Financial Services and Markets Bill (First sitting)

Stephen Hammond Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 19th October 2022 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Before we start hearing from the witnesses, do any Members wish to make any declarations of interest in connection with the Bill?

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)]

I guide the Committee and witnesses to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

[Craig Tracey (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

I chair the insurance and financial services all-party parliamentary group and am a former insurance broker.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant]

Q I was thinking particularly about the powers to stop the damage from being done, rather than simply the power to pay financial redress, which usually takes a long time, is very stressful for victims and sometimes comes too late for victims who do not live long enough to see the compensation. The gross misbehaviour of a large number of financial advisers led to that scandal and many others. Are you telling us that, as it stands, the Bill does not give you significantly greater powers to intervene and get these people out the market as soon as you realise there is a problem?

Sheldon Mills: I think that what we would have said—I would need to look at the record to see the context—is that, effectively, we have to go through due process and understand the evidence and the data that would be there to see how those independent financial advisers are behaving. Therefore, the speed and processing of that may be what we were referring to.

If I remember at the time in relation to the British Steel pension scheme, the law was changed to allow people to exit their pensions under pensions freedoms. There was a range of issues in relation to understanding how independent financial advisers were going to respond to that. The speed and pace with which they did respond led to issues such as some of the challenges that British Steel pension holders have now. To confirm: there is nothing the Bill that specifically gives us additional powers in relation to those individuals.

Sarah Pritchard: I want to come in on a slightly broader point, which is that in the transfer of retained EU files, which encompasses part of the Bill, there are some EU files where, at the moment, the FCA will have limited lawmaking powers. The Bill will provide a framework that, file by file, the FCA will need for rule-making and enforcement powers to be considered at that time. That does not answer your question specifically in relation to British Steel, but it provides a mechanism, so you go through that analysis and assessment file by file.

[Stephen Hammond]

Q I thank the panel for coming this morning. I have two questions. Can we be clear that in the UK regulatory landscape and the international financial regulatory landscape there are public interest tests that are operated but do not affect the operational independence of regulators?

Victoria Saporta: In the financial regulatory space, the only example I know of where there is a test whereby the Government—I am not talking about Parliament—can intervene and revoke regulatory rules is in Australia. APRA—the prudential regulatory authority in Australia—has never been exercised. Whenever the IMF has done financial sector assessments, it has been critical. There are provisions, again in Canada, but the US system does not have any. It is Congress who can revoke material pieces of regulatory standards within 60 days. This is my understanding of it in financial regulation, which is separate to how it might exist in other types of regulation.

[Stephen Hammond]

Q But in the US there is obviously a different system in terms of the scrutiny of the financial system, which is probably why that power is vested there. I think that, from what Mr Mills said, there is actually already a public interest test in the CMA.

Sheldon Mills indicated assent.

[Stephen Hammond]

I just wanted to ensure that was on the record. Can we talk a bit about the metrics and transparency you might use to show that you are meeting the secondary objective—that the cost-benefit panel’s analysis will be transparent—and also how you consider you will need to show that you have met the accountability tests?

Sheldon Mills: Sure. I am happy to start with that. We are waiting to see the final description of the clause on competitiveness. Its current iteration talks about competitiveness and growth. It also talks in terms of the medium and long-term growth of the financial services sector and the UK economy. We have started to think about what the input measures we might see. Those are the things we can act upon ourselves.

A good example of that would be our gateway—our authorisations process. Is it as efficient as it can be? Does it place unnecessary burdens on time, pace and the application of it? That can help with the entry of firms into the UK. That is important. We are doing work on our gateway now. That is something on the input measures, but we then need to think about the outcomes. It is important to think about what data and metrics are available that have a causal chain between some of the activity we have—our authorisations activity, our policy activity and so on—and the outcomes we are seeking to achieve. One of the challenges we have is that the data on the link between financial services activity and growth and competitiveness—regulatory activity—is not significant. That said, we are looking proactively to see what measures we can find.

There are also two components to those outcomes. There is the activity that our financial services industry is providing, such as lending and support in terms of insurance and so on to UK firms and overseas. Then there is an outward form of competitiveness, thinking about how our UK plc financial services industry is doing in exporting financial services across the world. Both of those will be outcomes we will need to find measurements on.

Finally, there is the meta outcome. There is certainly Office for Budget Responsibility data that talks about sustainable growth. What is the higher level growth-type outcome you can look at and seek to link? I do not have the full gamut of that, but we are working very closely on it, so that we can provide measures and metrics that can support our use of the objective.

[Stephen Hammond]

Q And those would be transparent?

Sheldon Mills: Of course, absolutely. We will be transparent on that.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

Q Good morning. Sheldon, I read a speech of yours before about financial inclusion; I know it is something you care about. On the Treasury Committee, we have had a conversation similar to the one we are about to have. You probably know what I am going to ask you.

The Government have opted so far to not have a “have regard” for financial inclusion in the Bill. Do you believe that such a “have regard” for the FCA would ensure financial inclusion as a greater priority for the regulator? What else could be done with the Bill to ensure that financial inclusion is given a greater prominence?

Sheldon Mills: I hope we won’t have the same conversation as before. We have done some more work on financial inclusion following our conversations. Our position is still the same: we do not think we need a “have regard” on inclusion. We don’t think that that would add to our ability to act within our remit in line with our objectives. We have our consumer protection power and we have put in place our new consumer duty, which asks firms to meet a higher standard. We feel that we have sufficient powers to fix any problems that we feel we need to solve.

