the Bill has been read a second time.—(Andrea Leadsom.)

Banking Sector Failures

Martin Whitfield Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered failures in the banking sector.

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship and guidance, Mr Bone, as we find ourselves gathered to discuss the banking situation. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for facilitating this debate and the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) for co-sponsoring it.

On 10 May, I was proud to lead a main Chamber debate, in which I raised the section 166 report and called for full redress for the victims of profound financial misconduct. Today’s motion is deliberately phrased more broadly, to enable us to reflect our constituents’ many frustrations with the banking industry. I am therefore glad that we have been given a significant amount of time to discuss this issue. There will be a diverse range of submissions from Members who wish to discuss their constituency matters.

The all-party parliamentary group on fair business banking and hon. Members from across the House recognise that work is continuing within the industry, and with UK Finance and the Financial Conduct Authority, to drive higher standards and accountability. Hard lines need to be drawn so that we can not only solve the ongoing disputes, but prevent another conduct crisis in the future. It is our firm and unwavering position that things have not changed sufficiently to prevent the abuses of power we continue to see in the financial services industry and the surrounding supporting professional sectors and service areas of law, valuation, Law of Property Act receivership and insolvency. The APPG will focus on those areas with renewed vigour in the coming months.

Hon. Members and the APPG engage regularly with UK Finance and the FCA, and we see a genuine will to drive higher standards in the industry. We look forward to continuing to work together, and we appreciate the forthright relationship we have developed. UK Finance, in particular, has shown itself to be an industry leader, and we sincerely hope it challenges the industry to be the best it can be.

I want to focus on the banking industry’s failure to support small businesses, and on the erosion of trust between such businesses and banks. Small and medium-sized enterprises are pivotal to the UK economy. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy highlights that they constitute 99.9% of businesses operating in Britain. They bring in £1.8 trillion in annual turnover and employ just over 60% of people in the private sector. They are the lifeblood of our nation’s economy, but worryingly, the critical bond of trust between them and business banking has never been lower.

From payment protection insurance complaints to the HBOS Reading fraud and the toxic culture at the Royal Bank of Scotland’s Global Restructuring Group, the industry has systematically failed small business across the UK. I want to discuss the attitude towards small business owners, the devastating impact of past misconduct, and the future.

I have spoken to small business owners, and the foundation of the problem is often simple access to finance—a problem highlighted by bank closures. Beyond the bricks and mortar of local banks lies a bond of trust between the business owner, the financial adviser and the bank manager. Since 2015, we have lost or are due to lose banks in Prestonpans, Tranent, Gullane, North Berwick and Dunbar in East Lothian. The inhabitants of those towns have lost their connection to a local banking service. The issue disproportionately affects Scottish consumers. Between 2015 and the end of this year, 368 branches will have closed in Scotland. For the 20 million people who still rely on face-to-face banking services, that is devastating.

Ferhan Ashiq, a local entrepreneur in East Lothian, has talked about some of the provisions he has had to use since the closure. He described them as painful. He has had to make a transition to alternative banking solutions, and he does not feel that enough resources are available for business owners who still rely on cash-based operations. Like many in East Lothian, he is unimpressed by the replacement bus bank service that rolls into town twice a week. The service is not fully accessible or reliable. Indeed, the very first day it was due to go to Dunbar, it failed to attend because it broke down. That is testimony to the fact that we should perhaps not believe everything we read on the side of a bus.

The effect has been that alternative funding sources have been developed, such as crowdfunding, which my constituent uses; peer-to-peer lending, which is facilitated by the Funding Circle—a firm that has created and sustained 19 jobs in East Lothian in the past 12 months—cyber-currencies; and even local stock exchanges. If we look at the history of banking, although the technology has changed, our main banks—I will not use the phrase “high street banks”, because it is becoming something of a misnomer—have followed the same pattern. They started with peer-to-peer lending and friends chipping in. Just as protection became necessary and our banks became more structured, so the world of alternative funding needs structure to its regulation and an understanding. It is not for the banks to provide that; it is for the Government to regulate so that confidence can continue to grow and develop, and not be challenged in those new alternative sources of funding, as it has been in traditional banking.

I turn to the ongoing conduct issues and our call for a full public inquiry into the treatment of businesses under financial duress. Recently, we have seen leaked reports from RBS and HBOS. There are ongoing issues with how Clydesdale bank and Yorkshire bank aggressively mis-sold interest rate hedging products and fixed-rate loans, which contained astronomical break costs. Those loans caused widespread financial distress. Rather than supporting businesses and putting things right, the banks sold the loans on to a private equity firm, Cerebus, and washed their hands of any responsibility for the damage that was caused. The consequences of those actions are still ongoing for many people. Bankruptcies and evictions from family homes are going on as we speak.

The Treasury Committee and the FCA have said on many occasions that there is work to be done if businesses are to continue to thrive and move forward. We very much look forward to the publication of the Treasury Committee’s SME finance inquiry report. The industry recommendations in the section 166 report into RBS highlighted key issues that the APPG on fair business banking has been raising for years. The report talks about unfair contracts, with contractual terms that are there to confuse customers. The Lending Standards Board has produced principles for lending contracts, and the APPG has set up a contracts working group to ensure that bank contracts match the public promise. We welcome the involvement and participation of financial firms in that.

The section 166 report also talks about the relationship between banks and third-party providers. There are consistent conflicts of interest. For example, insolvency practitioners and surveyors are motivated to work in the interests of the bank, rather than the business. That issue has been raised a number of times in debates, and with the insolvency service, banks and BEIS.

To make it crystal clear, the same mechanisms that were used by HBOS Reading, RBS GRG and Dunbar Bank, to name just a few, have not vanished, but are still being used today. There has not been a substantive change to prevent the systematic asset-stripping that was highlighted in the Turnbull report and the section 166 report on RBS GRG. Indeed, we still see cases on a weekly basis that demonstrate that the systems are still in place.

The right hon. and hon. Members who are members of the APPG are very clear that we need a comprehensive inquiry into turnaround practices, insolvency and financial institutions. The fact that HBOS Reading and RBS GRG were able to go on for so long indicates that there is a systematic failure, and we must learn lessons. The Government produced an excellent consultation on the review of the corporate insolvency framework back in 2016, and we encourage them to continue with that reform of insolvency, which is a key priority.

In the debate on 10 May, I raised the section 166 report, and called for full redress for those who have been victims of profound financial misconduct. I do not want to go over previous ground, but I want to highlight the impact of financial misconduct on working families, businesses and individuals, and the importance of redressing those profound losses.

The release report on RBS GRG not only underlined the toxic culture that existed but, critically, identified the systemic failures that allowed it to thrive. Banking misconduct is a broad term that will no doubt be discussed by Members today. I want to stress, however, that for business owners across the country who have lost their livelihoods, their homes and their marriages, and more often than not have suffered in their health, this is not past misconduct; this greets them every single day when they wake up and is with them when they go to bed every night to try to sleep. It haunts them. The impact of the scandal has been so profoundly damaging that people have taken the appalling decision to end their life because they cannot face any more.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

What really upsets me is that the people who lead those banks seem to have no honour, no decency. Where is the banking code? Where is the way in which bankers should look after their customers? It does not seem to be present at all. That is heartbreaking.

[Martin Whitfield]

The hon. Gentleman makes a profound contribution. Our financial system is based on trust; our friendships are based on trust. Trust is how it started, and the present conduct of individuals within banks and the present systemic conduct of banks fracture that trust. That means we have lost something, because once trust is lost it cannot be got back—trust is given by someone but not necessarily offered again. The responsibility of this House and of financial services—this is genuinely the responsibility of everyone—is to ensure that we have answers to those questions so that at last, I hope, some people and some families find some peace and closure about events that have haunted their lives.

If I may, I draw attention to the Centre for Policy Studies’ report, “Fair Business Banking for All”, which was launched last night with the APPG. I thank the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) for authoring the report and the APPG for supporting its publication and for an excellent night. Among many things, it recommends the establishment of a financial services tribunal not dissimilar to the employment tribunal system.

I am aware that the report’s proposals to enhance the legal rights of SMEs would require primary legislation, but some steps towards it would not. One recommendation is to redefine a “private person” under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Rights of Action) Regulations 2001. A small change, the extension of the definition of a private person to cover SMEs, would allow them to take action where now they cannot do so. An extension to cover insolvent firms, many rendered insolvent by the poor conduct of banks and financial subsidiaries, would give those SMEs—and the people who are the reality behind the company—a right of action when Financial Conduct Authority rules are breached.

The last recommendation of the report is about time limits, when companies have the extra hurdle under the limitation Acts of a six or five-year period, depending on whether they are based in England and Wales, or Scotland. The limitation can frequently be overcome, but it is simply another example of how barriers are placed in the way of those who feel the greatest sense of injustice. I fully support the recommendations of the report, notably the enhancement of SME rights.

I know that the Minister is aware of and appreciates the feelings across constituencies about this matter. I ask for his comments on the following matters. Even if we are dealing with the systemic failure of our banks and banking system, we still require a full and open inquiry to understand that failure. That inquiry would benefit financial institutions, the business community and certainly the wider economy. More than that, it would bring transparency and light to the people who have suffered. The inquiry might start to provide closure for individuals who have for too long battled against the Lernaean hydra that is the financial industry. A public inquiry would establish the facts. It would allow the industry to learn from past events, offer reconciliation and re-establish accountability after a scandal that gripped financial institutions not only in our country but globally.

