Cyprus

Debate between Stephen Williams and Greg Clark

Monday 18th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

It was the policy of the Labour party to be committed in principle to joining the euro, and it was our right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks), now the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, who was the first in the House to say that the Conservative party would campaign against the euro and would not join. As a result of being outside the eurozone, we are not responsible for the arrangements there. We are not part of those negotiations. This is a negotiation between the Government of Cyprus and members of the eurozone.

[Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD)]

The amounts involved are eye-watering as a proportion of the Cypriot economy. We are used to bail-outs involving a haircut for creditors. This is the first time I have ever seen a complete scalping of depositors in order to finance a bail-in. Given that we are outside the various institutions of European decision making, how will the Government safeguard British depositors against future scalpings of this sort?

Financial Services

Debate between Stephen Williams and Greg Clark

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. One recommendation of the Wheatley review was that the setting of LIBOR benchmarks should include objectivity. That will require a reduction in the number of benchmarks because some do not have the volume of transactions to establish that, but the new regulated conduct of LIBOR setting will include a requirement to route the reporting of rates through transactions that are visible to the Financial Services Authority. The opportunity to parlay the commercial interest of particular banks into what is supposed to be an objective rate will therefore no longer be there.

[Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD)]

My right hon. Friend has delivered his statement in his usual calm and moderate way, but his constituents in Tonbridge and mine in Bristol West will be absolutely disgusted and furious when they discover that a lot of these abuses took place after the £45.5 billion taxpayer-funded bail-out of the Royal Bank of Scotland that saved those jobs. The Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards is clearly still working, but surely one outcome of such abuses should be that any individual involved is struck off—whatever criminal and civil sanctions could be taken against them—and never allowed to work anywhere else in British financial services. If they were a doctor, lawyer or accountant, that is precisely what should happen. That is the real culture change that we need in banking.

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend is right. The constituents of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) might be concerned if I sought to represent them, but my constituents in Tunbridge Wells do, I think, share the fury that has been described. For a bank that has caused the taxpayer to bail it out to such an extent to then engage in practices that could—had we not taken action to require clawback—have resulted in further cost to the taxpayer, is outrageous. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) that the individuals implicated in such practices should leave the financial services and find a better living, rather than working in an industry in which trust and confidence is required.

Banking Reform

Debate between Stephen Williams and Greg Clark

Monday 4th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

I confess that I did not quite understand whether the hon. Gentleman’s point was that he objects to the power to separate any particular bank or the general point, but we can talk about it afterwards. It is important that the regulator—the Bank of England—should have the ability to address a bank that breaches the rules and that does not respect the integrity of the ring fence with consequences, those consequences being full separation.

[Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that consumers and businesses want the existing banking sector to receive the hot blast of competition and that, in order for that competition and choice to exist, we need a regulatory regime that will allow in new entrants, especially those that specialise in community-based banking and in lending to small businesses and social enterprises? Might not one such new entrant emerge from the break-up of the state-controlled RBS?

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend and I completely agree about the need for more competition in the banking sector. It is one of the features of the banking crisis that it has resulted in a concentration in the number of banks. Frankly, there were never enough in the first place, and we need urgently to see more new entrant banks of all types coming in. We are working with the existing regulatory authorities and, through amendments to the Bill, we will transform the state of competition in the banking sector. I very much hope to see an infusion of new energy and talent into the banking system in this country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Williams and Greg Clark

Tuesday 29th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

Yesterday, I met the leader and chief executive of Sheffield and we were discussing the very good progress made in the Sheffield city deal, which all parties, including the hon. Gentleman’s, strongly support as being key to the economic prosperity of Sheffield in the future. I would hope that he would welcome that.

[Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD)]

We already know that in April the personal tax allowance is going to be raised to £9,400—the largest rise in history. By the time we next meet for Treasury questions, the Chancellor will have put the finishing touches to his Budget. I now urge him to take the final step and deliver £10,000 of tax-free pay in time for April 2014.

Sustainable Communities Act

Debate between Stephen Williams and Greg Clark

Tuesday 6th March 2012 Westminster Hall

[Greg Clark]

We have a plan-based system in this country, and all applications are judged against the development plan. It is right that the plan continues to be the basis for determining planning applications. In putting together the plan, however, every community across the country—whether at district, borough or neighbourhood level—will want, and is indeed obliged, to consider the future prosperity of its area. The beauty of a plan-based system is that local knowledge can inform decisions about how an area can prosper in future and how it can house the people who want to live there. The examination of neighbourhood plans and local plans would test whether something was a reasonable response to the area’s future needs. It is absolutely right that local people are the first to make the decision, and that the content of the plans is not, as was previously the case, substantially directed by regional spatial strategies, which the Localism Act will abolish.

