Compensation (London Capital & Finance plc and Fraud Compensation Fund) Bill (Second sitting) Debate
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Peter Grant
Main Page: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)Department Debates - View all Peter Grant's debates with the HM Treasury
Compensation (London Capital & Finance plc and Fraud Compensation Fund) Bill (Second sitting)
Peter Grant ExcerptsTuesday 15th June 2021
(3 years, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Compensation (London Capital & Finance plc and Fraud Compensation Fund) Act 2021 View all Compensation (London Capital & Finance plc and Fraud Compensation Fund) Act 2021 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 15 June 2021 - (15 Jun 2021)
Mr McFadden
My hon. Friend raises a very important point. There are many reasons why clarity about the limitations of Government responsibility and taxpayer responsibility, to put it another way, would be extremely helpful. The very fact of producing the Bill will mean that the Government have asked those questions anyway. As I said earlier, the cost in this case is expected to be about £120 million. The costs of clause 2, which we will come to later, are expected to be over £300 million. Over both clauses the cost will therefore be more than £400 million. That is a large sum of public money that will, in the case of clause 2, be recouped over a period of years from pension scheme members.
Of course, it is possible to have investment failings on an even greater scale. Is there any upper limit that the Treasury would see to such taxpayer exposure, or is it always to be on a case-by-case basis? In theory, investment failings could cost billions rather than hundreds of millions. Our amendment seeks to clarify the Government’s thinking on that, which would be beneficial to Parliament and the public.
Those are the reasons why we have tabled this amendment. We think that the compensation scheme and the whole story of the collapse of LCF demands such clarity and that reports such as the one we have called for would be beneficial.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Ghani.
I shall speak to amendment 7, in my name, and in support of the official Opposition’s amendment 1.
Both amendments call for the Secretary of State to report back to Parliament on issues that collectively raise many still unanswered questions about the Bill, about the compensation scheme, and about why the scandal of London Capital & Finance was allowed to happen.
By far the biggest criticism of the Bill, which we again heard from witnesses today, is that it has been deliberately framed so narrowly that those questions are in danger of being ignored. I know that the Government will argue that framing it narrowly increases its chances of getting on to the statute book—I accept that argument—but there is a downside to doing that.
The biggest question that is still unanswered is: why do we expect compensation for the victims of one investment mis-selling scandal when so many people have lost so much—possibly a total of more than £1 billion —in other company collapses that share most, and sometimes all, of the key features of London Capital & Finance?
I should make it clear that I am not asking for the setting up of other schemes. We are not asking for approval at this stage, or for other failures to be included in the LCF scheme. All we are asking for is some clear indication that the Government are taking action to look at the wider issues.
The Government’s answer is that London Capital & Finance was regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and that companies such as Blackmore Bond were not. That smacks of looking for an explanation to justify a decision that has been taken for a completely different reason.
Companies such as Blackmore Bond set out to make prospective investors believe that the FCA had a role in protecting their money. Investors in LCF were misled into believing that its own registration with the FCA would cover their investments. The only difference with other company failures is that investors in those companies were misled into believing that someone else’s registration would cover them—a fine point lost on investors themselves.
The Government’s explanation appear to assume that the only problem, or even the biggest problem, with London Capital & Finance was that it was a regulated company selling unregulated investments. That was certainly part of the problem, but, as the written submissions from a number of investors and as evidence this morning made clear, there were other failings and possibly deliberate malpractice within the company and some of its advisers. Other failings of regulation went well beyond those laid at the feet of the Financial Conduct Authority in relation purely to LCF. If the Government constantly remind us that the sale of mini-bonds was not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, surely the elephant in the room is: why on earth not?
The Government will, I know, refer to the principle of caveat emptor. It is correct that anyone making an investment has a responsibility to ensure that the investment meets their needs, but there are hundreds—possibly thousands—of examples in UK regulation where we regulate the market but it is not realistic or fair to expect the emptor to caveat.