First, therefore, will the Minister support cross-Bench calls for a full public inquiry? I realise that it is a big ask and will require a considered response, but it would be a positive step if he could at least support a joint cross-departmental taskforce to identify the extent of banking failings—impact, regulatory failings, missed opportunities —to get to the root cause of the problem and its future impacts. Such groundwork would not only be important in itself but could act as a foundation for a public inquiry.

Furthermore, on 10 May, the Minister who has joined us today—I apologise for quoting him in this—said:

“I am meeting Andrew Bailey regularly, and I hope that the FCA will conclude its investigation soon, by which I mean in the next eight to 12 weeks. As I mentioned in our debate on this topic in January, I do not wish to complicate the matter further or prejudice any outcomes while the FCA is investigating, but I am very clear that I expect it to conclude its investigations in a very short timeframe.”—[Official Report, 10 May 2018; Vol. 640, c. 979.]

Today it is exactly nine weeks since that assurance. I also ask for adequate funding and expertise in the investigation of financial fraud. Part of the imbalance in power in the system comes from the reality that the expertise needed to investigate those claims is expensive and in short supply.

I fear that the banking industry has developed a worrying culture that has facilitated a breakdown in trust between that industry and business owners throughout the country. The culture is rooted in institutional misdemeanours but exacerbated by the closure of high street banks and the loss of ATMs. We need a new banking settlement to ensure that business owners in all areas of the country have access to local banking services. Those same customers must also be given an assurance that they can trust the banking hubs and, if the trust breaks down, a tribunal will act as an investigator and a way of re-establishing it.

Small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy, which needs a trustworthy banking system to support and help SMEs to prosper. The economy is at the foundation of our society, and our society demands more from its banking system, from its financial services and—in reality—from its Government. I repeat a phrase that I have used in previous debates: the victims are not going to go away.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Kerr]

My hon. and gallant Friend not only says the right things but says them with the passion and angst that we all feel on our constituents’ behalf.

At the stroke of a pen, and often based on a valuation that was instructed by the bank in the first place, a director or an individual loses immediate control of their business and their assets. To that end, I would like to share with hon. Members the story of one of my constituents, to add to the many other stories that have been and no doubt will be told today. My constituent’s name is John Roseman. I can do no better than to describe him in his own words from his LinkedIn profile, which I know are accurate from having met him. He describes himself as an “entrepreneur” and he is absolutely that. He fits the bill. He has

“vast experience in International Business in the High Tech Arena of Microelectronics, Solar, Oil & Gas, Cleanroom Environments & High Purity Manufacturing.”

John had a business, Sematek UK, that he describes as a

“Clean manufacturing service company specializing in turnkey clean environments, high purity gas, chemical and water installations, Mechanical, control and electrical engineering.”

His business had a turnover of £10 million and was based in my constituency. There are not so many businesses in my constituency that turn over £10 million, but John’s business did. He had blue chip clients across the world on every continent. His business was making money—it was profitable and had good margins. He came to see me in a surgery that I held in Dunblane, with a whole set of management accounts as evidence.

The success John had made of the business that he founded in 1990 was clear and obvious. But that all changed. Suddenly, in 2011, without any notice, John had the rug pulled from under his feet. RBS said it would like security on his existing facility, but no covenant had been broken and nothing substantial had changed, except that John’s business was becoming more successful and making more money. One day, the bank appointed someone to call on his business. John thought that he had come to do an inspection on behalf of the bank. But no, this was an insolvency practitioner, whose first words to John were that his facility had been immediately withdrawn and his business put into administration by the bank. John Roseman had another company called Mov-Stor. That business was not liquidated, but RBS GRG took all its assets and sold them on. It gave him a fraction of the true worth of that business’s assets.

I spent some time with John and he gave me permission to talk about his case today. His story is just one illustration of the brutal approach of RBS GRG and other banks to small and medium-sized businesses such as John Roseman’s.

[Martin Whitfield]

It is interesting that when we discuss entrepreneurs in this country, we frequently talk about their inability to develop from an SME into a large company. We put that down to selling the idea abroad, but actually today’s debate and the effects of the finance show that perhaps there is another reason why they are unable to do that, which has nothing to do with their ability or out-of-the-box thinking.

[Stephen Kerr]

The hon. Gentleman speaks well to that subject. Banks should exist to provide the capital that businesses need to scale up and become bigger, albeit for their own commercial interest, but I am sorry to have to say that is not how it works in this country.

The impact of the events on John Roseman was far more than just commercial. They had a devastating effect on him, his health—as I witnessed when I met him—and family, and his employees and their families. John’s business was stolen from him, and I make no apology for using that word.

[Stephen Kerr]

There can be no doubt about the nature of GRG’s operations. To say anything other would be a deceit about the part played by GRG. I apologise for having to use such unparliamentary language to describe the operations of a business, but that is the case too often in the examples that so many Members have had brought to us.

There was no failure in John’s business or model—they were a success. His business’s products and services were in demand. His customers certainly had not deserted him. But the Royal Bank of Scotland brought him down for its own purposes. He has still to get anything like an appropriate settlement in compensation for the way he was treated. John is cut from rock and the Royal Bank of Scotland should be warned that it can try to close his case, as it has told him, but he will not give up and will not go away. He wants justice and recompense, and he should be treated with more respect than he has been so far. As his Member of Parliament, I will support him as best I can.

John’s case is only an example; there are so many others. He suffered severe trauma. His health has been affected through stress and anxiety. He has suffered heart problems; he had heart surgery the week before his daughter was married. His marriage and his friendships have suffered. He said to me:

“My wife found it especially hard having to deal with the day to day situation and our marriage suffered seriously and was lucky to survive the constant pain, anger and aggression I was going through watching our family business and assets being stolen from us.”

That is the human cost, along with the human cost to his employees, his team and their families.

I repeat that, at the stroke of a pen, directors and shareholders suddenly have no voice and no right of reply, even if they never missed a payment but honoured their obligations. It is that easy. The customer gets no warning and has no ability to appeal. That can happen whether or not the valuation on which the supposed contract breach is based is correct.

Who determines that a property’s value has fallen? It is usually a surveyor from one of the bank’s panel of firms, which depend on banks for their business. They are hardly independent. Hypothetically, if a bank had a liquidity problem and needed to raise funds quickly, all it would have to do is engineer a bogus breach of contract—the rest would be history. Sadly, many banks are commonly accused of having done exactly that in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

As we can see, it is not just the bank involved—surveyors, LPA receivers and administrators all play their part. It is therefore imperative that those practitioners and their regulators are held to account for the roles they played—and continue to play—in the destruction of British businesses.

[Martin Whitfield]

The hon. Gentleman is being generous with his time. The fact that the contracts the banks entered into with customers were so complex and so cleverly—I use that word carefully—worded that they misled individuals about the powers the bank had over them plays into the APPG’s cry for a much simpler, more straightforward and more honest contractual relationship between banks and individual customers.

[Stephen Kerr]

Absolutely—complexity is a weapon in the hands of the banks.

RBS has been at pains to point out that Promontory did not find any evidence of deliberate undervaluation of properties. However, Promontory also stated in its report that in many cases it could not find any evidence that a valuation was correct. In other words, they were making it up as they went along. In such a cosy relationship, the surveyors, LPA receivers, insolvency practitioners and financial institutions all hold incredible power over the borrower. They used that power—they still can —to enrich their own firms and their balance sheet positions at the expense of viable businesses. Indeed, the section 166 report specifically refers to their searching out “opportunities” to default.

Insolvency was seen as an opportunity to get rid of troublesome complaints, as the voice of the individual businessperson is wiped out, and avenues for complaint or redress blocked, at the point of receivership or administration. In our last debate about this issue, which was in the main Chamber, I mentioned another method that some banks—Clydesdale, for example—have used to wipe out swathes of troublesome or just unwanted business customers: selling their loans on and letting a shady vulture fund, such as Cerberus, do the dirty demolition job for them.

We start with a situation where businesses have no effective protection against being badly treated by banks and their associates. Added to that, there is no real disincentive for banks and their associates to behave badly and even criminally towards those businesses, and nothing to stop the same banks and associates simply pulling the plug on them and hoovering up their assets to distribute among themselves. Businesspeople have nowhere—nowhere within their financial means, at any rate—to take their complaints about poor treatment that gives them a realistic chance of resolving their problems before their businesses and lives are consumed by them, or of receiving satisfactory compensation where they have suffered substantial loss or damage. On top of that, we repeatedly fail to take allegations of mistreatment and fraud seriously, and we refuse again and again to investigate and clamp down on bad and even criminal behaviour. Even on the rare occasions when we eventually investigate and prosecute, as in the case of HBOS Reading, we go after the foot soldiers, not the generals. It is not hard to see how that awful recipe of things combined to cause thousands of businesses to be devastated, their owners’ lives to be shattered and many jobs to be lost.

If we repeatedly fail to take allegations of mistreatment and fraud seriously, and we refuse again and again to investigate and clamp down on bad and criminal behaviour, there is no reason why such actions should ever stop occurring. I reinforce and second the questions the hon. Member for East Lothian asked, and I say to the Minister: please, for the sake of UK plc and the many businesses devastated by the issues I have tried to describe, let us take clear action to ensure that justice is served.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

This is the third or fourth debate in which I have spoken in support of people running SMEs who have been utterly shafted—that is not too strong a word—by some banks. It is clear that quite a few SMEs are being denied justice in their many financial services disputes. I am amazed that that has not been fixed by now.