Neighbourhood planning therefore gives parish and town councils an important role. I am delighted to say that the National Association of Local Councils, which represents town and parish councils across the country, is one of a number of organisations that have been funded by my Department to assist parish and town councils that are interested in producing neighbourhood plans. That help is there, and it is already available to local councils.

In response to the hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson), I mentioned the prospective abolition of regional spatial strategies, which, again, took power away from local people, and the consequence of that imposition was to alienate people from the planning system. One thing we know from this country and from the continent is that the more genuinely, the more substantially and the earlier we can involve the local community in plan making and in planning decisions, the better the outcome is in terms of design and serving the area’s needs, and the less contentious things are. If people feel that something is being done to them, rather than involving them in a participative way, they are likely to bridle at that imposition. Part of the point of taking powers to abolish regional spatial strategies was to involve people at a much earlier stage.

I want to make particular reference to a new power in the Localism Act that is germane to this issue: the requirement to have compulsory pre-application scrutiny for significant developments. The earlier a community is involved in a process, the better that is for everyone. Having a requirement to demonstrate to the community that it has had the chance to be involved and consulted before an application is made for a significant development maximises the chances that the application will go with the grain of what people want and need locally and will not simply be in defiance of it.

We have taken those powers. In terms of discharging the requirement to have pre-application scrutiny, parish and town councils are obviously bodies which it would be sensible for applicants to consult. If there is a requirement for pre-application scrutiny, it would be a strange way for applicants to proceed not to take the views of parish and town councils into account. We are therefore introducing—we will publish the regulations shortly—a big change in local people’s entitlement to be involved and to have their say in planning applications.

Parish and town councils are statutory consultees for all sorts of planning applications, and it would obviously be good practice—this goes completely with the grain of the reforms that we have made and continue to make—for applicants to engage constructively with them. It is always difficult to compel someone to appear in a particular place, but I would strongly encourage applicants to engage with, and respond to, reasonable requests from parish and town councils to meet. I say that not least because we often find in our lives as Members of Parliament that when we meet to talk about something, it is possible to find common ground on issues that seemed contentious. I certainly endorse and encourage the spirit of what my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West proposes on behalf of Leiston-cum-Sizewell in terms of the engagement between parish and town councils and applicants.

[Stephen Williams]

I welcome what the Minister has said, and particularly his strong expectation that applicants will engage with parish and town councils, or with local communities where such councils do not exist. If the experience is that applicants do not engage, however, will the Minister consider whether they should be required to do so in future?

[Greg Clark]

We have set out a requirement that there will be compulsory pre-application scrutiny for major applications—my hon. Friend will agree that it is sensible to have a cut-off point so that not every application needs to involve that degree of required consultation, which is not desirable always and everywhere. We will shortly publish details of how we propose to interpret that provision through the regulations, and my hon. Friend will find that our proposals would make it clear to any applicant that the requirement to engage with communities properly, rather than superficially, is absolutely there.

Let me briefly make a point about the funding side of things. It is not the Government’s policy to compel developers or applicants to make contributions outside the usual means of paying for the scrutiny of planning applications, but it is clearly open to the developer—the applicant—and the town and parish council to have a voluntary arrangement that would assist with the kind of community engagement we all agree is desirable, not least on the part of applicants. The Localism Act—again reflecting the spirit of the Sustainable Communities Act—also provides that a meaningful proportion of the revenues from the community infrastructure levy will have to go directly to neighbourhoods, including town and parish councils, where there is one. The financial resources available to town and parish councils are therefore about to change substantially.

I hope I have been able to respond to my hon. Friend in a way that reassures him of our absolute commitment to continue with this important agenda. We are grateful to him for bringing Leiston-cum-Sizewell’s proposal to us, and the council will find that many of its aspirations are given practical effect through the proposals I have mentioned.

Question put and agreed to.

Core Cities

Debate between Stephen Williams and Greg Clark

Thursday 8th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

The reforms give more control and more direct ability for authorities to have the resources that they need to invest. One of the features of the system that we inherited from several Governments is that too often our great cities, which have an international standing and reputation, have had to look up to Whitehall to plead for assistance when they have the capacity and resilience to invest and reap the rewards themselves. That is the change that we want to secure and these proposals are a step towards that.

[Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD)]

The Minister has visited Bristol and he will know that the city of Bristol is not the same as Bristol city council. A pot of money will be welcome to help to solve the city’s transport problems, but power over the entire urban area would be more welcome. Will the Minister endorse the case for an integrated transport authority for the county that used to be Avon?

[Greg Clark]

This is one of the proposals that I expect to come from Bristol. The Government recognise, in this document, that cities include their surrounding area, and indeed that is how local enterprise partnerships defined themselves. One of the criteria for the deals is to ensure that all the connections in the area in and around the city are reflected in what is proposed, so I expect that to be part of the discussion that we will have with the authorities in my hon. Friend’s area.