We do not expect people to do their own personal survey of a house to make sure it is safe before they buy it. We do not expect people to check the brakes on the bus before buying a ticket. We have regulation to protect public safety, on food standards, on product safety and on a number of financial transactions. It is perfectly possible for the Government to start to look at regulating these investments in future and compensating ordinary men, women and sometimes children who have lost sums that, individually, are not significant to the FCA but are massively significant to their plans for retirement, for paying to support their children at university or for ever.
We must make it clear that we are not asking the Government to approve compensation for every company failure. We are not asking them even to consider the implications of doing that. We are asking them to look specifically at cases where there is clear evidence of the mis-selling of investments, usually to people who the seller knew perfectly well were not suited to that investment. That has been a characteristic of all the cases we have looked at today.
Gareth Thomas
I am particularly drawn to proposed subsection 5(b) of amendment 7. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman shares my view that one measure the Government need to require of the FCA in the future, to prevent further such regulatory failures, is for it to take a more hands-on approach when customers get in contact to raise concerns about particular businesses; and to make it a point of principle that, when a significant number of customers raise concerns about the activities of a firm, the FCA might actually try to meet some of those customers, rather than, as appears to be the case at the moment, only bothering to meet representatives of the board and management of said firm.
Peter Grant
The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. A lot of the issues he raises are covered in Dame Elizabeth Gloster’s report and recommendations. She even pointed out today that possibly the single biggest failing—certainly one of the biggest failings—was that the Financial Conduct Authority had too restrictive a view of its purpose in regulating the market.
I have to say that it is not only the Financial Conduct Authority that has failed to regulate. What was the registrar of companies at Companies House doing when they got a copy of the audited accounts of Blackmore Bond—the only copy that was ever submitted by that entire group—in which it said, in so many words, that in order to pay the guaranteed interest on money it had already received from investors, it had to keep on getting more and more new investors? It was effectively a Ponzi scheme in all but name. The auditors made similar comments on the accounts but did not seem to be under any obligation or duty to do anything else. Nobody at Companies House, or the registrar of companies, appears to have been under any responsibility to look at the documents submitted to spot the danger signs; nobody anywhere seems to have been responsible for that. Although the Financial Conduct Authority has been rightly and severely criticised for its failure to regulate London Capital & Finance, we are talking about a much wider failure of the regulatory regime. Maybe one of the biggest difficulties is that there are so many people who might be involved and they are quite happy to point fingers at one another, saying that they should be responsible.
I realise I am in danger of wandering off the narrow scope of the Bill. We cannot amend the Bill to set up a more comprehensive compensation scheme just now because of the way it is framed; we cannot even amend it to set up a framework so that the Secretary of State, through statutory instrument, could extend it in the future. However, we can ask the Secretary of State to explain to Parliament not only what the Government are doing to help the victims of this one scandal but what lessons they have learned and what they are doing to make sure these scandals cannot be repeated. I hope the words of the witnesses from the Transparency Task Force this morning are ringing in all our ears. They believe they have evidence that there are other scandals like LCF happening right now and that it is just a matter of time before they collapse and leave yet more investors out of pocket.
Finally, why is it that the Government need to be called to account and asked to explain to Parliament why it is that, while they are supporting the victims of LCF, they are doing nothing to help the thousands of other victims of other scandals that have already come home to roost? For those victims, improvement in regulation alone is far too late.
Gareth Thomas
I do not intend to detain the Committee long, because my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East made an excellent speech on this issue; I merely want to underline the point that I made in when intervening on him. There seems to be a degree of risk in the Government’s approach. Again, it would be good to hear from the Minister to better understand why the level of regulatory failure in this particular case should merit Government compensation, whereas if there were to be regulatory failure in, say, the case of the FCA’s handling of the demutualisation of Liverpool Victoria, that would not merit compensation for the 1 million-plus customers and owners of that financial services business.