I have spoken up for my constituent Dean D’Eye and his family and friends, who have been terrorised by insolvency professionals working for the Global Restructuring Group and Dunbar bank. Mr D’Eye had his life’s work taken away from him. He had a development company in south London with a value of £140 million, as well as a thriving youth hostel business that employed more than 100 people. He was robbed of them by banks working like pirates. It is simply appalling that they have been allowed to get away with it.

I will not repeat the D’Eye family’s experience, which is already on the record, but it is instrumental in guiding the way I look at this issue. How can it be that our entrepreneurs are so badly served by some banks? There should be a healthy, supportive relationship between them, but sometimes that loyalty goes only one way. Some banks—not all of them—extort their SME customers in an incredibly predatory way. Some clearly have no humanity, no understanding and no common decency.

In the end, SMEs sometimes must take legal action against banks. Of course, they cannot match the legal armies banks put into the field against them. They simply do not have the resources, particularly as those very same banks have so often raided their accounts and taken moneys without their leave. We have a good—perhaps a great—justice system, but far too often SMEs simply do not have the money to access it.

I have read, and completely support and endorse the report by the co-chair of the all-party group on fair business banking, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake). As suggested in the Hollinrake report—I do not think I am breaking the rules by calling it that—it is right and proper to extend to SMEs the right to take action under section 138D of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.

As many people present realise, the only way for an SME to get independent resolution of a financial dispute is to complain to the Financial Ombudsman Service or seek legal redress. However, the Financial Ombudsman Service’s powers for SMEs are small and, as I have explained, taking a legal route can be extremely costly. In truth, the Financial Ombudsman Service is not set up to deal with SMEs. The system needs to be revisited and adapted so that it can deal with them.

There is also a gap right now between the Financial Ombudsman Service and the courts that needs to be sorted out. One way to do that, as the hon. Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield) mentioned, would be to establish a new financial services tribunal specifically to help protect and guide SMEs. That is also recommended in the Hollinrake report. I totally support that idea, as I think everyone in the Chamber does.

[Martin Whitfield]

Just to confirm, there is discussion about extending the authority and powers of the Financial Ombudsman Service, but even then 30,000 SMEs would still fall outside of it. A tribunal would even out the battleground between them and the banks.

[Bob Stewart]

How long would it take to sort out 30,000 SMEs?

We are all clear about the importance of a thriving SME sector, run by entrepreneurs with leadership, drive and determination. Almost everyone who has spoken has mentioned it, and we all agree. It is up to us, as legislators, to ensure that such people—the lifeblood of the prosperity of our nation—are fully supported by a banking infrastructure designed to help them, not screw them. In far too many instances that does not happen, and it is utterly disgraceful. It must be sorted out. Please, God, can Parliament sort it out?

I have the utmost respect and regard for the Minister, who is an incredibly good friend. I hope he can get his officials cracking to sort out this matter with immediate effect, because it is a bloody national disgrace.

--- Later in debate ---

[Drew Hendry]

The hon. Gentleman has highlighted that fact, and I think we all agree with him.

The other comments made by the hon. Gentleman are worthy of highlighting. He talked about the banks being too big to fail, sue or regulate; well, isn’t that the case? We have seen that over recent years. He talked about how reports can suddenly change from saying that there are widespread problems to there being only isolated examples. How come? He also talked about the FCA allowing banks to undertake internal inquiries and compensation schemes, which, again, seems completely incompatible with its role. The hon. Gentleman also said that regulators should be fearless defenders, not complicit in allowing these practices to happen. I thank him for his comments.

[Martin Whitfield]

I take the opportunity to pay tribute to my immediate predecessor, who worked with the APPG on the forerunner to this report. I am sure that this is the case, but does the Scottish National party agree on the need for a financial transactions tribunal along the lines of employment tribunals, which carry so much public confidence?

[Drew Hendry]

There is a need to tackle that. I will come on to exactly what my party proposes, which I think the hon. Gentleman will find favour with.

I do not want to lose the words of the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton, who said—this is not a direct quote; I hope he will forgive me—that Ministers do not require the good will of the banks to hold them to account. That is important. Finally, he talked about the major banks being so large and complex that it seems impossible to rein them in. He mentioned a solution being a financial services tribunal, so that plaintiffs do not face a cost, win or lose. We have to consider that.

I understand that there is a bit of time left, so if it finds favour with hon. Members I will make a few more comments. I wanted to talk about all these issues, but I will start with the impact of some of the decisions made by the banks on local communities. People in rural areas have been hit by the closure of their banking services. My constituency alone has seen branches close in Inverness, Nairn, Aviemore and Grantown-on-Spey.

I was sent an appeal by the Badenoch and Strathspey Disability Access Panel. Its members felt so strongly that they got together to send their concerns. They wanted to communicate their concerns to Members about the adverse impact of bank closures on rural communities generally, and on the disabled members of those communities. They said:

“Recently the Royal Bank has closed its branches in Aviemore and Grantown, and the Bank of Scotland has closed its branch in Kingussie.”

For those unfamiliar with the geography of my constituency, those are quite disparate communities. Closing the branch in Grantown means that somebody wanting to access RBS services now has a round trip of more than an hour—in good weather—to Inverness to do so. They also say:

“Like the community in general, disabled people are very dissatisfied by the use of Mobile Banks, which offer only limited facilities for a few hours in the week. This causes problems of privacy, queuing (whatever the weather) and security, e.g. sums of money can build up between the visits of the bank and people are rightly worried about the safe keeping of them.”

They are worried about being seen in open queues as they go to mobile banks with piles of cash on them. Cash businesses often have to operate in rural economies. They also say:

“Disabled people have particular worries. The banks claim that Internet banking is a viable alternative, but many disabled people have no access to the internet. Furthermore, they find the option of having to undertake a return journey of between 20 and 30 miles (or more) to visit a proper bank distressing, because it either means depending on someone for transport or trying to use public transport, which is far from frequent in a rural community and which can be challenging to access for a person with a disability.

Finally, the banks have failed in their duty of keeping customers informed. How accessible are the sites chosen for the vans, how accessible is entry into the van, what facilities for the disabled are available in the van, e.g. for deaf or visually impaired people, and how well trained are the staff in dealing with the needs of disabled people? It may be that the banks have made adequate provision, but there has been no attempt to communicate this to disabled customers, who may be deterred from making use of the mobile bank. Incidentally, there has been an occasion when the mobile bank did not appear because of mechanical failure, but there was no system in place for the public to know what was happening.”

They were waiting in the cold for something that would turn up, without communication.

The disability access panel said of one customer that she uses a stick and walking from her house to the bank is a “big undertaking”. No seats are provided for people who are waiting,

“so she had to stand outside, which was difficult. The steps were very high—they did help her up the stairs but she doesn’t think she could do this every week. She asked for bank statements and was told they couldn’t do it…she would have to go to Inverness.”

They could only offer her the balance, just like at an ATM. The panel continues:

“She gave them feedback but they only noted it down on a bit of paper, she didn’t feel they took her complaint seriously.”

All I have had from RBS in response is that it has forwarded some information about the current situation. It is looking for a coach builder; it has not found one yet, but in the short term it is using a system called MyHailo, so customers will have a fob that they can press to get a member of staff from the van to come out. That answers very few of the criticisms that were made.

It is a disgrace that, despite being a 70% shareholder in the bank, the Government have failed to use their influence to represent Scottish communities and reverse devastating branch closures. The public bailed out the Royal Bank of Scotland; it cannot repay communities by simply abandoning them. It is a dereliction of duty that the UK Government did not make stronger representations to RBS about the impact that the closures will have on communities across Scotland and the other nations of the UK as they roll out. RBS branch closures have a devastating impact on Scottish communities, particularly, as I have said, in isolated rural areas. RBS has underestimated how much people rely on traditional in-branch banking services.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Glen]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. The Payment Systems Regulator is doing a live piece of work to look at scamming and will report in September. It looks very much at culpability in such cases and I hope it will come up with a clear resolution that will give the public a better understanding.

If I may, given the luxury of additional time, Mr Hanson, I am going to try and reply to the points raised and then I will come on to substantive points. Insolvency practitioners are regulated by one of five recognised professional bodies. Legislation in 2015 introduced binding statutory objectives on these bodies, and the Insolvency Service has more sanctions available to it to deter and deal with poor conduct or performance. The insolvency code of ethics, raised through the Joint Insolvency Committee, is also expected to be revised and updated later this year, but I will be happy to enter into dialogue with the hon. Member for East Lothian about the specific issues and concerns that he has.

[Martin Whitfield]

On that point, does the Minister accept that there is an inherent conflict of interest in the situation whereby we have a bank, what I will call a limited company, and individual shareholders? We have the bank instructing the professionals who then deal with the company, and that less than virtuous circle leads to an almost inherent conflict of interest for professional groups: the lawyers, the accountants and the insolvency practitioners.

[John Glen]

I am happy to look carefully at the issues and the respective responsibilities and interaction between them that the hon. Gentleman raises. I fully accept the sensible point he makes.

