Autumn Statement Resolutions

Debate between Robert Neill and John Glen

Monday 21st November 2022 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

I cannot account for what is happening in Scotland, but there are £1.5 billion of Barnett consequentials from the autumn statement. I have been clear with the House that the workforce plan is designed to set out transparently where the gaps are, and obviously it will be for various Government Departments to respond to that.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I welcome the pragmatic tone the Government have adopted in this autumn statement. On the NHS workforce strategy, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind not just those who provide hospital care but, as has been highlighted by the Stroke Association and others, those who provide therapy and care for people with strokes and other such afflictions after they have been discharged? Such therapy and care is how we will get many of these people back into productive work in the economy, thereby reducing costs and the human suffering caused by strokes and similar conditions.

[John Glen]

My hon. Friend makes a very wise point about the interaction between effective care and a vibrant NHS workforce. We know about the significant changes to the character of the workforce, and we know about the patients who are not fully engaged. We need to get into that so that many of these people get back into work.

The 1.6 million employees who work in the social care sector are working extremely hard. Local authorities have rightly expressed concerns about their capacity to deliver the Dilnot reforms immediately, so we will delay their implementation for two years, allocating the funding to allow local authorities to provide more care packages. Members will recognise that only by expanding the capacity of the social care system will we free up some of the 13,500 hospital beds that are occupied by those who could and should be at home.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robert Neill and John Glen

Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very sensible and worthwhile point on this matter. We are looking closely at the Financial Conduct Authority’s “Financial Lives” survey, which indicates the degree of liquidity that exists. I work closely with the lenders on affordability assessments for the self-employed. I am happy to commit to continue to keep this matter under review and to receive further representations from him.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

What assessment he has made of the adequacy of the support provided to the culture and arts sector during the covid-19 outbreak.

Financial Services Bill

Debate between Robert Neill and John Glen

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 9th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

My hon. Friend has unrivalled expertise and tenacity in bringing these matters before the House. He is right that there is a challenge to examine the relative regimes for different sized banks and institutions. That is something that regulators, subsequent to this Bill, will need to look at—indeed, they are keen to look at it—and I would welcome my hon. Friend’s further interventions in discussions in this place as we move forward on that legitimate question.

Eight years ago, the world was shocked by the LIBOR scandal. As the House will recall, traders at multiple banks attempted to manipulate that crucial benchmark, which contributes to interest rates for everything from complex derivatives to mortgages. Since then, significant improvements have been made to the benchmark’s administration. However, the Financial Stability Board, an international body that monitors and makes recommendations about the global financial system, has stated that continued use of LIBOR and other major interest rate benchmarks poses a serious source of systemic risk. That is because the decline in the inter-bank lending market has meant that such benchmarks depend increasingly on the judgments of panel banks rather than actual transactions. UK regulators have been encouraging firms to gradually shift away from LIBOR and are at the forefront of the global response to the transition, so to ensure that that transition was orderly, the FCA agreed with the LIBOR panel banks that they would continue to contribute to the benchmark for a temporary period. However, that temporary period will expire at the end of 2021, and after that point there is a risk that the benchmark will become unrepresentative of the market that it measures, potentially leading to disruption.

While we want firms to take the initiative in migrating from LIBOR, we recognise that there are some contracts that cannot be realistically amended to achieve that goal, so clauses 8 to 19, along with schedule 5, will give the FCA the powers that it needs to oversee the orderly wind-down of critical benchmarks, including LIBOR, and clause 20 will extend the transitional period for benchmarks with non-UK administrators from the end of 2022 until the end of 2025. This will avoid difficulties for our firms while the Government consider any changes required to our third country benchmarks regime to ensure that it is appropriate for the United Kingdom.