I also underline the point that I made when intervening on the hon. Member for Glenrothes, who speaks for the Scottish National party, on the need of the FCA to perhaps rethink its approach to consumers more generally. At least one of the regulators in the financial services business case that I have particularly been following—that of Liverpool Victoria—has met representatives of that organisation some 35-plus times but has not met consumers at all. That seems to be an example of the FCA continuing not to have properly thought through where it might need to change its practices going forward. I know the Minister will be looking at this issue, and I gently encourage him to focus particularly on that aspect of the regulatory failure.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East underlined the point in Dame Elizabeth Gloster’s report that there have been 600 phone calls from customers about LCF’s poor performance, yet that still did not seem to spur on the FCA to take action quickly. There are almost 10 times as many consumers who are members of Liverpool Victoria as those who invested in LCF, which surely further underlines the need to get right how the FCA handles the consumer interests going forward. I look forward to the Minister’s answers.
John Glen
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani, and I thank all Committee members for their consideration of this important legislation.
As I set out on Second Reading, the Bill is a vital step in compensating LCF bondholders, and I will now turn directly to the consideration of amendments 1 and 7. As the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East set out, amendment 1 seeks to add a requirement for the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament a set of criteria for when the taxpayer should compensate investors for investment failures. In essence, it brings some clarity about when the mechanism that we are adopting, and hopefully funding, through the passage of the Bill would be used. Amendment 7 seeks to require the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament a report that assesses the impact of the Government’s compensating the customers of London Capital & Finance plc, as well as broader issues relevant to the mis-selling scandal.
I have listened very carefully to the speeches made during the passage of the Bill, on Second Reading and today, and to the evidence that we received this morning. I am particularly drawn to the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire, who acknowledged that a degree of risk is involved with any investment. With the right set of regulations and requirements, however, investors can be equipped with the right information to understand their risks and to make informed choices. The Government’s scheme appropriately balances the interests of both bondholders and the taxpayer, and it will ensure that all LCF bondholders receive a fair level of compensation for the financial loss they have suffered.
I turn now to compensation. I must reiterate that LCF’s failure was unique and exceptional. It is the only failed mini-bond issuer that was FCA-authorised and was selling bonds in order to on-lend to other companies. In conjunction with the FCA, the Treasury has looked at eight mini-bond firms that have failed in recent years, and LCF is unique in that respect. It is important to emphasise that the Government cannot and should not stand behind every investment loss. As I have probably said previously, LCF’s business model was highly unusual in both its scale and structure, and the extraordinary circumstances surrounding its collapse are unique.
Peter Grant
Has the Economic Secretary or any of his advisers actually read the promotional material that companies such as Blackmore Bond were giving out, to assess the number of times that words such as “guarantee” and “secure” were included in those documents? Does he not accept that something needs to be looked at there—maybe not for compensation this time, but certainly for tighter regulation in the future?
John Glen
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention because it takes me to the question of what the Government are doing to improve the efficacy of the financial promotions regime that he mentioned in respect of a different failure. We continue to keep the legislative framework underpinning the regulation of financial promotions under review, including whether it is suitable for the digital age. Many of the promotions are obviously online. We will publish a response in the early summer to the consultation on a regulatory gateway for authorised firms approving the promotion of unauthorised firms. It is not an issue that we take lightly. Change, once in place, is designed to strengthen the regime by ensuring that firms able to approve financial promotions are limited to those with the relevant expertise to do so. The FCA will be better able to identify when a financial promotion has breached the restrictions and take action accordingly, but that does not mean that the LCF failure is not unique and of a different scale and quality from some of the other failures.
Mr McFadden
I am grateful for the Minister’s response.
I am not entirely convinced about the relationship between on-lending and the decision to compensate. I am sure that the Minister is correct in the literal sense that this was the only regulated firm that was selling unregulated mini-bonds. I am not saying that the Minister is wrong, but from reading the report I believe that Dame Elizabeth would have made the same findings. The mini-bonds were not doing what it said on the tin: they were not on-lending but pyramid selling.
The degree of failure, the degree of investment loss and the degree of regulatory failure are not directly related to the point about on-lending: it is more substantial than that. I am not convinced that all the elements of the Government’s case add up. It looks to me as though they have had to find a unique element to insulate themselves from court action or other claims.