I want to return to the case raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling. Several specific cases were raised and my hon. Friend spoke passionately about his constituent’s case, which is illustrative of many of the experiences that sadly occur. Following my meeting, I received a letter from Ross McEwan in May that said that his complaints handling team would be happy to discuss constituency cases with Members. I encourage all Members to do so. I want to put this on the record. I particularly encourage my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling to raise his constituency case with the team. I am keen to understand what sort of response he gets and how satisfactory the process is.

As to the comments of the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) about the sale of RBS shares, I am not one to enter into unnecessary partisanship in such discussions, because the issues are important, and I generally welcome the tone of the debate, but he must acknowledge that when the shares were purchased by the Government for £5.02 in 2008 it was not a rational economic choice. It was necessary for the Brown Government to secure the banking system. Therefore, to point out the difference in price, after the Government had taken advice from those who are stewards of the Government’s interest, based on value for money, is not really rational. Most consumers would not have purchased shares at the time in question; it was for the good of the nation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Martin Whitfield]

I thank the Backbench Business Committee again for facilitating this debate. To pick up on the point about the anger that is felt across both sides of the House, the relatively small number of speakers in the debate in no way reflects the deep, passionate anger, annoyance and empathy that MPs feel for their constituents who have been victims. It is incredibly telling, and it is with huge respect, that we welcome so many people to the Public Gallery to witness this debate, which reflects one small part of this whole United Kingdom.

I thank the Minister for his thoughtful comments, and I extend an invitation to visit East Lothian and meet people who can give a different side, perhaps, of what suffering under the banks is like. The timetable that takes us to the autumn has been reiterated, and we will be back at that stage. The APPG’s excellent report proposes a tribunal, and puts on the table an option of facilitating primary legislation that could achieve that in the near future. That would be a significant step towards showing the public that we in this place understand their pain and have a proposal to put it right.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered failures in the banking sector.

Treasury Spending: Grants to Devolved Institutions

Martin Whitfield Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Douglas Ross]

Absolutely. The Chancellor said at the Dispatch Box during that Budget debate that his ear had been bent by the Scottish Conservatives. It was not bent by the SNP—not surprising, because they do not seem to turn up to debates about the economy in Scotland. It was the work of the Scottish Conservative MPs, working alongside our Ministers within Government, that achieved that for Scotland. The resource budget in Scotland has gone up by almost £100 million in the last year. Those real-term changes are positively impacting on people in Scotland and all we get from the SNP are more and more complaints.

I know that time is short, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I was interested that in the 20 minutes that the hon. Member for Aberdeen North spent introducing the debate, there was no mention of the recent reshuffle. This is important when we talk about the money that goes to Scotland to spend on the devolved Administration. She did not mention that in a decade of the SNP being in power in Scotland, the number of Ministers has gone from 16 to 26. The cost of Ministers in Scotland has gone up by £400 million. That does not include the extra funding that will go to their private offices or on their car hire. I notice that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) has just come in. Clearly, a message has gone out—“We must get more people on our Benches.” They have now gone up to three, and it will be interesting to see his contribution to the debate.

[Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)]

Is it not also the case that as the ministerial burden has increased with the SNP Government, there has been a 10% cut to our councils in Scotland over the last eight years, which has caused huge problems to individuals and our constituents?

[Douglas Ross]

Absolutely, and I want to finish on that point because it is important. My Moray Council has suffered one of the biggest funding reductions of all councils anywhere in Scotland. When the SNP in Scotland gets more money from Westminster, it spends less on our health service. It spends less on our local councils and it spends more on giving 42% of all SNP MSPs a job in Government. If that is what we get after 11 years in power from the SNP, the next election cannot come quickly enough.

Banking Misconduct and the FCA

Martin Whitfield Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House welcomes the public disclosure of the Section 166 report into the conduct of RBS Global Restructuring Group (GRG); is concerned about the fundamental difference of tone and emphasis between the summary produced by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the full report; believes this calls into question the strength and independence of the regulator; notes that the concerns raised in the debate on 18 January with regard to the financial services sector, which is not limited to RBS and its advisors, not only persist, but are amplified by the conclusions in the report; calls on HM Treasury to instruct the FCA to move on to phase 2 of the investigation into the root causes of the conduct of RBS GRG by a body independent to the FCA; and once again calls for an independent inquiry into the financial services sector and the associated industries that have allowed misconduct to thrive, and the establishment of an independent mechanism for redress for businesses.

I would like to start by paying tribute to the Backbench Business Committee for enabling this debate to take place and to the enthusiastic work of the all-party parliamentary group on fair business banking and finance, of which I am vice-chair and which is led by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake). I would also like to take the opportunity to thank the hon. Members for Stirling (Stephen Kerr), for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine), for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) and for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Jack), who supported my application for this debate. I also thank those who have travelled down today to listen to the debate live from the Public Gallery.

This debate follows on from the one led by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) in January. It demonstrates what an important issue this is for not only our individual constituents but the whole economy. For many, the foundation of the problem is illustrated by bank closures. Indeed, in my constituency, bank closures and the disappointing remission of free-to-use ATM machines are breaking down trust in the banking industry. Ensuring that consumers have access to finance is fundamental to the ethos of community banking.

Today’s debate rightly shifts attention to financial misconduct and considers the section 166 report, but it also stands as a timely reminder to the entire banking sector that the consumer must always be at the centre of its operations. Access to finance is so important to local businesses in East Lothian and across the UK. Whether wronged by commercial lending policies not fit for purpose or hit disproportionality by bank closures, businesses are being badly let down by the industry.

Regarding financial misconduct, a lot has happened since January, and we are not simply here to cover an old story.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Does he agree that it is not just businesses that suffer? It is also families and people’s mental health. Nigel and Julie Morgan, who are here with us today listening to the debate, have been adversely affected by this issue for years. It is that which we have to bear in mind.

[Martin Whitfield]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s intervention. It is right to say that, behind every one of these statistics, there are individuals, families, businesses and employees—who have their own families—who have suffered as a result of all this. I will come on to that in a moment.

The release of the section 166 report into Royal Bank of Scotland’s Global Restructuring Group not only underlined the toxic culture that existed in the GRG but, critically, identified the systemic failures that allowed such conduct to thrive.

Today I intend to focus on three key points. The first is dispute resolution, which has been covered extensively, and the all-party parliamentary group will deliver a report on it in the near future. Secondly, I would like to look at the associated industries involved in this scandal. Thirdly, there is the need for a full public inquiry into the treatment of businesses by financial institutions.

As the debate progresses, I would ask hon. Members to keep at the forefront of their minds the very simple notion of the balance of power and, indeed, the abuse of power, because that is ultimately what we are addressing here, not just with RBS but across the entire ecosystem of commercial lending. We have only to look at the HBOS Reading fraud to understand how corrupt the system can be and how that can thrive if it goes unchecked year after year.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on opening this important debate. Does he agree that one issue is the continuing refusal of many in the banking sector to accept their responsibility and their determined deflection of blame back to their customers?

[Martin Whitfield]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. There is genuine anger about banking businesses not taking responsibility for their actions and not looking to rectify the damage that was done in the past. That is what is fundamentally undermining the confidence that people and businesses have in the banking sector.

[Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman will obviously concentrate most of the time on activities inside banks themselves. Will he also touch on one of the issues raised by my constituents, who, like many others, have been affected by this—the activities of insolvency practitioners? There seem to be deep problems there as well.

[Martin Whitfield]

I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s intervention. I am just moving on to talk about the fact that although there are very legitimate objectives at the turnaround units that many banks have operated, they are so easily manipulated to carry out systematic asset stripping of small and medium- sized enterprises. Indeed, it is the surveyors, insolvency practitioners, turnaround consultants, Law of Property Act receivers, lawyers and accountants that support financial institutions and enable and facilitate the systematic abuse that was so clearly laid bare in the section 166 report who must also be held to account for these failings.

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the section 166 report. I understand that the second phase has now been brought in-house into the Financial Conduct Authority. Promontory has ended its role. There is a concern on the part of many people that there will be a lack of transparency. There is a concern about a further possible cover-up of really serious wrongdoing.

[Martin Whitfield]

Again, I am really grateful for that insightful interjection. There clearly is a concern about transparency. Beyond the single events—tragic as many of these are—the overall story and picture that people are taking away about our banking industry is its being heavily influenced by hidden-door decisions, by delayed reports and by people, frankly, trying to protect themselves rather than shining a light on what has been happening to try to make the system better for the future.

Here we are again, talking about past misconduct. However, this is the catch, and it was mentioned early on: for business owners across the country who have lost their livelihoods, their homes, their marriages and, quite often, their health, this is not an issue of past misconduct; it greets them every single day when they wake up and haunts them at night when they go to sleep.

The impact of this scandal has been so profoundly damaging that people have taken the appalling decision to end their lives because they cannot face things any more. It is the responsibility of this House and of the financial services—it is genuinely the responsibility of everyone—to ensure that there are answers to these questions so that, hopefully, and at last, some people and some families can find some peace.

[Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman rightly draws attention to the appalling stress that has been placed on individuals. That has happened in my constituency due to RBS and the Britannia building society acting entirely unfairly towards my constituents. Apart from the behaviour of the banks, is there not an issue about the ability of such individuals to obtain redress, and the failure of our institutions—such as the FCA and the ombudsman—to be able to offer satisfactory relief to individuals so badly affected?

