Interest Rate Swap Derivatives

Stephen Lloyd Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) and all the supporters of this debate on raising an important issue. I also pay tribute to my Treasury Committee colleague, the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) for his detailed explanation of a complex aspect of this subject that probably not everyone understands.

This is the latest in a series of issues that has corroded, damaged and sometimes destroyed trust between banks and their customers following the payment protection insurance scandal. We should pause and consider a couple of features of the PPI scandal. It was characterised, first, by a refusal to admit that there was a problem; secondly, by a refusal to take responsibility for that problem; and finally, by a huge bill for the banks because it had taken too long to face up to those things. I wonder whether any of those lessons have really been learned given the way that this issue is being dealt with.

Like the hon. Member for Wyre Forest, I spent much of the past year serving on the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards chaired by the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), where we looked into the standards and culture of the banks more widely. We found a sales culture, backed by the bonus systems, going right down to branch level. The banks pushed products like this, often allied with a product that the customer wanted, namely a loan, yet sometimes the customer was not even aware that a product was being sold to them or, if they were, whether it was a voluntary agreement or something they had to accept as a condition of the loan.

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

The right hon. Gentleman has hit on something really important, which is that the banks’ whole modus operandi was to sell products that individuals wanted and slip in the interest rate swaps underneath. I am glad that he has reminded us of that. Does he agree that it is important for these businesses to know that it has been agreed on the Floor of the House, and it is recorded in Hansard, that they will be offered compensation that aims to put them back in the position in which they would have been if there had not been a mis-sale, plus interest rates of about 8% a year?

[Mr McFadden]

I do agree, but there is also the question of who gets that redress and who does not.

Underneath this sales culture, we found that instead of a culture of a duty of care to the customer there was—characterised by the combining of products, often a simple product with a complex one—a culture of “buyer beware” that put the responsibility for fully understanding and being aware of all this in the customer’s lap, with, in many cases, the bank showing a lack of responsibility.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I, too, pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb), who has led this cause absolutely heroically. I am sure that Members across the House will wish to join me in saying to my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) that I wish I could say that he had anticipated my remarks. I feel sure that his speech will stand as a landmark in terms of making this debate and these products easy to understand.

The system of money and bank credit ought to be the lifeblood of a free economy and a prosperous society, but as we have heard in this debate, and from across our constituencies, the banking system is not the servant of a free economy but has become its master, and a tyrannical master at that. Businesses in our constituencies such as Stewart Linford, furniture makers in High Wycombe, have found themselves treated utterly appallingly.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary will not stay his hand when he criticises the financial system for what it has done. Too often, Government Members treat the banking system gently as if to criticise it were to criticise a free-market system. It is not a free-market system. It is heavily regulated, heavily directed by the state, and awash with implicit and explicit guarantees that produce moral hazard and perverse incentives. Apart from anything else, interest rates have been unexpectedly low because of the interventions of central banks. When Andy Haldane, the executive director of financial stability at the Bank of England, went before the Treasury Committee and explained that the bond market bubble was the biggest threat to financial stability, he clearly stated that the Bank had deliberately inflated it. The fact is that the system of money and banking is state directed.

[Stephen Lloyd]

Given the behaviour of some of the banks, does my hon. Friend agree that the Financial Secretary and the Government should consider adding a further penalty if repayments are not made within a certain time frame?

[Steve Baker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I want to make the case that I think that, in this regard, the banking system may have crossed from mis-selling into fraud.

This morning I was shown a transaction by its author that was part of a system in which a bailed-out bank hid losses of £1 billion on a £10 billion loan portfolio. It was done lawfully and it was enabled by the accounting standard of the international financial reporting standards. The way in which the IFRS accounting standard treats derivatives allows people to up-front unrealised cash flows as profit and then pay bonuses out of them. That is probably why so many of these products have been sold.

The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) spoke eloquently about the bonus system and the incentives it creates. The Government should look extremely carefully at what has been done with regard to the use of IFRS accounting, the incentives it creates and what that means for people who sell products and take bonuses. They should also look at whether the IFRS complies with UK company law.