Financial Services and Markets Bill

Debate between Vicky Ford and Tulip Siddiq

Report stage
Wednesday 7th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tulip Siddiq]

The hon. Gentleman is right that this is not just about bank branch closures; it is also about pressures in the Post Office. It is possible to provide some of the services through the Post Office, but we have a duty to preserve some of the banking hubs to ensure that the Post Office does not get overwhelmed. I am sure the hon. Gentleman has travelled around his constituency, and anybody who walks around their constituency will see the need for bank branches, banking hubs and post offices for our most vulnerable constituents. I am also surprised that the Bill has so little to say on financial inclusion more broadly, despite my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) flying the flag for financial inclusion with her brilliant amendments.

The co-operative and mutual sector also plays an important role in delivering financial inclusion. The Bill’s measures fall short of the Labour and Co-operative parties’ shared ambition to double the size of that sector in the UK. That is why I have tabled new clauses 4 and 5 requiring the regulators to report on how they have considered mutual and co-operative business models. In Committee, the Minister said that given that appropriate arrangements are already in place for regulators to report, that the FCA and Prudential Regulation Authority already produce well combed-through annual reports and that there is no deficiency in the level of engagement with the sector, such a measure is simply unnecessary. The sector was shocked by the Minister’s ill-informed response. It pointed to the FCA’s most recent annual report, published in July, where there is not one mention of the needs of co-operatives, mutuals, building societies or credit unions, while in the latest PRA annual report, building societies are just lumped in with standard banks. Every single business leader that I have spoken to, from Nationwide to the firms represented by the Building Societies Association, have called for the FCA and the PRA to report separately on these specific business models. Either the Minister believes he understands the needs of British mutuals and co-operatives better than the sector itself or he should support my amendments.

What is perhaps most striking, however, is how little the Bill has to say about green finance. Over a year ago, the present Prime Minister promised to make the UK the world’s first green financial centre, but on Monday the CBI warned that the Government are “going backwards” on building a greener economy. CBI director-general Tony Danker said firms need more action from Government on green finance. I therefore hope the Minister will support my new clause 6 requiring the Treasury to publish an updated green finance strategy with a clearly defined green taxonomy, as well as new clause 24 tabled by the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) introducing greater protections against deforestation. The Minister has said he is going to produce such a strategy imminently, but we look forward to hearing a timeline, because we are now very suspicious of the word “imminently” and want to hear clear dates and times.

In Committee, the Minister and his Conservative colleagues seemed astounded when I said that the Government and Minister were complacent about green finance. They took such issue with that that I felt I had to provide some evidence in my speech as to why I said it. The Government’s own independent Green Technical Advisory Group told them last month that they had to send a rapid market signal or we would risk falling further behind Europe, which launched its taxonomy back in 2020. In 2020 the Government legislated through a statutory instrument for a legal deadline of 1 January 2023 for the UK to establish the first set of green taxonomy criteria. That is less than a month away, so can the Minister tell me whether he is going to meet his own legal deadline? He is welcome to intervene on me if he thinks he is going to meet it.

The highlight of the Committee stage was when I received an early birthday present from the Minister: he gave me a copy of the “Global Green Finance Index” to read, which I read from cover to cover. It is scintillating. I thank him for the interesting read, but has the Minister read his Government’s own policy document, “Greening Finance”? If not, I have a copy here for him. The report says that the country is committed to consulting on the UK’s green taxonomy in the first quarter of 2022. No one will disagree that we are well beyond the first quarter of 2022. The reason I used the word complacent is that we are dealing with a Government who have missed their own deadlines and their own targets on green finance. If that is not complacency in action on green finance, I do not know what is.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

I want to talk about new clause 17, especially in relation to the insurance sector.

The insurance sector is extremely important in my constituency. Insurers and insurance brokers based in Chelmsford are responsible for about 3,000 jobs in my constituency. In addition, Chelmsford is a major commuter city and many more of my constituents commute into London to work in the insurance sector. It is also a very important sector to the UK. The entire UK insurance industry accounts for 4% of our national GDP. The sector brings in an estimated total tax contribution in the region of £16.1 billion, or 2.2% of UK Government tax receipts for 2020. To put it another way, the insurance sector’s tax paid the salaries of every single nurse in the NHS in 2020-21. It is a really important sector and we do not discuss it often enough.

Insurance is also a very international business. Insurers and brokers based in Chelmsford have parent companies in the US, Switzerland, Japan and Australia. All have chosen to be in the UK as a centre for investment, and more international investment means more highly paid jobs supporting not only the City of London but local economies such as those in my constituency and beyond. That investment is under threat. It faces competition from other jurisdictions and the amendments we are debating today will help to show new and existing investors that the UK is open for business. It is a highly competitive global trading environment and London must keep pace with other parts of the world—they want our business. London remains a world-leading speciality insurance market. Three quarters of business booked in the UK comes from outside the UK and London. It is an export-led market. It is not replicated anywhere else in the world.