[Martin Whitfield]

Again, that is an excellent intervention. It is almost as if planned, because I am about to turn to the question of dispute resolution.

The FCA’s recent consultation into extending the Financial Ombudsman Service clearly sets out the complex landscape of commercial disputes, but it also identifies what it can and cannot do as a regulator to bridge this gap. The all-party group is very clear that it cannot possibly support the proposed extension of the Financial Ombudsman Service as a stand-alone solution to problems that have beset the business community for so long. Even with extended powers, it will not be sufficient to cover complex cases or those that sit outside the regulatory perimeters. The FCA’s consultation makes it very clear that it has limited powers and that a complete solution must include action by the Government and this Parliament. It is not an either/or; we need both.

[David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

This is not a partisan point, but one about the current and previous Governments: schemes executed by the Government, such as the enterprise finance guarantee scheme, have been misused by RBS, but RBS has been retained under some element of public ownership, if not control, so will my hon. Friend call on the Government to look at the schemes they have operated and at their performance in helping to support colleagues and constituents such as mine?

[Martin Whitfield]

Again, I am grateful for that intervention. Clearly, at the end of the day, this goes to the question of a public examination of what has happened and where things have gone wrong. RBS is obviously still held by the public through the shares we bought when we bailed it out, but even without that, there is still a responsibility to make sure that the banking and financial sectors apply rules and laws equitably, fairly and transparently, and do not seek to put down small and medium-sized businesses to their own benefit.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

I endorse what the hon. Gentleman is saying because there is a real issue about redress. The lives of my constituents Mr and Mrs Neave have been ruined by this UK banking episode. I have seen their reams of correspondence with the FCA and the ombudsman, yet all these organisations ever seem to say is that there is no case to answer. People then turn to their MPs, but there is nothing we can do. Is not the time ripe for the UK Government to ensure redress, perhaps by way of a tribunal process or something like that?

[Martin Whitfield]

Absolutely. On dispute resolution, the introduction of a tribunal would be an important and essential step forward, giving access to people and businesses that at the moment struggle to gain access to the courts.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

My constituent Mr Kashourides, who has no confidence in the FCA or the ombudsman, has himself brought legal action against RBS, but he has been asked by a judge to pay £150,000 as a surety for costs, because the lawyers that RBS employs are very expensive. Does my hon. Friend agree that a tribunal would be the best way forward?

[Martin Whitfield]

Absolutely. The cost of bringing a case to get rectification is so important.

The FCA has repeatedly said that it does not have the powers to deal with commercial lending and that it is up to Parliament to decide if it wants those powers to be extended. However, in various statements, the Treasury has repeatedly stated that this is a matter for the FCA and that if the FCA feels it needs more powers, it should ask for them. All that is happening is that this hot potato is being kicked between two different areas, and we are not getting answers that, in reality, are satisfactory to anyone. I would appreciate clarification from the FCA on the parameters of what it needs in order for it to ask for more powers. At the moment, we are seeing the widespread and systematic destruction of British businesses, which in my mind certainly seems to qualify as a reason to request additional powers.

The lack of mechanisms for redress and of action in general has severely undermined public confidence in the integrity of our system, and it is time that we tackled this head-on. We are therefore calling today for a full public inquiry into the ecosystem of commercial lending, and particularly into the treatment of businesses in financial distress. This cross-departmental issue covers both the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Treasury, so it is too wide-reaching to come under the remit of just one Select Committee in Parliament.

I will briefly turn to the role of professional advisers and the wider issue of commercial funding. I welcome the focus that section 166 has placed on the inherent conflict of interest that exists between financial institutions, surveyors, lawyers and insolvency practitioners. For too long, we have focused solely on financial institutions, but not on the professionals that support them, often in the form of secondments from within the walls of the very financial institutions themselves. Frankly, it beggars belief that this is an accepted industry practice. The mechanisms involved in taking control of businesses and their assets are operated via LPA receivers and insolvency practitioners.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree with me that these professional practitioners are quite often working hand in glove with the banks? Does he also agree that the fees, particularly in insolvency practice, are very high, which, on top of the issue with the banks, can push businesses under?

[Martin Whitfield]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I would draw attention to the very basic case of those owning a business that has constantly paid back its loans on time and maintained contact with the bank, who may suddenly, through a simple slip of a pen in the valuation or revaluation of the business by part of the bank’s organisation, find themselves in breach of their loans—and they lose their business. That is not a question for the shareholders or for the directors; with a movement of a pen, their business becomes the bank’s.

RBS has been at pains to point out that the Promontory report did not find any evidence of deliberate under- valuations, but in any event the report could not in many cases find any evidence about how valuations were conducted, and there is a suggestion that they were simply made up. These valuations could then be used to appoint an insolvency practitioner, subject to huge costs, and a cosy relationship between a surveyor, an insolvency practitioner and a bank suddenly means that another family business has been lost.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

My constituent Kashif Shabir, whom I have spoken about in several debates on this issue, has been the victim of exactly that, with Lloyds bank and Alder King surveyors in Bristol, resulting in the loss of his £10 million business. Does my hon. Friend agree with me that the bosses of both those organisations, Mr Horta-Osório and Mr Martyn Jones, should now proactively take steps to offer—

[Jo Stevens]

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. Does my hon. Friend agree that the banks and the surveyors should proactively take steps now to offer redress to my constituent and to many other constituents of Members on both sides of the House?

[Martin Whitfield]

Absolutely. I agree with that proposal, because the banks and the surveyors have professional responsibilities to their clients and those they serve, and such responsibilities apply equally by omission as by action.

To conclude, from its early inception, banking was engineered to become a focal hub of community engagement. There was a societal bond of trust, which was represented by the strong institutions on our high streets. In recent years, however, this has become synonymous with mistrust and deceit. Consumers right across the country have been let down not just by a few specific banks, but by an industry that has developed and become polluted by a toxic culture of misconduct.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield) for bringing forward this important debate. Like me, he is an officer of the all-party group on fair business banking and finance, which I co-chair. I also speak today on behalf of Jon and Kerry Welsby and others in my constituency who have suffered as a consequence of the apparent bank-induced failure of business services company Mouchel.

As the motion states, the problems in the banking sector are not restricted to RBS—I will offer evidence to the House later that will widen this debate—but I will deal first with RBS. It is clear that the senior management are directly responsible for what happened, but there are also serious questions that the regulator, the FCA, needs to answer, particularly about how it intends to hold these individuals to account through phase 2 of its inquiry and about the reasons for the fundamental difference in tone and substance between the conclusions of the full report and those of its summary. Its summary sets out its key conclusions, and although it identifies isolated examples of poor practice, it lists eight separate areas where RBS was cleared of blame before later highlighting areas in which widespread inappropriate treatment had occurred.

The full report, released eventually by the Treasury Committee some 15 months later, stated:

“Our central conclusions are that there was widespread inappropriate treatment of customers by GRG”,

that

“in a significant proportion of cases...we assessed”

these businesses

“as being potentially viable”

and that

“the treatment appears likely to have caused material financial distress…for the most part”

as

“a direct result...of the priorities GRG pursued.”

[Martin Whitfield]

Is it not indicative of the problems of transparency that the delay between the release of the initial report and the full report was unacceptable and that it was only eventually released because of the efforts of Committees of the House and Members of this Chamber?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Gentleman makes a strong point. We should thank the Treasury Committee and its Chair for their work.

As I said, these issues are not restricted to RBS. Many will also be familiar with the HBOS Reading scandal, where former bankers and their advisers were jailed for a total of 47 years in 2017 for activities that took place over a decade earlier, prior to the takeover by Lloyds in 2008.

I have recently been sent by one of those convicted, Mr Michael Bancroft—this was kindly facilitated by my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi)—hitherto unreleased documents, including the Project Lord Turnbull report, authored by Lloyds senior manager Sally Masterton, which alleges that senior managers within the bank were aware of the fraud prior to the takeover and the £14 billion Lloyds and HBOS rights issues, yet they took clear, deliberate and documented action to conceal it. Let us be clear: if this is true, it could potentially make the rights issues and the takeover fraudulent. Those named as culpable for non-disclosure in the report include chief executive Andy Hornby, chairman Sir Dennis Stevenson, former CEO James Crosby, corporate CEO Peter Cummings, and the auditors and reporting accountants, KPMG. The all-party parliamentary group will have a full copy of the report and Members will be given access to it. Status, seniority and background cannot be a barrier to justice or to holding to account those who are ultimately responsible for the devastation caused to so many lives and to the wider economy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Martin Whitfield]

I thank the Minister for his response, but I also want to thank the 18 Back Benchers on both sides of the House who have spoken with a single voice. We are concerned about our constituents, who have been let down by the banking system. At the moment, we are in a cul-de-sac of regulation and dispute resolution, and this is going nowhere.

