Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Roger Mullin and Harriett Baldwin

Monday 7th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

T5. Following publication of the highly critical marine accident investigation report on the collision between the stern trawler Karen and a dived Royal Navy submarine, and given the report’s urgent recommendations, what progress has been made on updating the Royal Navy fishing vessel code of practice?

[Harriett Baldwin]

I will look into the matter the hon. Gentleman raises and write to him.

Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [ Lords ] (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Roger Mullin and Harriett Baldwin

Tuesday 23rd February 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Harriett Baldwin]

I sense that the hon. Gentleman does not welcome the freedoms that the Government are proud to have given British retirees. We no longer require them—this was the case for so long—to purchase an obligatory product that might not be right for them at the time. Indeed, the evidence suggests that two thirds of people were not shopping around to get the right price, so I accept that awareness and education are an important part of the reforms. I cannot agree with him that the reforms have not made a huge step forward in trusting people who have worked hard all their lives, saving their money, and they now have more freedom to do what they want with it.

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

I have some sympathy with the comments of the hon. Member for Bassetlaw. May I press the Minister on the numbers she quoted? She said that 2.2 million people have accessed the website, leading to in excess of 50,000 to follow through with more detailed face-to-face guidance. If my arithmetic is correct, that is a conversion rate of only 2%. That is a matter of concern to a lot of people. The type of advice being made available at a detailed level means that we are not adequately helping the numbers of people seeking to use the freedoms. There is concern that many people are cashing in early for different reasons with a lack of understanding of the long-term implications.

[Harriett Baldwin]

Again, I could not agree more that we need to take a long, hard look at the provision of advice in this country. As the hon. Gentleman is aware, the financial advice market review was launched last summer and the consultation closed at the end of December. A large range of people have been supportive of the aspirations set out in the review to make advice more widely available and more affordable for all our constituents. It is an ongoing piece of work, and he should wait for more exciting announcements—[Interruption.] He and I share excitement about many things, including the leptokurtic distributions that came up the last time we were on a Committee together. Clause 27 is narrowly focused on extending the Pension Wise service to those who are going to be accessing the additional freedoms that will come into force next April in relation to the secondary market in annuities.

People have rightly asked me about scams, and I want to put it on the record that there is absolutely no complacency about the potential for scams. However, the numbers thus far do not support the case that there has been an increase. Some people have a constant desire to take advantage of people, particularly the vulnerable elderly, in many ways. Nobody should ever accept a telephone call about pensions from anybody unless they have a pre-booked appointment for such a discussion. The single most important thing that we can do to alert people to the horrendous activities of people who prey on the elderly is to get that message out in our constituencies. The over-65s are the victims of some 80% of all attempts at financial crime. They are less familiar with the technology and more vulnerable when someone sounds plausible on the telephone. If any Member wants to work with me to spread the message more widely in their constituencies, I will be wholeheartedly in favour.

Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting)

Debate between Roger Mullin and Harriett Baldwin

Thursday 11th February 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Roger Mullin]

I hear and accept entirely what the Minister says about not interfering in operational matters. However, I invite her to indicate whether, at some stage, a review of the culture would help the Government.

[Harriett Baldwin]

I think we can all agree that that would be a fascinating study to read, but I will not get involved in directing the FCA to change its business plan. That would be interfering with the operational independence of the FCA, which I am sure Opposition Members do not want me to do.

Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Debate between Roger Mullin and Harriett Baldwin

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Harriett Baldwin]

The hon. Gentleman serves as a member of the Treasury Committee, and I believe he was also a member of that Committee in the previous Parliament, so he will remember that it produced a report in 2011 called “Accountability of the Bank of England” which recommended that the court’s membership be reduced to eight—smaller than we propose. It emphasised that a smaller court would allow for

“diversity of views and expertise”

while still being

“an efficient decision-making body”.

He may want to go back and look at the evidence base that the Committee looked at. It is important to emphasise that the Bill does not make a change in terms of the membership, which remains at possibly up to nine.

