Financial Services and Markets Bill (Second sitting)

Stephen Hammond Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 19th October 2022 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I think this will be the last question, asked by Stephen Hammond.

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)]

Q Martin, you have mentioned that you were a regulator, and I think I heard you say a moment ago, “If it doesn’t get measured, it doesn’t get done.” Therefore I am keen to ask you about and understand—you have obviously looked at the Bill in its totality—the need for metrics on net zero, competitiveness and proportionality. Do you think there is enough in the Bill and that is testing and stretching enough? And do you think that there is enough transparency in relation to the regulators to show that they have met those metrics?

Martin Coppack: I am sorry: I just do not feel quite qualified to answer that one.

[Stephen Hammond]

Okay.

[Gareth Davies (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)]

Q Martin, I want to ask you very quickly about all the data that you have been listing in the evidence. I take this evidence session very seriously. I think that it would be really helpful if you could share the constituency data, but also, importantly, the workings. Can you just confirm that the way in which you are working out the poverty premium is not based on a best-case counterfactual?

Martin Coppack: What do you mean by “best case”?

--- Later in debate ---

[Tulip Siddiq]

I think that is quite clear. Anyone else?

[Stephen Hammond]

Q Good afternoon. That was a very clear expression of your views. I will ask three things. Do you think that we should wait and see how the intervention powers are actually defined, and how public interest is defined? Do you think there are other jurisdictions that use those powers? In terms of the definition, will it not matter how they are defined between “operational” and “strategic”?

Martin Taylor: The wording that I have seen is of course not final, but what I find strange is that it suggests the regulators are not acting in the public interest. If they have to be overruled in the public interest, clearly you think they are acting in some other interest. For me, the regulators are the public interest made flesh.

[Stephen Hammond]

Q That is a possible interpretation. The other possible interpretation is that they have acted in the public interest and on their behalf, but the Government want to have a reserve power potentially for future consideration.

Martin Taylor: The Government have enormous influence over the regulatory process. Sometimes people characterise the regulators as living in an ivory tower or something like that, as if they are academics who sit, removed from the real world, and think up rules without any feeling for what impact they might have. In fact, if you think about it, first of all, the independence of the regulators, such as it is, is circumscribed—it is set by Parliament. It is all set by primary legislation; that is No. 1.

Secondly, the wider Government and particularly the Treasury have tremendous powers to influence regulation. The Treasury appoints all the independent members of committees. The Governor and the deputy governors of the Bank of England are Crown appointments, so effectively No. 10 and the Chancellor have a certain say. The Treasury representatives sit on these committees and let the regulators know the Chancellor’s view. The Chancellor, whoever it may be at the time, writes to the committee and sets out their views on the things they ought to take into account.

There are very close working relationships between the Governor, the Chancellor and the permanent secretary, and then all the way down the chain at the Bank of England. The regulators swim in the soup like everybody else.

[Stephen Hammond]

Q I do not think that regulators are in ivory towers. I spent 20 years in financial services. They came to visit me and what they did with our firm never make me think they were in an ivory tower. I sometimes thought I had regulators who were trying to regulate businesses in which they did not necessarily have experience, but that is another story and we will get on to that later.

May I ask your views on the secondary objective?

Martin Taylor: The new secondary objective?

[Stephen Hammond]

Yes, the new secondary objective as proposed in the Bill.

Martin Taylor: I have a curious view that the fewer objectives you have the better, because the more likely you are to hit them. I have no objection to the secondary objective, if I can put it that way. It does not seem to me offensive. I was very pleased to hear the then Chancellor say in the Mansion House speech that there was a clear hierarchy of objectives, and that seemed to me to be fine. I don’t worry about that.

[Stephen Hammond]

Q I think it has been explicit all the way through that there is a hierarchy of objectives. Would you agree that the Bill should ensure that there is a clear set of metrics and there is transparency for showing how that objective is being met or is not being met?

Martin Taylor: If that can be done, I would certainly welcome it. One of the difficulties that the Financial Policy Committee has always had is that if your job is maintaining financial stability, it is not always very easy to see if you are succeeding. One can see that recently, for example, the Monetary Policy Committee has not been meeting its inflation objective. That is an objective in hard numbers, and for the FPC and for other regulatory bodies it is harder.

[Emma Hardy]

Q Thank you, Martin, for your candour. What risk could the intervention pose to financial stability and to the UK’s reputation and global competitiveness if left as it is?

Martin Taylor: I do not want to exaggerate. I said this was a corruption of the system and corruptions work slowly, so it does not make us into Argentina or Turkey overnight but that is the direction of travel, if I can put it that way. Independent regulation is not an aesthetic choice; it is a practical one. I think the transparency of the regulatory process in London—the need for the regulators to explain themselves and especially the scrutiny by Parliament—is one of the cornerstones, along with the legal system and various other things we are familiar with, of London’s attraction as a financial centre. The UK’s reputation needs a bit of tender loving care at the moment, I would say, and bringing in unnecessary measures that risk damaging it seems to me unintelligible.