Peter Grant
As an indication of the Government having come to a decision and then looking for an explanation for it, I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman picked up in the Minister’s comments how for the first time, in my knowledge, the concept of the scale of the failure—if I wrote down what the Minister said exactly right at the time—was that London Capital & Finance was unique and of a scale and nature that made it different from the rest. Does the right hon. Gentleman believe that the fact that the scale of the failure has now been quoted as a factor, when it was not before, is an indication that the Government have come to a decision and are now looking for reasons to justify it?
Mr McFadden
We are trying to put ourselves into discussions that we have not been party to so, to some extent, I am speculating on the way that the Government have built their argument.
I have made the point and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Mr McFadden
My hon. Friend makes a very strong point. The question of the perimeter is inescapable. One of Dame Elizabeth’s recommendations is that the Government consider the FCA’s remit, and the Government have said that they accept all her recommendations. The Minister said in his evidence to the Select Committee that this cannot be pinned on the perimeter, as it were, but as a conclusion of what has happened the perimeter must be considered. The Government have accepted that.
One way to deal with this is to say that regulated firms and regulated products must be brought together—I shall be grateful for the Minister’s response on that—but if that is not deemed to be the right response how will the question of the remit and the perimeter be responded to? At the heart of this failure is the halo effect of a regulated firm selling unregulated products.
Recommendation 13 is about ensuring that the legislative framework keeps pace with the sale of products through technology platforms. This field of activity is growing daily. It is driven by technological innovation—the movement of more and more activity online—and perhaps by the increased time people have had during the lockdowns to invest online. I do not want to try your patience, Ms Ghani, by delving too deeply into that today, but I think that this issue will occupy the House and this Minister in particular over the next couple of years. We will have to return to it again and again in the House, but recommendation 13 is precisely about legislation on selling things through technological platforms, and the Government and the FCA will have to adapt to it or they will fall behind the reality of the market and of financial crime.
Most of these issues have been put in the hands of the new chief executive, Nikhil Rathi, and the trans-formation programme to which the Minister referred on Second Reading. How are we to know that the 13 recommendations have been implemented? It is easy when a report is published to say, “We accept the findings.” The key is: are they followed through and properly implemented?
Dame Elizabeth’s report should be more than a series of individual recommendations. As she said this morning, it should result in a culture change. Much more communication needs to take place between different parts of the FCA while, crucially, not dropping the ball on regulated firms and unregulated products.
It is unfair of any of us, in government or in opposition, to load more responsibilities on to the FCA if it does not have the resources to fulfil them. We are clear in our amendment that the resources of the FCA have to be covered. Does the FCA have the resources to meet the ever-expanding list of responsibilities, including those on-shored as a result of our departure from the EU? It is funded through a levy on the sectors for which it is responsible. Is the levy giving it enough resources?
The failure of LCF exposed such a degree of dysfunctionality that it prompted the question: can the FCA really do its job? If not, the Government have to act because the public need the protection of a powerful regulator. The imbalance of information between the sellers of financial services products and the buyers absolutely demands that. This amendment is aimed at our receiving a report on the 13 recommendations and on their implementation by both the FCA and the Treasury. Its acceptance would provide Parliament and the public with a mechanism to ensure that statements saying that the recommendations had been accepted had actually been followed through and action taken.
Peter Grant
I am pleased to speak in support of the amendment. There are two questions if the Government wish to reject it. Assuming that no one has any objection to the idea that somebody should keep an eye on what the Government are doing in response to the Gloster report—that would be a good idea—the questions are who should they report back to and when should they report back. Their response to those questions might provide the only grounds on which they could object to the amendment.
There can be no doubt that the Government must report back to the House of Commons and to Parliament. I know I might not look it—perhaps I do—but I am old enough to remember cases like Polly Peck, one of the great corporate scandals of earlier generations. In response to that, we had the Cadbury report that, in effect, invented the concept of corporate governance. It seems obvious now, but one of the key principles that came out of the report is that once the directors who are supposed to be in charge of a company have taken a decision for something to happen, they cannot just walk away. They have to put a process in place by which they, as the directors, individually and personally, can be satisfied that what they say should happen does happen.