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

Does the Minister therefore believe that the Cabinet should be reduced in size?

[Harriett Baldwin]

The Cabinet, as the hon. Gentleman knows, has fluctuated in size over the years. On the evidence base, we are obviously talking about the experience of the Bank of England having in the past, particularly in the run-up to the financial crash, had a significantly larger court. I think there were 19 members in the run-up to 2009, and it was thought that that was a very large and unwieldy body. I think it still falls short of the number of people who currently attend Cabinet. There is a range of different views of effectiveness, but the important point to emphasise is that the Bill does not intrinsically make any changes to what is already there, although in practice we currently have seven non-executive directors on the court.

Importantly, the Bill also provides for the continued balance of internal and external members on the MPC, the FPC and the newly formed PRC. Following the addition or removal of a deputy governor, the Government may make a corresponding change to the number of members appointed by the Chancellor in the case of the FPC or PRC or the Governor in the case of the MPC.

New clause 5 would require the court to publish transcripts of its discussions within six months. I agree completely with the hon. Member for Leeds East that transparency is critical. The Bank of England makes decisions that affect all of us and it must be accountable to the public, and enhancing transparency is central to that. That is why I am so pleased to bring this Bill to the Committee: it makes governance of the Bank much more transparent in several ways. First, it makes the entire court responsible for the oversight functions. No longer will an oversight committee oversee the work of an oversight board. Every member of the board, executive or non-executive, will be clearly responsible for oversight of the Bank.

Secondly, the Bill removes a greater barrier to transparency and unnecessary complexity. In 2013, the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards noted the complexity of the present regime. It said:

“The accountability arrangements of the new structures”—

that is, the structures that exist now—

“are more complex than those of the previous regulatory regime. The PRA is a subsidiary of the Bank, and the FPC is a sub-committee of the Court of the Bank.”

The Bill will change the FPC’s status from a sub-committee of the court to a committee of the Bank and will end the PRA’s subsidiary status, establishing the Bank’s three policy committees on a common statutory footing.

The final and perhaps most significant means of enhancing transparency is bringing the whole Bank into the purview of the National Audit Office for the first time in its history. Allowing the NAO to conduct value-for-money reviews across the Bank will increase its accountability to Parliament and to the public. In turn, this will build greater public trust in the Bank’s operations and governance, supporting its vital independence role in the UK economy.

I agree with the hon. Member for Leeds East that transparency is important: it improves accountability and ultimately makes the Bank’s governance better. However, I disagree with him that mandating transcripts of court sessions will make governance better. As hon. Members are aware, the court is now required to publish the minutes of every meeting within six weeks. That was not always the case, but I am glad to see that the court has published historical records of its minutes, including those during the financial crisis. Through this, Parliament and the public now have greater insight into the governance of the Bank and the key decisions made. Transcripts are a different matter entirely.

We are fortunate in this debate because the impact of transcripts on Bank discussions has already been examined by Governor Warsh in his review, “Transparency and the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee”. He said:

“Creating a safe space for true deliberations is among the most critical indicia of organisations that make good decisions, according to the leading academic and empirical literature and my own observation”.

I am sure we all want a court that makes good decisions. The alternative would be extremely costly for all of us. Governor Warsh looked at the MPC’s two discussion days and found that the different nature of the day one and day two discussions required different approaches to transcript publication. It makes sense to see which of those days is most like a court session and what Governor Warsh recommended. Day one is when the MPC members deliberate, challenge the evidence before them and question one another—exactly the kind of role that the court performs very effectively. Day two is very different. In Governor Warsh’s words:

“With few exceptions, the deliberations are nearly complete, policymakers are heard, and their judgments tallied.”

I think it is clear that day one is closer to the deliberations and discussions of a board.

[Roger Mullin]

I thank the Minister for explaining Governor Warsh’s views, but I would like to challenge his view that the academic literature is all one way. In fact, some of the academic literature points out that in more private settomgs, people are more prone to groupthink.