London retains a lead role thanks to its historical prominence. However, its market share has stagnated in the past decade. The UK needs a renewed focus on competitiveness and growth, and the amendments we are discussing today will help to ensure clear accountability and transparency in how we do that. It is not a theoretical risk that we will lose business to other countries. We have already lost out on new markets, investment and opportunities. Singapore copied the UK’s insurance-linked securities regime, a new form of insurance and risk transfer product. It recognised the quality of the UK’s legislation that this Government introduced in 2017, but when it implemented the regime, the Singapore regulator took a proportionate regulatory approach and that has encouraged many more new entrants. Singapore has approved 18 ILS vehicles in less time than it took the UK to do five. In 2021 alone, the UK lost out on over $700 million of foreign investment in ILS to Singapore, because its regulator is more agile and more proportionate, even though it has the same legislation.

There are also problems in just getting the day-to-day work done. The Bill Committee heard evidence from industry about how the FCA is sometimes taking nine months to authorise a chief executive coming from overseas to operate in the UK. That is just not good enough. I have also been told that not a single new insurance company has been set up in the UK in the last 15 years. Surely that is a clear sign that the UK is risking its position as the world’s leading insurance centre? Businesses face vital choices about where they place capital, income and people. Regulation is a key part of that decision-making process. That is why it is so welcome that the Government are introducing the new secondary objective on international competitiveness and economic growth. It is crucial. This is not a call for a race to the bottom in regulation. High regulatory standards are a strength of the UK system, but regulators across the world, from Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and the EU, are all required to consider international competitiveness, so we should do so, too.

I congratulate the Minister and his officials on their work to date, especially on new clause 17. It is a very welcome recognition from the Government that there is a cultural problem with the regulators, that action is needed on the part of the regulators to address key issues regarding their performance, and that the Government have a key role in holding the regulators’ feet to the fire. The new clause introduces a power over the regulators’ reporting requirements by providing a mechanism through which to direct information to be published, but it is unclear how and in what circumstances His Majesty’s Treasury would use the powers within it. Can the Minister therefore confirm whether he intends to seek a report on the new international competitiveness and growth objective as soon as possible, given that it is a critical new objective for the regulators? Can the Minister also confirm that, in future reporting of the international competitiveness objective, he and other Ministers will impress upon the regulators the need to consider metrics specific to competitiveness, not just domestic competition, and that that must include comparative analysis of our regulators’ performance against competitor jurisdictions, as well as analysis of product and service innovations taking place in key markets?

The new clauses tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) go further on proposing a clear reporting criteria for the regulators to follow and on delivering international competitiveness and the growth objective. That would enable Parliament—I am looking at the Chair of the Treasury Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) here—to understand better how the regulators have been performing and the contribution they are making to facilitate our competitiveness and growth. In particular, new clauses 13 and 14 are designed to give the Government powers to require the publication of more performance metrics, including on new applications, authorised entities and persons. They already have some performance criteria, but the new clauses would extend that approach. It does not mean reinventing the wheel. Many are taken from the performance criteria of regulators in competitive jurisdictions. It would not compromise their independence, high standards, financial stability or consumer protection.

New clause 14 would add to the regulators’ authorisation key performance indicators outlined in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. It would require them to publish monitoring data related to the determination of authorisations. This is a real issue for many of those acting in financial services. It would reduce the compliance burden for firms that regularly need to give clear applications for approved individuals and would, in turn, promote the openness of the UK for highly skilled talent. I am nearly finished, Mr Deputy Speaker, but there are a few more I want to mention.

New clause 15 would require both the FCA and the PRA to publish an annual report setting out how they facilitated international competitiveness and growth against a range of data and analysis requirements. Instead of allowing the regulators to mark their own homework, it would enable Parliament to understand how the regulators are helping the UK to be more competitive and ensure that they undertake comparative analysis with other jurisdictions.

New clause 16 is targeted at achieving a more proportionate approach to wholesale and retail financial services. Although the regulators have a proportionality principle, it is clearly not working in practice. I have heard time and again from insurers in my Chelmsford constituency and others that the regulators have adopted a one-size-fits-all approach to regulations by treating all financial services, no matter the product or customer, as the same. This means that the regulators in insurance are spending time and effort on over-regulating sophisticated corporate entities with teams of professional advisers, which is really affecting their competitiveness. It would be much better for them to spend that time and effort on protecting individual retail customers, such as our constituents, when they are buying products online or on the high street. The wording of the new clause should be familiar to the Minister’s officials, because it is borrowed from the recommendation for a proportionality principle for all regulators, which was published in June of last year by the Government’s taskforce for innovation, growth and regulating reform.

Amendments 1 to 6 would ensure that the cost-benefit analysis panels are better equipped to undertake the necessary scrutiny of regulators’ work, and would ensure that they are independent from the regulators, that they can publish their recommendations, and that the regulators must respond to those recommendations. Again, this would mean that Parliament, industry and public see the data and avoid a situation in which the regulators are marking their own homework behind closed doors.