The House of Commons in the UK Parliament is not a board of directors as such, but we still have to take responsibility—all 650 of us, individually and collectively—for making sure that, having had assurances from the Government that they will act either directly or indirectly through agencies such as the FCA, they will do things to sort out a £1 billion scandal. We are the ones who ultimately have to hold them to account for that.
I am not saying that a report or a statement to Parliament is the best possible way of holding the Government to account. Frankly, it is a joke of a holding to account, but it is the best that we are allowed in this place. That is why it is included in many of our amendments. Any argument from the Government that any way of reporting back on such vital recommendations that is anything less than regular statements to the full House of Commons and making themselves available to take questions from, if we are lucky, just 5% of all elected MPs, is just not acceptable.
Secondly, when should the Government report back? That is why I made a point of asking Dame Elizabeth whether six months from now—12 months from the original recommendations—is a reasonable time in which to expect significant progress. Dame Elizabeth made it clear that she cannot tell us about parliamentary procedure and all the rest of it, and I accept that. However, her view was clear that, in six months from now, it would be reasonable to expect there to be significant progress on a significant number of the recommendations. At that point, the House of Commons should get a report back from the Minister to explain what has happened and if it has not happened yet, when it will happen. Most importantly, he will explain why what has not happened has not happened. We have had far too many examples of Ministers giving assurances in good faith but of things not happening or, if they did happen, of their taking far longer than they should have done.
Time matters. None of us knows whether there is another London Capital & Finance already happening, and we heard from witnesses who are convinced that it is. There could be another Blackmore Bond, Basset & Gold or you name the corporate investment mis-selling scandal. It could be happening again right now. We do not know how many of them are on the go just now already swallowing up people’s pensions and savings. If the Minister is not prepared to commit to giving an update within six months, will he tell us what timescale he thinks is reasonable for us to expect real change? “In due course” is just not good enough for people who might be losing their investments now even while we dither and dally about what to do next.
Gareth Thomas
I rise to support amendment 2, in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East. I share some of the frustration that the hon. Member for Glenrothes aired: this is the only route available to the Opposition to signal to the Government and the FCA the need to provide a continuing update on their progress in implementing the lessons that have been learned from the LCF scandal. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East went through some of the many issues and recommendations that Dame Elizabeth Gloster’s report highlighted, but let me pick out five in particular.
First, the FCA failed to consider LCF holistically. Indeed, as my right hon. Friend pointed out, we got Dame Elizabeth to emphasise again in the evidence session today that the most significant issue was a very restricted approach to the regulatory perimeter. I will come back to that point.
Secondly, the FCA’s policy documents were unclear on the handling of key questions. Thirdly, its staff had not been trained sufficiently in various key and crucial matters. Fourthly, there was a series of gaps in the law that needed fixing in order to enable proper regulation. Fifthly, the issue that my right hon. Friend touched on last was the FCA’s scope and capacity to intervene effectively on consumers’ behalf—did it have sufficient powers?
Let me turn to the first of those concerns—the restricted approach to the regulatory perimeter and whether the FCA has learned to consider issues to do with consumers holistically. The example that I gave when I intervened on my right hon. Friend was that of a financial service business that has recommended to its customers something that the FCA has approved, only for it to come down the line, 12 months later, and suggest the reverse approach. That is effectively what is happening in the case of Liverpool Victoria. I do not want to test your patience too much, Ms Ghani, but let me clarify that example very briefly.
Liverpool Victoria converted to a company limited by guarantee from a friendly society two years ago. The FCA looked at it—
The Chair
Before you respond Minister, I call the hon. Member for Glenrothes to make a short contribution.
Peter Grant
The Minister referred to the fact that there are ongoing investigations in relation to LCF. Does he recognise that some of the individuals and intermediary businesses that are now under criminal investigation for their part in LCF also played a major part in other mini-bond scandals that I have written to him about separately? Although he made the point about the uniqueness of LCF, the aftershock of LCF is very definitely being felt in other mini-bond scandals that have happened since then.