I hear what the Minister said about awaiting the report. By my calculation, it will be out in August, by which time other reports will be available. May I book an August slot now, Madam Deputy Speaker, should we need to return? Let us hope we do not need to return to this, but our constituents are not going away and we, acting on their behalf, are not going away either. I look forward to having such a discussion in August, when we may have a more positive response about a public inquiry and an independent tribunal and about the responsibilities of other professionals connected to the banking service.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House welcomes the public disclosure of the Section 166 report into the conduct of RBS Global Restructuring Group (GRG); is concerned about the fundamental difference of tone and emphasis between the summary produced by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the full report; believes this calls into question the strength and independence of the regulator; notes that the concerns raised in the debate on 18 January with regard to the financial services sector, which is not limited to RBS and its advisors, not only persist, but are amplified by the conclusions in the report; calls on HM Treasury to instruct the FCA to move on to phase 2 of the investigation into the root causes of the conduct of RBS GRG by a body independent to the FCA; and once again calls for an independent inquiry into the financial services sector and the associated industries that have allowed misconduct to thrive, and the establishment of an independent mechanism for redress for businesses.

Easter Adjournment

Martin Whitfield Excerpts

Thursday 29th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)]

It is great to speak just before the recess to support my colleague in Holyrood, Daniel Johnson MSP, in his campaign to find proper support for those diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. I am proud to sponsor early-day motion 1112, which refers to an unfortunate documentary distributed by Netflix entitled “Take Your Pills”. Here in the UK, there are too many people who wait too long for diagnosis and the support they do receive is fragmented and ineffective. Those diagnosed with ADHD deserve our respect and support and their contribution to society is enormous and truly valued.

The situation for young people is even more desperate. Across the House, we are aware of the needs of all young people, as is our whole society. The difference is that within this House we can do something to make a difference. ADHD carries a stigma occasioned sometimes by ignorance and, in some cases, by fear. A lifetime with ADHD should be not a lifetime lost but a lifetime saved. ADHD is a neuro-developmental disorder and there is no doubt that with the right combination of understanding and care, the benefits to individuals and society are clear. When it goes wrong, the results can sadly be dramatic.

With the right support, those who live with the condition can achieve anything—they include Olympic athletes, Michelin-starred chefs, entrepreneurs, doctors, artists and even MPs—but most importantly those who are diagnosed, if properly supported, can lead happy fulfilling lives rather than feeling alone and unsupported, and being more at risk of bipolar disorders, anxiety disorders and depression. That brings me to my early-day motion and the Netflix documentary. Those behind the documentary might well have been well intentioned, and the programme could have taken a positive approach to ADHD, but unfortunately it failed to do so. The documentary looked at the medication prescribed to those diagnosed to help manage their condition, but the language it chose to use and the comparison with unregulated and illegal drugs paints a far from real picture of the medication. The documentary makes little attempt to show the effects of the medication when prescribed, compared with when the same medication was abused by those without a diagnosis. Indeed, taking the medication for other reasons would be illegal in the US.

Diagnosis of ADHD should lead to treatment to help relieve the symptoms and make the condition much less of a problem in day-to-day life. ADHD can be treated using medication or therapy, but, as the NHS advises, it is often best done with a combination of both. Medication is not a cure for ADHD, but it may help someone with the condition concentrate better, be less impulsive, feel calmer, and learn and practise new skills. Treatments that include therapy go beyond medication, and indeed the therapy and strategies apply not only to those who suffer from ADHD but to their families and teachers and to the communities around them. I congratulate the Scottish ADHD Coalition on its employers’ guide to ADHD in the workplace.

The documentary is clumsy. Medication for those diagnosed is important and misuse of medication is dangerous. On behalf of people who are diagnosed with ADHD, I would like to say first, among many things, that ADHD is real. It is not cured by drugs. Treatment can help manage the condition. It is not a condition of hyperactive boys. There is a prevalence among boys, but girls can also have ADHD. That is important, because in later life gender bias in relation to ADHD can lead to late diagnosis and poorer support.

Much still needs to be said, but let me finish by expressing my thanks to those who worked on #Bornto beADHD, to the all-party parliamentary group in Parliament and, on a personal note, to Daniel Johnson MSP, who is my friend and who has ADHD.

I want to wish us all a peaceful Easter. At a time when people’s thoughts are about others and the strength of hope, please remember that people with ADHD are not different—they are exceptional.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Maynard]

I agree entirely and thank the hon. Gentleman for that helpful addition to my comments. It is important to place that on the record.

The hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) made an important point about having a Minister for older people. I recall making a speech on that issue as a Back Bencher and being very supportive of it. Now that I am standing here, I am bound by collective responsibility, so she will have to guess what my thoughts are, but I wish her well in that cross-party campaign. She raises a worthwhile issue that covers many cross-departmental issues, and I know that many Ministers will want to think carefully about it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) may be getting bored of people congratulating him on his Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, but even if he is, I will not stop, because he deserves praise and applause for what he has achieved. I well recall the issues around step-free access to his tube stations and the battle with Transport for London over getting the right amount of funding. He will be pleased to know that my successor, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani), overheard it because she is sitting right next to me.

I can reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East that one point I made very clear when negotiating Network Rail’s funding for control period 5 was that we must have a dedicated ring-fenced fund to make sure that Access for All funding continues. I know that my hon. Friend will take up the cudgels and keep fighting to make sure that we have inclusive transport across not just London but the country as a whole. I look forward to seeing the response to the inclusive transport consultation, and I wish him well with what I hope will be his Adjournment debate on the particularly tragic case that he raised.

[Martin Whitfield]

I apologise for interrupting the Minister, but I wanted to take the opportunity to thank him for his comments about ADHD and about my colleague at Holyrood. Will he extend his compliments to the all-party group on ADHD, which does an enormous amount of work in Parliament?

If I may, I will also take the opportunity, very quickly, to say that the previous debate was on autism, and it is strange how many of the sentiments expressed by Members on both sides of the House were similar to those I found myself expressing during my speech. As the Minister has rightly pointed out, there are a range of influences on people’s lives, whether it is being on the spectrum or having a diagnosis, and it is important that all such things are understood by people both in this House and outside it.

[Paul Maynard]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that additional comment. He makes his point well, and does not need me to add to it further.

The hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford spoke with expertise and passion. I mentioned earlier that there are areas on which there is greater agreement in this place than we might realise, and an example of such an area is the importance of early intervention and diversion work to get people off the conveyor belt to crime before they get far along it.

RBS Global Restructuring Group and SMEs

Martin Whitfield Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate, and my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) and the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) for securing it.

This afternoon, we have heard about horrendous and nightmare cases, and I do not intend to add to those, because every Member of the House will have had through their constituency doors businesses and individuals who have suffered at the hands of the banks. We have also heard this afternoon that this is about not just one bank but many banks—it may, indeed, be every bank. To pick up on a comment made by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South, this is about conduct. It is about the deliberate choices the banks have made to facilitate profit for some.

When constituents and businesses come through our doors, they are coming to their MP as a last resort. I ask how many individuals and businesses gave up along the way, when it became just too hard to pursue what really was a battle against a giant. I raise that question because the banks’ conduct is one of the indications our communities and constituents take on board as they judge our banks and our banking system. The conduct we have heard about this afternoon—it has been around too long—is severely damaging the fundamental reputation of our banking system.

I had the honour of leading a Westminster Hall debate on 11 January during which we looked at banks’ responsibility towards communities. Today’s debate, which has explored the conduct of the banks, has shown how society’s trust in our banks is very much at a crossroads. I will be very interested to hear the Minister’s views about how we can start to rebuild that trust in a fundamental part of business. We need the banks, but we must remember, and the banks must remember, that they need our communities as well.

We are looking for answers about transparency and about honesty. I want an answer on banks’ willingness to see imaginative answers to the problems they are confronted with, and I echo the call for a tribunal system. I would also raise the question of fair funding. As the economy becomes more complex, and as our communities and SMEs start to lose confidence in banks, or that confidence is at a crossroads, they are starting to look to other areas for funding. That is another major issue coming this way. I call on the Minister to seriously consider facilitating roundtable discussions on the question of banks’ responsibility to communities, our SMEs and those people who have supported the banks for so long.

Childcare Vouchers

Martin Whitfield Excerpts

Monday 15th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey, and it is a particular pleasure in respect of this debate, which was brought to the Chamber through the Petitions Committee. I thank everyone who signed the petition—267 of my constituents, including Christopher Thomson, Steve Gibson, and Karen and Allen Kelly, who not only signed it but took the opportunity to write to me about how the changes will affect them as individuals and as families.

We have heard a lot about the problems, potential problems and inequity of the system that is coming down the line, so I will not rehearse those arguments, except to say that I support them. A particular inequity is that the lowest earners will be the ones who are hit hardest by the changes.

My constituents have asked me to raise a number of matters, and I am more than pleased to do so. First, I sincerely hope that we all agree that quality childcare is hugely important to this nation. There can be a 14-month difference between some children before they start school, because of their experiences and the income of the families they are growing up in. Both Governments, north and south of the border, have strongly advocated support for additional hours of childcare, which is hugely important to the future of the country. More free childcare is an easy and attractive promise to families who are struggling, but it is wrong to make that promise unless it has behind it the necessary investment. That goes for Governments both north and south of the border, as I say. It is important to this country, to families and, most of all, to children who are growing up that they have good-quality, safe childcare.

The second matter is the affordability and flexibility of the childcare needed today. As the hon. Member for Belfast South (Emma Little Pengelly) highlighted, people’s work patterns are so different from those of two or even one generation ago, and therefore the childcare system needs to be massively flexible to answer the needs of all families across the nation. I also raise the issue of internet blackspots—for the third time, I confess, in this Chamber—and problems that occur with a wholehearted shift to using the internet when the structure people need to use is not only inadequate but, at times, as some of my constituents feel, incapable of remedy. On a cautionary note, I suggest that care should be taken before rushing down the path of having another internet-based platform.