[Harriett Baldwin]

As a distinguished academic himself, the hon. Gentleman will know that academics often differ in their points of view. It is clear that in this case the distinguished Governor Warsh has come down in one way, and here in our deliberations we have come down in favour of producing a transcript, and Hansard performs that incredibly valuable role for us. I will make some further points, which I hope will convince him of the wisdom of the position that the Government are taking on transcripts.

When Governor Warsh looked at releasing transcripts of the day one deliberations, which he described as “safe space” deliberations, he found that

“Should the transcripts of the Day 1 deliberations be made public, the quality of the deliberative process would risk being materially impaired, to the detriment of sound policymaking.”

He went on to make a clear recommendation that

“the Day 1 policy discussions should no longer be recorded nor should they be transcribed.”

Publication of transcripts of meetings of the court would have a “chilling effect” on discussion and the quality of debate and harm decision making. I therefore hope that the hon. Member for Leeds East will not press his new clause.

--- Later in debate ---

[Harriett Baldwin]

There is, but the purpose of the deliberative body, as we have heard, is effectively to act as the board of the Bank of England, supervising the different committees. Prior to the financial crisis, members of the court were often selected specifically to represent a range of sectoral interests, including many of those proposed in the amendments. The first problem with the amendments is that requiring representatives of different sectors and regard to regional representation will entail a much larger and therefore oversized and dysfunctional court. Before the financial crisis, when the court had non-executives specifically to represent different interests—why stop at the four listed in the amendment?—the court had an incredible 16 non-executives, rendering it far too large to operate effectively and unable to hold the executive properly to account.

[Roger Mullin]

I think the Minister may have been in error when she implied that the new clauses would introduce a requirement. Our new clause 2 simply says

“the Chancellor of the Exchequer must have regard to the importance”

of balanced representation.

[Harriett Baldwin]

The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight that difference. Of course, what the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have regard to is the quality and ability of those individuals to perform the function they are asked to perform. The Banking Act 2009 sensibly limited the court to nine non-executives, and in practice we have now reduced the number of non-executives to seven while keeping that non-executive majority, which means that the court is now sufficiently small to form an effective body that can challenge the executive. The amendments before the Committee would inevitably mean a return to a large, inefficient and ineffective court.

A second problem with amendment 9, which would require sectoral representation on the court, is that it would give rise to conflicts of interest. The amendment calls for several practitioner representatives on the court. We have tried that in the past, too. During the crisis, the conflicts of interest meant that some of those on the court who could have been of most assistance to the Bank had to leave the room for the most important decisions, such as on liquidity provision to the markets and on individual firms. That hampered the court’s ability to respond effectively.

Capital Markets Union

Debate between Roger Mullin and Harriett Baldwin

Thursday 3rd December 2015 General Committees

[Harriett Baldwin]

Let me take those points in turn. As a distinguished member of the Select Committee on the Treasury, my hon. Friend knows that the UK does not object in principle to financial transaction taxes. The UK has a financial transaction tax on stocks that are bought in the UK. However, the Government are concerned about the application of a financial transaction tax on instruments that could be traded elsewhere in the world, because if it were applied to something that is easily mobile and can be moved quickly to another jurisdiction, that is what would happen. There are no proposals in the capital markets union steps outlined today to harmonise taxation in any way. The Government stand strongly on our belief that taxation is a matter for member states and we continue to argue that case.

On the more general points about renegotiation and the Prime Minister’s letter to Donald Tusk, it is clear that the European Union needs to address the fact that nine countries continue to have their own currencies and 19 have chosen to adopt the euro. There is absolutely no prospect of the UK ever joining the euro, so as part of the renegotiation we need to make it clear across the 28 EU countries that positive initiatives such as this on capital markets must reflect the fact that this is a multi-currency single market for capital. We will fight vigorously against any proposals that threaten that. That is a key part of the renegotiation.