John Glen
Out of courtesy, I am very happy to respond to my colleagues. The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East asked why the 80% figure was not 100%. As I have tried to explain through the submissions that I have made, the Government have been trying throughout to balance the interests of bondholders and the taxpayer to ensure that we have a fair level of compensation in respect of the financial losses incurred. The scheme is based on the FSCS level of compensation but, as he knows, it is 80% up to that cap of £68,000 to reflect the unregulated nature of the LCF product.
I emphasise that it is imperative to avoid creating the misconception that Government will stand behind bad investments in future, even where the FSCS does not apply. That would create a moral hazard for investors and potentially lead individuals to choose unsuitable investments thinking that the Government will provide compensation when things go wrong. To avoid creating that misconception, and to take into account the wide range of factors that contributed to the losses that the Government would not ordinarily compensate for, the Government will establish the scheme at the level of 80% of LCF bondholders’ initial investment up to the maximum of £68,000. With any investment, there is clearly a risk that sometimes investors will lose money, and the Government and taxpayer cannot and should not be expected to step in and compensate for every failure and every loss. It would not be right or fair for investors in non-regulated products to receive fuller compensation than those who have invested in regulated products, for which the maximum amount is capped at £85,000 under the FSCS.
On the remarks of the hon. Member for Glenrothes about the individuals involved in an ongoing serious fraud inquiry, I am not familiar with the detail, but obviously I am happy to receive any representations. I hope that brings satisfaction to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 2
Loans to the Board of the Pension Protection Fund
The Government have a duty to make sure that not-for-profit operators and other legitimate, law-abiding companies and mutuals, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West has said, are not unfairly affected or carrying the burden of responding to the need to pay out compensation for scams. The savers and pensioners who have invested in that way should not be forced to pay higher charges as a result. I appreciate the pressure on time and hope that the Government will consider the amendment in great detail.
Peter Grant
The official Opposition’s spokesperson gave very clear reasons why there is benefit in our agreeing to the amendment. I would like to anticipate the reasons that the Government will give for rejecting it and explain briefly why those reasons are not valid—I nearly said mince, but I do not know if that would be understood.
I hope that the amendment will be regarded, not only today but in the future, in the same spirit as that with which it has been tabled. I can almost see someone at the Dispatch Box, thumping the table in response to a question, saying, “Of course, Mr Speaker, we all know that the official Opposition attempted to delay implementation of the scheme.” Amendment 3 could be misrepresented in that way, but that is clearly not what it seeks to do. It asks the Government to publish the results of something that any responsible Government would do before they created the terms of a loan. All it asks is that, having done an assessment—which surely they will—they tell us the results.
The impact on particular kinds of pension schemes is important, because it could be argued that the reason the clause is needed is that a previous Government did not properly assess the impact of the changes they made in 2015 on certain types of pension holders. That is where pension liberation and pension liberation scams came from. I hope that the Government have learned their lesson. If they do not assess in more detail the impact of major changes on particular types of investors and pension holders, they may be saving up problems for the future.
I will briefly mention the other two amendments. The Government should do what is proposed by amendment 5. Do they have any idea of the level of pension fraud in the United Kingdom right now? They should.
The Minister indicated this morning that the measure proposed by amendment 6 might already have been done by someone else. If that is the case, there is nothing to stop him taking that document and putting a written statement before the House, saying, “I have received the report of xyz this morning and I endorse its contents.” A report is given significantly more weight if it is put on the record in that way. Presenting an annual report also gives Ministers an opportunity to say, “I am unable to endorse its contents, for the following reasons,” but endorsing it gives it a gravity that it might not otherwise have had. The Minister may have noticed that I am no great fan of this Government or this place, but if a Minister of the Crown lays before Parliament a statement taking responsibility for and endorsing the report of a body that reports to their Department, that carries more weight than the report simply appearing somewhere in the pages of the media a day or two later.