As we discussed last time, the regulator’s role is to support firms and the market to deliver to as many consumers as possible, including those who are vulnerable or might be excluded. However, we do not do that alone; we do that with partners such as Government, local authorities, charities and others. In relation to that, we are taking a proactive role and arranging a financial inclusion policy sprint in the autumn, working with Fair4All Finance and others. We will bring as many actors as possible into that space, using our innovation labs to work through the types of innovative activity we can put the financial services industry to in terms of tackling financial inclusion.

At the moment, we do not think we need a “have regard” given our current remit and the powers we have.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tulip Siddiq]

Do you have anything to add, David?

David Postings: I don’t really, no.

[Stephen Hammond]

Q Good morning, panel; thank you for coming. In their evidence to us a moment ago, the regulator said they would be transparent with regard to their responsibilities for accountability in the metrics and reporting of CBA, but Emma, in your written evidence to us, you suggest:

“The Financial Services and Markets Bill should be amended to include a power to require regulators to transparently report metrics”.

I wonder if you could comment on that a little, please.

Secondly, you have mentioned proportionality, and again in your written evidence to us you suggest that there may necessarily need to be more of it when we consider the risk, the nature and the scope of businesses, who they are there for and who their customers are. Does the Bill set the right tone for proportionality, or do you think there is still more we should consider?

Emma Reynolds: To take your first question, we think it is important that the regulators are not marking their own homework with regard to the secondary objective. We welcome what the PRA said earlier and the discussion paper it has put out, but we do think the Treasury could take upon itself a power to demand that the regulators report more frequently and when the Treasury has some concern about whether they are meeting the new secondary objective. We do think the Bill should go further in that regard. We do not want this objective to just be in an Act of Parliament and for it to never really be a reality. The question is, “Does this bite?” That is what a lot of our members are saying. We think there are ways that you could hold the regulators to account on that.

Does the Bill set the right tone on proportionality? At its core, it is an enabling Bill, so the proof will really be in the pudding. We hope so. Hopefully, the secondary objective will mean that the regulators will take that very seriously—that their regulation should be proportionate—so we hope so, but it remains to be seen.

[Stephen Hammond]

Q So, like you have just said with regard to the first question, we should look at ways of making sure that that is firmly set down, rather than just a principle.

Emma Reynolds: Indeed.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

Q May I ask you both about clauses 21 and 22, and digital settlement assets? Ms Reynolds, you talked about high standards. I wonder if you could both say whether you agree that the definition of a digital settlement asset is satisfactory and robust enough to safeguard consumers. It is rather broad.

David Postings: I think it needs to be broad, because the digital asset environment can change quickly, and if you define things too narrowly, you risk missing the next wave of change. Yes, I think it is good and wise to define it broadly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emma Hardy]

Is there anything you want to add, Karen?

Karen Northey: No, I think I covered it earlier.

[Stephen Hammond]

Q May I refer to my themes of transparency, accountability and proportionality? Charlotte, in your written evidence you say that the Bill should be amended to achieve the correct balance between customer protection and proportional regulation, and that the opportunity for improved accountability is falling short. I rather detect from your evidence that you agree with what Emma Reynolds said about the regulators marking their own homework. Will you comment on that? Karen, in your written evidence you talk about an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary approach to regulation. Could you explain what you mean by that?

Charlotte Clark: That language is really important. How do we get things like transparency and challenge into the system? I am not sure that writing it into legislation necessarily leads directly to it, but there is something about getting the right mechanisms, the right debate and the right challenge between Parliament and the regulators, without undermining their independence. This is such a big change. I do not think any of us could be completely certain that we have got it right, but it is about making sure that we have got the right balance and the right mechanisms to hold people to account.

[Stephen Hammond]

Q So you are suggesting that we should make some other amendments to the Bill to make sure that those things are there. Sally-Ann asked another witness earlier about the need for culture change.

Charlotte Clark: A good example is the cost-benefit analysis panel. At the moment, the regulators appoint people to that panel. That could be fine; it might not be. You might want a bit more independence in there and a bit more scrutiny. You might want to think about what those processes are. It is those sorts of areas where they could imbue cultural change. Dave Postings had the example of the consumer duty, whereby they told us what the cost was but not the benefits. We all have our favourite examples of regulatory change where we think, “You haven’t quite made the argument for this; you haven’t quite shown that this is going to be beneficial.” Making sure that changes is one of the things we would want to see.

Karen Northey: I will pick up on the second part of your question, on evolution versus revolution. It comes back to the fact that there is a significant amount of legislation to be reviewed. This is kicking off and enabling a significant review. Our members believe there are a lot of things in European legislation that work, and we do not want everything to go.

I harp back to the figures I mentioned before: £4.6 trillion out of £10 trillion is overseas assets. That relies very heavily on a concept called delegation, which allows UK asset managers to manage European funds. From our point of view, it is fundamental that we operate in a global regulatory framework in a way that does not put at risk what is a significant success story and a significant source of revenue and growth for our country.

The reviews that the Bill enables should be done in a targeted way, focused on those measures that will make the most amount of difference in terms of allowing the UK industry to work better. But we have always said that we are not looking for regulation to be torn up and suddenly having no regulation. This is about making modifications that will make a significant difference to our industry here in the UK.

[Stephen Hammond]

Q The Bill intends to do that; it is not intending to rip up regulation. It intends to make us more competitive, while ensuring the primary objective.

Karen Northey: Absolutely, and I think the process that comes has to be done in a way that is sequenced in the right way to allow proper consultation and proper input.

[Peter Grant]

Q Ms Clark, can I come back to your comment earlier about insurance companies having been set up in Gibraltar and elsewhere offshore but not in the UK? Do you have reasonable grounds to believe that the UK regulatory environment has been a significant factor in those decisions? Can you point to particular regulatory requirements that are preventing people from setting up insurance companies here?

Charlotte Clark: Why would you set up in Gibraltar and sell into the UK market? There is not a big market in Gibraltar.