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Hanson, to serve under your chairmanship for the first time. My question is on a fairly narrow point. On a number of occasions the Minister has mentioned risk, and some of the documents refer to risk. She will know that there is no unit of measurement for risk. I often think that Governments would be well advised to disaggregate risk into its different components so that they can be clearer about measuring probabilities and chances, and negative outcomes in financial terms, for example. I would like to hear her remarks about whether that would be worth while. I am asking because I was pleased to hear her remark about a rigorous impact assessment. It strikes me that in such an assessment particular care will have to be taken about how risk is measured.

[Harriett Baldwin]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s question about risk and I draw his attention to this incredibly thorough document. With his academic interest in such subjects, he will want to read the academic articles cited in this weighty tome. He will know that there are of course many risks in capital markets. Not only is there market risk, there is credit risk, regulatory risk and, in a multi-currency single market, currency risk. In a previous life, I specialised in this subject, so perhaps he and I could go for a drink some time and talk about leptokurtic distributions and other such esoteric matters, which might not fascinate the rest of the Committee as much as us.

The Economy

Debate between Roger Mullin and Harriett Baldwin

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

We agree that maintaining the science budget is incredibly important. As part of the £100 billion of infrastructure investment that we have already committed to, £6.9 billion will be going towards research infrastructure.

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

If the Economic Secretary believes what she has just said about maintaining the science budget, why have the Government cut it in real terms by 10% in the past five years? They have made no commitment thus far to increase the science budget either, to such an extent that the UK is bottom in the G8 for investment in science.

[Harriett Baldwin]

The hon. Gentleman will know, and has just reiterated, that we have maintained the science budget, which has been one of the choices that we have made. We have secured £7 billion of investment per year for UK-based renewable energy projects. We are investing in major research facilities such as the new Turing Institute, the UK’s national institute for data science. Our science and innovation strategy sets out our long-term vision for the sector’s contribution to national prosperity.

Guaranteed Income for Retirees

Debate between Roger Mullin and Harriett Baldwin

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Harriett Baldwin]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) on securing the debate and making a thoughtful, constructive contribution to our national debate on securing a guaranteed income for retirees. Perhaps I should not confess this, but if Wikipedia is correct, I am the one who should declare an interest as being closest to retirement age of all those speaking in the debate—but perhaps Wikipedia may not be accurate. That has happened before.

[Roger Mullin]

I should thank the Minister very much for her comment.

[Harriett Baldwin]

The hon. Gentleman wears it well.

The debate is timely, because we are just over six months into the pension freedoms, and are beginning to get data on what pensioners or retirees have been doing with those freedoms, and about use of the free and impartial guidance from Pension Wise, which was set up by the Government. As we speak, life expectancy is growing by about five hours a day in this country, which makes it all the more important that we have this debate and agree on the aspiration to ensure that hard-working people are in a position to fund a comfortable and, we hope, increasingly lengthy retirement.

Against the background that I have set out, the Government introduced radical reforms giving people freedom and choice in how they access their own hard-earned retirement savings, replacing an effective obligation on pensioners to purchase an annuity—a product that often they did not shop around for and that may not have been right for their circumstances.

--- Later in debate ---

[Harriett Baldwin]

Methinks the hon. Gentleman is worrying too much. At this point, I think we will just welcome the fact that £15 billion a year more is going into pension saving in this country. The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) can say to her generation that the earlier they start, the better, given the cumulative impact of the wonders of compound interest. Nevertheless, I take on board the point the hon. Gentleman made.

The hon. Gentleman said that providers may not have time to get ready and may not have the right kinds of products. In fact, providers have stepped up to the challenge: the systems requirements were admittedly very challenging, but more than 90% of people are now being offered flexibility within their existing scheme and something like a quarter of the largest firms are planning to launch new products in the next six months, so there has been real innovation and engagement with what customers want. We have moved away from the inflexibility of the old annuity market.