I will move on to the second objective of the Bill: to promote openness to overseas markets. I am delighted that clauses 22 and 23, along with schedules 6 to 8, establish a framework to provide long-term market access between the UK and Gibraltar for financial services firms. As many will know, Gibraltar boasts an array of thriving businesses in the sector, many of which are UK household names, including Admiral and Hastings, to name just two. The new Gibraltar authorisation regime in this Bill delivers on an earlier ministerial commitment and recognises our long-standing special relationship.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. May I say, as chair of the all-party group on Gibraltar, how delighted I am to see this in the Bill? I know that that is echoed by Her Majesty’s Government of Gibraltar and the whole Gibraltar community. The Government have made good on a promise and it is very welcome. The Minister is right to set out that some 20% of UK insurance contracts are written by Gibraltar-based insurers. Will he undertake that, as well as this important piece of legislation, we will now build on it with his colleagues in other Departments to develop a full free market—a free-trade area effectively—between the UK and Gibraltar in services and goods?

--- Later in debate ---

[John Glen]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right with that 20% statistic and to point to the extensive orientation of the Gibraltarian insurance industry towards the UK. Ninety per cent. of the business that it writes comes to the UK. He is right to say that this is foundational to a deepening relationship, and I will ensure that Gibraltarian firms can continue to access the UK market on the basis of aligned regulation and supervision. I look forward to listening to him, as we move forward, on further steps that he thinks would be appropriate.

The proposals will guarantee close co-operation between our regulators, and this measure highlights the spirit of openness that underpins our approach. The same can be said of clauses 24 to 26 and schedule 9, which make up the overseas funds regime. These measures will simplify the process under which overseas investment funds are marketed in the UK. Under the present system, the FCA has to assess the protection standards of every individual fund before allowing it to be offered to UK consumers. However, the Bill will allow the Treasury to give market access to entire categories of funds from other countries that have so-called equivalent regulatory standards to those in the UK. Funds in this group can then undergo a simpler application process, due to the confidence provided by their home regime, which will allow overseas investment funds to be marketed in the UK, maintaining the UK’s position as a global centre of asset management. There are currently over 9,000 funds that passport into the UK from the EU, and let me stress that the existing process will remain for funds that have not been declared equivalent.

[Sir Robert Neill]

I am grateful to the Minister for correcting me. Of course, my figure of 20% related purely to motor insurance policies; it is 90% for all Gibraltar-based insurance. Can he help me on the specific point of the overseas funds regime? It is widely welcomed in the sector that he will allow access for overseas funds that have not yet achieved equivalence, but can he help give some clarity on a matter that is of concern to some providers? What is the position if people have invested in the fund and for some reason equivalency is withdrawn? What would then happen in practical terms if, for example, additional money is invested in the fund after suspension? Can he help as far as that is concerned? It is important for many people.

[John Glen]

It would not be for me at this point to set out the deductions to be made on individual funds, but I would like to follow up with my hon. Friend formally on that matter, because a process is under way for that to be examined, and I am happy to engage with him further in due course.

I will move on to the importance of ensuring that the FCA has an appropriate degree of oversight over firms that could register under the regime. To my hon. Friend’s point, there is a tension between the objectives set in Parliament and the regulators’ judgment on the ground. We need to ensure not only that they are accountable, but that we have set the right prescription for the outcomes we wish to see.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robert Neill and John Glen

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, it is the Government’s policy to have an orderly exit from the EU. However, we know that FinTech has proved to be very resilient in all circumstances. We had record investment of £15 billion last year. That is testimony to the creative power of that industry, working in the financial services sector in the City.

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

17. What recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on funding for remedial fire safety work on privately owned residential tower blocks.

Local Government Standards Regime

Debate between Robert Neill and John Glen

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Robert Neill]

What we can do to help my hon. Friend in that regard is to promulgate the good practice and what is perfectly permissible. I know from my time as a member of a planning committee that it was perfectly standard practice in many authorities, and it should be perfectly open anywhere, for site visits to take place. It is probably best that members of the committee and the officers go together. That is what is usually and sensibly done, so that they all go in a group, and because the officer is present, there can be no suggestion of improper contact between the members of the committee and—let us say—the applicant or an objector. That can be sensibly done; many authorities do it; and those authorities that do not do it, and think that it cannot be done, should be told that it can and should be done.

Frankly, most of us would hope that with the new approach to empowering members, officers would look for ways to say, “Yes, we will enable a site visit to take place if members wish it, with the proper safeguards in place to make sure that there can be no accusation of impropriety.” It happens in many places, but the fact that it is not generally known that it happens is perhaps a real concern, as my hon. Friend suggests. Perhaps it is something that the Government need to think about doing, perhaps working with the Local Government Association and the local government community in general to ensure that that sensible good practice is rolled out.