Finally, I will make a point that has been made by a number of my constituents but not yet in this debate. Childcare vouchers allow the opportunity for a discussion to take place between the employer and the employee about the needs of that specific family. As one of my constituents said, without that discussion, they would not have found out how flexible their employer was prepared to be about childcare needs; and as the employer said, they would not have been aware of the individual’s childcare responsibilities. In this day and age, when less and less face-to-face discussion takes place, and more and more problems are raised, we lose that opportunity for discussion at our peril. It is important for employers to understand and appreciate the family position of those who work for them.

In areas where there are skills shortages and employers struggle to recruit, it is important for employers to make the widest choices available. If it is right that a country and an employer should have choices, is it not right that a family has choices about the childcare provision, or funding for such provision, available to them? In 2018, is it too much to ask that that choice be made available and, if at all possible, expanded?

Banks and Communities

Martin Whitfield Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the role of banks and their responsibility to the communities they serve.

As always, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for giving us this time to discuss a profoundly important matter. I also thank all the right hon. and hon. Members across the House who have supported the debate, and I welcome the new Minister to his place.

The debate is, in part, a product of the Royal Bank of Scotland’s disappointing decision towards the end of last year to close 259 branches. Those closures will start to come into effect, and communities in my constituency will be cut adrift from the face-to-face banking that is so essential. The towns of Dunbar and North Berwick are to be hit, which have high streets with diverse mixes of independent and chain businesses. The impact has been succinctly described to me by a constituent, who said:

“Dunbar supports many small businesses, not just on the High Street. How and where will they bank their cash takings? Online banking does not work for cash. Many older people in the town are dependent on the bank local branch, especially those who have no computer, or are wary of internet banking. Dunbar whose population is rapidly expanding, and the nearest RBS branch is 12 miles away.”

All Members here may have in their constituencies banks that are closing, in some cases leaving towns with no banks at all.

[Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. It is important to note that the branch closures that he refers to are only the latest tranche of branch closures; they come on top of a series of branch closures, and that is even more devastating to what they used to call the branch network.

[Martin Whitfield]

Indeed, I will come on to the statistics about the existence of branches in the United Kingdom.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) tells me that when the branches close in his constituency towns, one town will be left with no bank and the other town with just one. That one bank will serve 58,000 people. This debate is more encompassing than just a recent set of closures. It seeks to ask a very pertinent question about the responsibility and the relationship between retail banking and the communities they should be so proud to serve.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. The banking sector has been promoting research into issues that often result from branch closures, such as financial exclusion and isolation. Does he agree that it would be useful for banks to have the results of such studies before they commence local branch closures, such as the closure in Hoyland in my constituency?

--- Later in debate ---

[Martin Whitfield]

I agree; there is a serious question about the data available to the banks when they make decisions about closure. I will come on to that point further into my speech.

[Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)]

As a member of the Backbench Business Committee, I was delighted to support the hon. Gentleman’s important application. In Wales, and in my constituency in particular, we have towns where exactly what he describes has happened: we have towns with no banks. That causes immense problems, but it has been going on for more than 10 or 15 years. Does he think that the closure policy that the banks have to go through—that tick-box process—is strong enough?

[Martin Whitfield]

The question that the hon. Gentleman raises of the tick-box attitude towards the investigations that banks carry out is one of the fundamental problems with regard to all consultation. Is it genuine consultation, or is it an economic decision that has been taken somewhere and then just implemented, almost irrespective of the evidence that they find when the consultation takes place?

I am keen to hear remarks from the Minister about what the Government, who obviously represent the United Kingdom in that interface between banks and the consumer and constituents, are able to do to push back those bank closures and, more importantly, investigate and establish the bank’s view of the relationship between them and the communities that they serve.

Banking as an institution goes back many thousands of years. It began in the temples—other buildings that communities held sacrosanct and safe. Tensions between money and religion have run in parallel throughout the same period. I do not intend to investigate that, but I suggest it shows the close link between the trust that people put in the individual they give their money to, to look after, and religion. Looking forward through history, the banking sector developed with the European banking families, who established a way of transferring money across Europe and then the world. Then, the Bank of England was established in 1694 and, perhaps more importantly, the Bank of Scotland in 1695.

Deposit banking has been a part—a foundation—of our society from the very beginning. That relationship was not built on pure profit, but on trust; initially, trust of individuals who promised to take care of others’ money; promise and trust of families who looked after moneys, and then the institutions. Such trust has developed over time, reinforced by close contact. That trust moved and continued to deepen and develop as banks became the cornerstone of our high streets. What of that bond of trust today? What is the feeling of banks’ most important stakeholders—those community individuals? They still entrust their money, which is then used by the bank to do so many other business activities.

In 1998—20 years ago—there were more than 11,000 branches. Today, the most recent figures indicate that there are just 6,000 local branches. Bank closures have escalated rapidly, with just over 1,000 closures in the last two years.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech. He talked about the shrinking number of banks in general; I am losing a NatWest apiece in Ealing and Acton. When high streets are hollowed out and they become ghost towns, small businesses have nowhere to deposit anymore. The elderly are on the wrong side of the digital divide and are disenfranchised. Who would he say are the winners? Not even the property developers are—in Acton, the HSBC has been empty since 2015. There are no winners in this at all. Does he agree?

[Martin Whitfield]

My hon. Friend raises a very interesting point about who the winners are in this situation. Certainly, we can identify the losers. The losers are the very community that we hold so dear; the losers are the high street—that geographical area where people gathered together and still try to. As my hon. Friend says, we have high streets that have been hollowed out. We need to find a way to stop this hollowing out and fracturing. The banks form a crucial, fundamental part of the foundation of maintaining our high streets, which we need to maintain our community and our society. We have reached a tipping point now—a point of no return—where the Government must step in with practical solutions to stop future closures and to address the fragmenting relationship with banks.

In 2015 we had the access to banking protocol, which spoke highly of financial inclusion and local engagement from big banks, but that fell short of any statutory protections. Members will be aware of the Griggs report the year following, which offered a series of constructive remarks and ideas to improve the settlement. Unfortunately, it addressed areas where the last bank had already left town. It does not, like my party's position, commit to a new legal protection that would enable banks to keep a presence in their local communities, which need them so much. Any new settlement should be constructively built in partnership with the banks and should engage with the shareholders of the banks who often engage with them most the local users.

What are the other answers? The Government have tried, and I suggest failed, over the past three years to try to displace some of the local bank branches with community post offices. The post office is another fundamental cornerstone of our high street and community. As my hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney), a campaigner on this matter, will testify, that alternative provision works only if the post offices are not themselves being ripped from our high streets and from the communities they serve at a similar rate. Post offices rightly have a valued position on our high streets, but we cannot place the burden and responsibility of banking on a workforce who are already stretched.

The decision to merge retail banking into our post offices is not workable in the present form, and nor is it a popular alternative. Figures from Which? show that although the British public think most post offices are doing a great job, many do not even know of the alternative banking options available there. I also tentatively welcome services such as the mobile branch service operated and offered by RBS and the idea of shared buildings. My constituents do not believe that such solutions go far enough to ensure a trustworthy banking presence in East Lothian. They may fit an economic model, but they do so at the risk of continuing to fracture the trust. The single solution of a banking van might work in one place, but will not work in another. To apply it as an idea across the country is foolish and short-sighted.

The trust that people have is also influenced by the quality of protection that communities witness. Local bank staff, placed at the heart of communities, have a responsibility to be the last check and balance in terms of consumer protection. Speaking with campaign groups, including Which?, this week, I was heartened to hear of cases where people had gone into their local branch to withdraw large sums of money and the bank teller has said, “This is unusual for you. What is this about?” With that simple question they have prevented a retired couple from losing substantial sums of their life savings. That solid local relationship with trained members of staff in the local bank can go a long way to protect current accounts from bank fraud, and staff can also advise on and discuss people’s challenging financial problems.

When it comes to the assessment of community safety, I raise the question of the bank’s responsibility when a sophisticated thief dupes an individual out of money. Is it right that the bank can absolve itself of all responsibility simply because the crime was so complex and maliciously delivered that the victim genuinely believed they were dealing with their own bank branch? Such a crime might be a lot harder if the perpetrator first had to build a branch on a high street to defraud retired couples of their money.

The advent of online banking has been transformative, and it will continue. There is no argument or objection to that, but I am concerned that focus has shifted solely to it as the answer to the banking problems. It would be completely irresponsible to abandon the 20 million people who still depend on face-to-face bank services. Online banking, which will continue to grow, must be accessible. It is certainly not the fault of the big banks that Governments have failed to implement a broadband service fit for the 21st century. Nor is it the fault of the banking industry that nearly 2 million people across the UK experience internet speeds of less than 10 megabits per second, meaning that online banking will not work. But banks should be made to consider broadband blackspots and digital inclusion when they plan closures, as well as the impact of shifting consumer services from face-to-face banking to online services.