The hon. Gentleman highlighted the recent data from the ABI stating that £4.7 billion was paid out in the first six months. The first six months will not necessarily be representative of the settled state of the market, because obviously there has been a lot of pent-up demand, but it is fair to say that in that six-month period £2.5 billion has been invested in income drawdown products and £2.2 billion in annuities. That does not suggest that people are shying away from the annuity market, which we hope continues to be successful and an important part of people’s retirement planning. I am delighted that so many people have already taken advantage of the freedoms and that many providers have stepped up to deliver for their members.

Many hon. Members asked about Pension Wise, the Government’s free and impartial guidance service. It, too, is playing an important role. There have been more than 30,000 guidance appointments and 1.7 million hits on its website so far. Hon. Members alleged that only one in 10 people are making use of Pension Wise, but we dispute that in the sense that people will be getting financial advice, sometimes from a regulated adviser, or they may get information, guidance or advice through their provider. There is a range of different ways in which people can inform themselves; Pension Wise is one of them. It is free, impartial and backed by the Government.

Pension Wise prompts users to consider their life expectancy and any health issues and lifestyle factors they have, and it links to the Office for National Statistics life expectancy calculator, which I am sure everyone in the room has visited. All in all, that is excellent news, but we are always on the lookout for ways to make the service more useful. Last month’s report from the Work and Pensions Committee, of which the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South is a member, was welcome. It noted the progress we have already made in ensuring that the reforms deliver for consumers, but made it clear that the job is not yet done.

In line with the Committee’s recommendations, we are considering a number of developments to make Pension Wise even more useful. For example, we are looking at how appointments can be tailored to individuals. In the summer Budget, we opened it up to people from the age of 50 onwards, and we are developing more online tools for the website and calculators that people can use to see how the new pension freedoms relate to their particular circumstances. We are trying to make the website more interactive, and the team has done a fantastic job in delivering that to such a tight timeframe. We are looking to amend the content of Pension Wise appointments to ensure they are more tailored to people in the 50 to 55 age bracket, who are not yet able to take advantage of the pension freedoms but want to start thinking about the options available to them.

The hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) rightly mentioned the financial advice market review. I am delighted to hear that he supports the initiative. The Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority are reviewing what he called the advice gap—the fact that between guidance and paid-for financial advice, there is a gap for ordinary people who do not want to pay for a financial adviser or are not able to afford one at their stage in life. The aim of the review is to come up with a package of reforms, along the lines of those that the hon. Gentleman outlined, to ensure the financial advice market works for everybody. I hope he will write to the review with his recommendations.

Advice, in and of itself, is not enough. It is important that we supplement our guidance provision and review it on an ongoing basis. We must ensure that we make the most of Pension Wise, which focuses on pension freedoms, the Money Advice Service, which focuses on some of the other aspects of financial markets, and the Pensions Advisory Service, which is run out of the Department for Work and Pensions. We must make those services more effective for consumers. Alongside the financial advice market review, we are also looking at the guidance and hope to have some findings ahead of next year’s Budget, so that people get the help they need to take such important long-term decisions.

Several hon. Members mentioned scams, and the Work and Pensions Committee report also flagged that risk, which we recognise is not new. Pension scammers were previously trying to get people to take money out of their pensions before the age of 55, causing a lot of harm in the marketplace, but I agree that it is an important matter. Given that consumers have been given unprecedented freedom and choice in how they access their retirement savings, we appreciate that fraudsters will use that as an opportunity to try and exploit people. An effective strategy to target scams must bring together all the relevant parts of Government and work with providers to focus on both the prevention and the disruption of scams. That is what we are doing and will continue to do. We have set up Project Bloom, a multi-agency taskforce led by the National Crime Agency, which is joining up the various Departments involved, the regulators, anti-fraud groups and police forces to tackle scams. It is worth reiterating here how important it is that we remind consumers that they should never engage with anyone who telephones them out of the blue offering help with their pension. I encourage all hon. Members to get that message out widely in their communities. I emphasise that Pension Wise will never call without a consumer having previously asked them to.