It is interesting that my hon. Friend raises the issue of planning, because it comes back to the point about members being told not to meet developers. One of the few things on which I agreed with the former Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone—there was not much on which we agreed, as hon. Members will know—was that he had a very sensible and proportionate approach to dealing with planning applications that came before him. By their very nature, they were very often strategic applications, potentially involving large sums of money and important social impacts.

When he was Mayor, Ken Livingstone met applicants under those circumstances, he did so with an officer present and everything was properly minuted. Although I have accused the former Mayor of various things over the years, nobody would ever have questioned the total integrity with which that process took place, and indeed it continues under his successor, Mayor Johnson. It was a sensible and proportionate thing to do; Mayor Livingstone was right to do it and Mayor Johnson has been right to continue doing it. However, if they had listened to the sort of advice that my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset referred to earlier—the advice given to his colleagues, or that we have seen in some of the documents that I have referred to—they would not have done it and those meetings would not have taken place.

Actually, very often the involvement of members in planning applications can be constructive, provided that it is done with total probity. There are plenty of examples of how the engagement of the ward members has enabled a scheme to be refined or adjusted in such a way that what was potentially unpalatable to a community can be made palatable, and actually the application can be improved by the involvement of the local members. Consequently, such involvement is not only something that should not be obstructed but something that ought to be positively encouraged as a matter of good practice. So I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point about planning.

The other issue that seems to have arisen recently, and that I hope my hon. Friend the Minister will be able to deal with when he responds to the debate, relates to pecuniary interests. I was rather surprised to see advice that is being given to a number of councillors, that they should be regarded as having pecuniary interests in effect because they are council tax payers. Again, that advice is all set out in legal documents, which I could happily quote, but if that advice is not nonsense then I do not know what is. Once more, I must say with a sense of frustration that that sort of advice or idea is exactly what I spent two and a bit years of my life as a Minister trying to get rid of, and I feel that perhaps I have failed and that perhaps it is my fault, because I did not make that message clear enough. I hope that that is not the case, but what I have described today is happening in a number of local authorities. In addition, I regret to say that when I looked at some of the e-mails that I have received on this subject, I see that such practice seems to be based on a view taken collectively by a number of monitoring officers.

Like most professions, monitoring officers are not without their collective bodies. They are worthy people; I met some of them on a number of occasions when I was a Minister. However, that does not mean that they always get these ideas right, and the idea that simply because someone pays council tax they should be regarded as having a pecuniary interest is another idea that I hope the Minister will make clear today was never the intention of Parliament. Hopefully, this debate will give us an opportunity to send out a message—to officers that such advice is wrong, and to members that they should not feel constrained by such advice. The idea that someone would have to get a dispensation for every member of a council in effect, so that they could vote on the council tax in their area, is a nonsensical interpretation.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

Reluctantly, I have to point out the situation in Wiltshire. A local Labour councillor contacted me saying they had received an e-mail from the ethical governance officer. It said that the current legislation referred to councillors having

“a disclosable pecuniary interest in any matter to be considered”.

The reference to “any matter” was essentially used to justify people not voting on anything, which is utterly absurd. When I responded to the councillor, I said that common sense was required, and I do not think that my advice and input were welcome. However, it is ludicrous that the legislation has been interpreted in such an unhelpful way.

[Robert Neill]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is a sad irony that Wiltshire, having got the structure right and achieved a sensible, light-touch, proportionate structure, seems none the less to have been giving out advice on a specific point that is clearly wide of the mark. That issue needs to be raised with monitoring officers generally.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robert Neill and John Glen

Thursday 21st October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill]

The vast majority of local authorities I have spoken to greatly welcome the abolition of those strategies, which imposed undemocratic targets on them. There is no need to rework the evidence base—it is already there. We have given local authorities the power to revise the figures that were arbitrarily imposed on them from above.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

12. What steps his Department is taking to encourage locally supported sustainable development through the planning system.