Financial Services Bill

Debate between Nicholas Brown and Kelvin Hopkins

Monday 6th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Kelvin Hopkins]

Everything that my right hon. Friend is saying suggests that we are re-empowering Parliament when it comes to how our economy is run, which is the opposite direction from the one in which we have been moving in recent years. Is that not welcome, and does it not strengthen our democracy?

[Mr Brown]

We need to go further. How Parliament interacts with the Governor in his new role as regulator has not been properly addressed in the Bill, but we need to think about that carefully. Although finding fault with every other structural problem with financial services, the Government propose no change to the arrangements for the accountability of the regulator to Parliament. Accountability, therefore, is through Ministers, primarily Treasury Ministers, or through the work of Select Committees, primarily the Treasury Committee, which is one of the hardest-working Select Committees in the House of Commons. We should consider whether that is adequate. As the new arrangements come into effect and settle down, alongside the recommendations from the Independent Commission on Banking, surely there is a need for an authoritative forum in which emerging issues can be examined, ideas explored and recommendations made. Public discussion and transparency are important safeguards.

The other place, too, has a legitimate role in these arrangements. Acting as a check and balance on elected representatives, and public life more generally, is what the other place, as currently constituted, does well. In any event, we should consider very carefully whether we are satisfied with the present arrangements alone. Perhaps this is a suitable subject for a separate debate.

Private sector financial services in the United Kingdom are underpinned by the public sector in a number of important ways. The most significant are the £85,000 deposit compensation limit guarantee; even more importantly, the Bank of England’s role as lender of last resort; and the need to intervene when private sector misjudgments threaten a collapse of the banking system. We, as the people’s representatives, should take an interest in this democratic deficit.

There is a third point to consider. Each of us is elected to represent our fellow citizens. There is nothing more frustrating and upsetting for a constituency MP than to know that individual constituents are faced with an injustice and that there is no effective remedy. Such situations occur far too frequently in the financial services sector. One thinks of the present Arch Cru scandal as the latest of a depressingly large number of similar scams.

I welcome the fact that the Bill gives the FCA powers to intervene in the case of individual products and their promotion. The Bill allows consumer bodies to make super-complaints to the FCA and facilitates a reform of consumer credit with a view to better protecting consumers. That is welcome too. It is important to ensure, however, that the FCA’s strategic objective is clearly stated. I was taken by the suggestion from Which? of

“ensuring a fair and transparent market in financial services”,

which is reflected in the Joint Committee’s recommendation that the FCA’s strategic objective

“should be amended to focus on promoting fair, transparent and efficient financial services markets that work well for users.”

That is more specific than the Bill, as drafted, which refers to

“ensuring that the relevant markets function well.”

The phrase is too general—how else would one want markets to function? There are still concerns that section 348 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 is too restrictive and discourages the publication of information. I hope that the Minister will have something to say about that, because I know that the Government propose to address the matter in Committee.

We are expecting a lot of the new structure and are placing yet more responsibility on the shoulders of the Governor of the Bank of England. The new role has been described as similar to that of a sun-king presiding over an empire. There is clearly a democratic deficit in the new structure that ought to be addressed—