The pensions regulators have their own pension scam campaigns to raise awareness of the issue. The FCA runs ScamSmart and the Pensions Regulator runs Scorpion. Warnings are sent out with paperwork from pension providers and both of them give advice to businesses and consumers on how to protect against scams. Pension Wise also alerts customers to the risk of scams during guidance sessions and on its website, and firms have a duty to flag the risk of investment scams, when appropriate, to their members as part of the FCA’s retirement risk warning rules. The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South, who asked me about this during a Work and Pensions Committee hearing, wanted to know about some of the numbers. So far this year, since the pension freedoms were launched, incidents reported to Action Fraud are lower than the year before, but I completely agree with her that we must remain on top of this. To be frank, we have to be tough, because one scam succeeding is one too many.

Moving on to women who have been affected by the change in pension age, I am probably one of the few women affected who actually welcomes the fact that I will be able to do this wonderful job for longer, but I realise that not everyone feels that way. To respond to the questions from the hon. Member for Torfaen about the number of meetings that have been held, the number of updates and the transition protection and his Hansard reference, which shows what an effective researcher he is—he is a published biographer—I will defer to my colleague Baroness Altman, who will write to him with the details.

The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South also asked about the Pension Wise data and when it will be published. In ministerial speak, I believe that the word is “shortly” so it should be up on the website soon. We will write to the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee as soon as that happens so that he is the first to know.

I have responded to most hon. Members’ points, but I will remain on my feet in case anyone feels that they have not had a chance to ask their question or to get one answered.

[Roger Mullin]

I thank the Minister for giving way at this late stage. Does she agree that, as I mentioned earlier, women face particular risks and therefore require particular additional support and guidance to ensure that they make the most of their futures?

[Harriett Baldwin]

I am sure that, like me, the hon. Gentleman is a passionate feminist and thinks it important that men and women have the same pension age. I appreciate, however, that the process of transition from the much earlier age at which women were retiring will, depending on people’s circumstances, have posed a range of challenges, of which the Government are well aware. As a constituency MP, I am also well aware of such issues. I will write to the hon. Member for Torfaen and the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Roger Mullin) with more specific points from my noble colleague.

Shall I conclude with my impassioned concluding remarks, Mr Betts, or is everyone happy to stop there?

Royal Bank of Scotland

Debate between Roger Mullin and Harriett Baldwin

Thursday 11th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his unopposed re-election as Chair of the Treasury Committee. That he asks a question about the footnote illustrates his forensic reading of the published materials. As he knows, at the end of 2009 the estimate was that the cost of bank interventions would range between a £20 billion loss and a £50 billion loss. As of last week, the Rothschild report estimates that that situation has completely turned around, and that the overall recovery from the bank interventions is in the order of a £14 billion magnitude. The overall cost of funding on our Treasury issuance is at record lows thanks to the prudent economic management of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor.

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

I welcome early sight of the statement.

The Government are fond of talking about long-term economic plans—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Absolutely. However, a sell-off is not a strategy, and a strategy for the banking sector is completely missing from the statement. My first question is this: is it not the case that there remains scope for a proper review of the options for the future of RBS, such as the consideration of creating challenger banks out of it? Secondly, yesterday I asked the Secretary of State for Scotland about the branch closures the length and breadth of the country that are being announced by RBS. Is that part of the price that people are expected to pay for this rushed sell-off? Thirdly, the statement mentioned concern about the drag on the economy and the poor performance in supporting small and medium-sized enterprises, so will the Minister explain precisely how the policy will further strengthen the SME sector?

[Harriett Baldwin]

I welcome the new hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Roger Mullin). What a refreshing change it is.

The hon. Gentleman asks about Royal Bank of Scotland in particular. I gently point out that if the Scottish National party had won the independence referendum, there would be no ability to intervene in the banking sector in the way that the UK Government intervened.

The role that Royal Bank of Scotland plays as the most significant lender in the SME sector is critical. It has not been able to play its full part because of public ownership. The Bank of England letter states that a phased return of RBS to private ownership would promote financial stability and lead to a more competitive banking sector, in the interests of the wider economy.