The Chair
In case any Member did not quite understand what I said at the top, all of the proposed amendments to the clause are being debated now, including amendments 5 and 6. Mr Rodda, to confirm, are you aware of that, and do you wish to speak to amendments 5 and 6 now?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)
I gather that we have a possible vote in the House, so I will attempt my entire response in 10 minutes. Before I do so, it is right that, on behalf of the entire Committee, I thank you for chairing the Committee, Ms Ghani. As the former ports and shipping Minister, and in a month when we celebrate the first female Royal Navy captain, some might argue that you are a well-qualified captain to keep what is—let us be honest—a motley crew in order. If you run for Speaker, Ms Ghani, I will definitely be supporting you.
Let me discuss what clause 2 does and does not do. It creates a power to make a loan to the board of the Pension Protection Fund, following the decision of 6 November 2020 in the case of the PPF v. Dalriada. It achieves that by inserting a new section into the Pensions Act 2004 to provide the Secretary of State with a power to loan money to the board of the PPF.
I think it is fair to point out to the Committee that the clause deals with matters that are predominantly––almost entirely––to do with 2010 to 2014. Many would wish to make this a case about pension freedoms, when in fact pension freedoms post-dated these matters. It is clearly a serious and important matter, and, following a court decision, the Government have accepted the entirety of that decision.
The practical reality is that the Fraud Compensation Fund has assets of £26.2 million, and the potential liability arising from the court judgment is £350 million. I accept that points have been made in respect of how the loan is to be repaid in the longer term and I will address that, but I shall now turn briefly to the amendments.
Amendment 3 seeks an impact assessment. With great respect to the Members who tabled that request, it is utterly unnecessary. It is, in fact, precluded by the decision of the House on section 22 of the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015, of which I am sure Members are acutely aware. It states that impact assessments are not required in respect of levies or other such charges in these particular circumstances.
Secondly, the clause is implementing a court judgment.
Peter Grant
Will the Minister clarify his last comment? Did he say that impact assessments are not required or that they are not permitted? Surely, if they are not required, we can still ask for one if we think it would be useful.
Guy Opperman
That is a very fair question that I shall attempt to answer while I am on my feet, but I believe that it is not required. Section 22 of the 2015 Act excludes impact from the definition of regulatory provision, so I believe that it is an exclusion rather than a requirement. If I am wrong in any way, I shall write to the hon. Gentleman and correct myself. I may be corrected while I am on my feet, although in the brave new world of covid, that is quite difficult, as I am sure that he understands.
Clearly, if we were to do an impact assessment at this time, it would fundamentally delay the implementation of payment to members, and the blunt truth is that the PPF will run out of money by October if we do not progress this legislation. The levy increase will be consulted on post the passing of this Bill. It will need consultation, regulations and debate in the usual way.
Amendment 5 would also delay the progress of this matter. The Government will respond to the Work and Pensions Committee, to which I gave detailed evidence, before the end of the summer term. The full response of the Government in respect of all matters relating to such scams will be made before the end of term. We are already progressing Project Bloom and there is the work of the Money and Pensions Service that was introduced by my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury in the previous Act that we worked on. We have produced section 125 of the Pension Schemes Act 2021, which Her Majesty signed on the dotted line in early February, and the consequential transfer regulations that we have consulted on over the past month to ensure that pension scams are prevented on an ongoing basis.
I have been asked to address other matters. It is clear that Ministers are engaging with various organisations, including Google and Facebook. The two of us have made our views very clear to those organisations about how they should regulate themselves. I agree that Pension Wise should be used more but, with great respect, I disagree with the Chair of the Select Committee’s proposal for the many good reasons that I outlined in the debates on Report and Third Reading of the 2021 Act. Clearly the work that we are doing jointly with the Treasury and other organisations, including the FCA, on stronger nudges towards using Pension Wise and other things will make a massive difference.
On amendment 6, there is already an annual report. In true Chamberlain style, I have it here in my hand: the annual report of the Pension Protection Fund, which is published every July. I know, Ms Ghani, that you will have read the most recent version, and will be looking forward with bated breath to the July 2021 report, which will specifically address the issues whose importance today’s witness made very clear.
In those circumstances, I invite hon. Members not to press their amendments.