Four in 10 Scottish consumers experience service issues with their broadband. How does the banking industry expect a transition to take place? In 2015, 80% of my rural constituents were dissatisfied with their internet speeds, and yet banks in Tranent, Prestonpans and Gullane in my constituency have closed in the past three years. I am interested in the thoughts of my Scottish colleagues and others here on this matter. Should big banks be made to consider broadband speeds in any meaningful consultation on bank closures?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

It would have been nice to have had a consultation before we heard that the bank was closing. The buccaneer spirit of the Royal Bank of Scotland is exemplified by the fact that it did not bother having a consultation.

[Martin Whitfield]

I will deal with the question of consultation in a few moments. I want to establish a basis for that with regard to the availability of physical money.

[Stephen Kerr]

The hon. Gentleman made a strong point, made much stronger by the fact that we are talking about the Royal Bank of Scotland, more than 70% of which is owned by the British taxpayer, who bailed it out in the first place.

[Martin Whitfield]

Hear, hear.

Physical money is the most symbolic representation of trust, but there is strong evidence that banks want to move as quickly as possible away from the physical movement of cash on to online and electronic transfer. Any transition from face-to-face banking to online services must take place at a similar rate to a drive to remove cash from society. Significant numbers of our constituents rely on cash to facilitate their budgeting, and those who do must not be abandoned in the rush by banks to change.

Last year it was suggested that 10,000 free-to-use cashpoint machines are at risk of closure. Some 2.7 million people in the UK still rely entirely on cash. The free-to-withdraw cashpoints will vanish first from communities where the individuals who rely most on cash for budgeting are based. Additionally, among the small and medium-sized businesses that make up our high streets, the challenge of banking cash is increasing. I have examples of constituents in Prestonpans who now have to travel, sometimes by public transport, with their daily take to the nearest bank where they queue for up to 30 minutes to pay the money in.

Insurance and safety issues prevent them from storing cash on their premises, and the cost of contracting the deposit to security companies is prohibitively high. When the issue was raised with the banks, they said, “The money can be paid in at the post office,” but the post office will not take larger sums of money because it does not want to have the problem of transporting the cash either. In the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), where tourism is a major industry, she has a business that banks more than £2 million a year but, following a bank closure, it has the responsibility for taking the cash elsewhere.

The closure of cash machines and the continued closure of high street branches are alienating business owners and older customers, fracturing still further their trust.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way in his compelling and comprehensive speech on a critical issue for society. Does he also recognise that the programme of closures seems to target disproportionately the poorest communities in our society? In my constituency, where unemployment is twice the national average, we have seen RBS closures in Possilpark, one of the poorest communities in Glasgow, and in Dennistoun, as well as the Clydesdale Bank in Springburn. But in one of the wealthiest parts of the city—for example, Byres Road—those banks are fully represented on the high street. What is going on there? Is that not a problem?

[Martin Whitfield]

Absolutely. I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. There is a serious question to be asked about which communities the banks are changing their model of banking for. Is it for the most vulnerable? Is it those who are stuck on the wrong side of the digital divide? Certainly the evidence shows that bank closures have hit hardest in communities that have below average incomes.

Banks are and should be a trustworthy pillar of any community. They should stand proudly on our high streets as responsible hubs, along with post offices, GP and dental surgeries and the high street shops that draw constituents into their community. Recent figures from Unite have shown that the proposed closures of 62 branches will lead to 165 job losses. That is devastating for small communities, but we hear that the losses will be offset by the shifting of jobs to head office and call centres. However, the people losing their jobs are of course predominantly women responsible for families, who are unable to make long journeys to different areas. Are they being asked to move out of their communities? The change in banking models affects vulnerable customers most, with 90% of closures taking place in communities where the income is below the national average.

Members will recognise that the model being advocated by the banks is one in which few industries operate. They are founded on so little face-to-face contact, with such limited real-time relationship between consumers and the organisation, that they represent something more like social media network platforms. I wonder whether in fact the banking industry seeks to move to the Twitter and Facebook models. The relationship of trust that once existed between the bank manager and the individual is in serious danger of being lost to an algorithmic financial model.

I hope that my speech will not lead Members to think I am being luddite about digital reform. I embrace it, and what I am saying is as much as anything friendly advice to the banks, but I cannot envisage, with so many still not using online services, that we should continue dogmatically to push through changes to people’s accounts, affecting such large groups of people. Social media platforms had their users come to them; banks seek to migrate their customers onto their digital platforms. The trust that the banks have had and have treasured so much throughout their and their community’s history is at risk.

As I have made clear, the purpose of today’s debate is not just for the people I serve to hear the Government condemn bank closures. They want to hear how the Government can keep banks at the heart of communities and facilitate genuine discussion so that banking institutions can rediscover the value of the close link that they have had throughout their history with the communities that entrust them with their money—which, indeed, the banks used to invest elsewhere. Very recently the banks looked to those communities to save them and the financial engine, and communities stepped up. Communities are now looking to the banks to save the high streets and the bond of trust that is the cornerstone of the relationship. We need a social responsibility clause so that members of the communities to which our banks belong can have an integral and valued role, and trust can once again be established.

[Mike Gapes (in the Chair)]

I am afraid we have limited time for the debate and I strongly advise that speeches should be no longer than four minutes, or we shall not have enough time for the Minister and the Opposition spokespersons. I intend to move to the Front-Bench speeches at about 4 o’clock, so I should be grateful if, as far as possible, interventions could be limited and speeches concise.

--- Later in debate ---

[Martin Whitfield]

I am grateful to the Minister. In the short time we have left, I express my thanks to the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) for being the first co-sponsor for this debate. We have had an interesting debate—

[Mike Gapes (in the Chair)]

Order.

Business of the House

Martin Whitfield Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard]

The hon. Gentleman has raised an important example of how internet development and technologies can change rapidly and create new threats and dangers for which we need to ensure that we are fully prepared. He raises an important point. It sounds like a perfect vehicle for an Adjournment debate or a Westminster Hall debate, which will then make sure that the Minister’s attention is drawn to the matter more fully.

[Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)]

The Minister has already commented on the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, clause 11, and the debates and discussions that are taking place elsewhere in regard to it. However, may we have an urgent statement rectifying the record where assurances were made to Members across this House that the amendments would be tabled next week?

Draft Scotland Act 1998 (Insolvency Functions) Order 2017

Martin Whitfield Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2017 General Committees

[The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Michael Ellis)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Scotland Act 1998 (Insolvency Functions) Order 2017.

The draft order, which was laid before the House on 20 September 2017, is part of a package of measures aimed at updating and modernising corporate insolvency in Scotland, particularly the insolvency rules that apply to the winding up of companies. It follows on from the recent modernisation of company insolvency rules in England and Wales that culminated in the Insolvency (England and Wales) Rules 2016.

To briefly give some background, I should explain that the law on corporate insolvency in Scotland and the division of legislative responsibilities between the Scottish and UK Parliaments and Governments is complex, particularly in relation to winding up. For business associations, for example, the general legal effect of winding up is reserved, but the process of winding up is excepted from the reservation. In practice, it is not always clear whether a winding-up matter relates to a reserved aspect or a devolved aspect.

In an effort to facilitate the efficient, effective and user-friendly modernisation of Scotland’s insolvency rules, particularly those that relate to companies, both Governments have therefore agreed that it would be of benefit to lawmakers and practitioners alike if the complicated exercise of assessing which rules relate to a reserved matter, and which do not, could be avoided. Accordingly, both Governments have agreed to the preparation of a combined order under sections 63 and 108 of the Scotland Act 1998. Section 63 enables an order to

“provide for any functions…exercisable by a Minister of the Crown in or as regards Scotland, to be exercisable…by the Scottish Ministers concurrently with the Minister of the Crown”.

Conversely, section 108 enables an order to

“provide for any functions exercisable by a member of the Scottish Government to be exercisable…by a Minister of the Crown concurrently with the member of the Scottish Government.”

The draft order will allow for the mutual conferring of functions on Scottish Ministers and a Minister of the Crown so that both have the power to introduce, as appropriate, rules or regulations on winding up for companies, incorporated friendly societies and limited liability partnerships in Scotland, irrespective of whether those rules or regulations relate to reserved matters under schedule 5 to the 1998 Act.

Under the draft order, a Minister of the Crown and the Scottish Government Ministers must reach agreement before either can make rules or regulations on the winding up of companies, incorporated friendly societies and limited liability partnerships under the functions that it confers. That approach will enable each Administration to make provision on winding-up matters without any doubt being cast on the scope of the relevant enabling powers. Users of winding-up legislation will also benefit, because the draft order furthers our aim that the rules on the winding up of companies in Scotland be contained in a single instrument rather than split between two. The immediate intention is that the Scottish Government, with the consent of the UK Government, will introduce an instrument to make provision for both the reserved and devolved aspects of winding up, as part of the current project to replace the Insolvency (Scotland) Rules 1986 with updated and modernised rules.

I hope the Committee agrees that this is a sensible approach that will enable the modernisation of corporate insolvency in Scotland to move forward in an effective manner. I believe it provides an excellent example of our two Governments working together to make the Scottish devolution settlement work for people and industry in Scotland.

[Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for his excellent explanation of the draft order. Has a procedure been envisaged to deal with disagreement between Ministers in Westminster and in Holyrood?

[Michael Ellis]

All these matters are carefully considered. It is anticipated that whatever happens, the process enabled by the draft order will be preferable to the current situation, which is clearly rather confused.

I commend the draft order to the Committee.