I understand that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire might not move the amendments, but they are all extremely serious. As I said, the industry makes such an important contribution to the tax income of this country and is key to funding our public services. It would be a tragedy to lose our international competitiveness and an industry that dates back to the Great Fire of London, so let us make sure that the Minister and the Treasury team can take the amendments into account.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Vicky Ford and Tulip Siddiq

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

Earlier this year, in June, I stood at this Dispatch Box and confronted the Minister about the number of nurseries and childcare providers that were closing because of the Government’s inability to fund the early years sector properly. The Minister accused me of scaremongering. Since June, there has been a further loss of 500 childcare providers in the sector, which brings the net loss for this year alone to nearly 3,000. Will the Minister make up for dismissing the concerns of parents, children and carers by providing targeted funding for the early years sector from this Government?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Vicky Ford)]

The Ofsted data from March shows a 4% dip in the number of childcare providers since 31 August, which is a fall largely driven by childminders and carers, not nursery settings. Sufficiency is the key measure and we have not had any reports of sufficiency issues in early years settings since they reopened in June 2020. We put £3.5 billion into our early years entitlements because we care about childcare.

Children from Low-Income Families: Education Support

Debate between Vicky Ford and Tulip Siddiq

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Vicky Ford]

A few other Members mentioned free school meals, including the hon. Members for Leicester East and for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq). This Government have extended the eligibility for free school meals more than any other Government for the past 50 years. It is this Government who introduced universal free school meals and expanded free school meals to those in further education. During the pandemic, we also widened the provision to many children who normally have no recourse to public funds. The Government have also provided funding to local authorities during the pandemic to ensure that the hardest-hit families are supported with food and essentials through the covid local support grants. That has even supported them during the school holidays. Those grants have been extended through the coming holiday at a cost of more than £100 million.

I want to get back to the point that the hon. Member for Slough made about Slough. Slough children’s services have been enormously challenging for many years. The Department for Education has provided significant investment in children’s services in Slough—nearly an extra £7 million over the past two years. As the hon. Gentleman knows, it transferred the ownership of Slough Children First, the trust, to Slough Borough Council in April. I call on him to get behind the relationship between the trust and the local authority. I, as Minister, have signed off millions of pounds to give that support to Slough children. He should work with the trust to put Slough children first in his constituency.

[Tulip Siddiq]

The Minister is boasting about free school meals and how much the Government have done. Will she admit that her Government were forced, kicking and screaming, to extend free school meals because Marcus Rashford and the Labour party shamed them nationally, which is why they felt they had no choice but to extend free school meals? They resisted that until the very last minute.

[Vicky Ford]

The hon. Lady has said this again and again, and it is simply not true. Let us look at the facts, okay? This Government, when I became the Minister for children, and over the past 10 years, had already extended free school meals to more children than any other Government during the past 50 years. We set up the national voucher scheme during this pandemic—a thing that had never been done before—to make sure that, when schools were closed to most children, they could still access food at home.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Vicky Ford and Tulip Siddiq

Monday 21st June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

Last week, the Early Years Alliance revealed secret Government documents that exposed that Ministers have been knowingly underfunding childcare, childminders and nurseries for years now, knowing full well that that would mean increased childcare costs for parents and lower-quality early education. Bearing in mind that in this year alone there has been a net loss of 2,500 childcare facilities in England, will the Minister apologise for covering this up? Will she explain to the House how she plans to rectify the very serious problem of underfunding in early education?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Vicky Ford)]

I do wish sometimes that my opposite number would stop scaremongering. We have put unprecedented investment in childcare over the past decade: more than £3.5 billion in each of the past three years. There are always a number of reasons why providers come and go from the register, including mergers and acquisitions. The key thing is whether or not there are sufficient places for children. We monitor the market very closely, and we are continuing to see that there are not a significant number of parents who are unable to secure a childcare place this term or since early years sectors reopened in June.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Vicky Ford and Tulip Siddiq

Monday 26th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

More and more children are relying on free school meals because of the pandemic. The Government’s holiday activities and food programme tells local councils to provide just 16 days’ worth of food support over a six-week summer holiday period, so could I ask the Minister: what does she expect children to eat the rest of the time?

[Vicky Ford]

This Government have extended free school meals to more groups of children than any other Government over the past half a century. We have spent almost half a billion pounds on vouchers so that children had access to food when schools were closed during lockdown. We have spent £270 million through local authorities on making sure that children, including pre-school children, could get access to food and essentials. We have this massive holiday activities and food programme running all across the country—not only food, but fun and friendships. I just wish the Labour party would get behind this fantastic initiative, go and see what it is giving our children, see what they get out of it and the benefits of it, and say well done to everybody involved.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Vicky Ford and Tulip Siddiq

Monday 1st March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

This Government are committed to supporting the early years, and we will be spending about £3.6 billion on early years funding this year, but to provide extra safety, we are rolling out home test kits for all those in nurseries and pre-schools—the staff in nurseries and pre-schools—from 22 March.

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab) [V]]

Social distancing is impossible in early years settings and special schools, where staff often provide close contact care, and it has been a nightmare for them to operate at high capacity in lockdown, with many staff off sick or self-isolating. Vaccinating school staff over half-term and prioritising key workers such as early years staff, once the most vulnerable have been jabbed, would have relieved this pressure, protected staff and helped to keep children learning, so why did the Government miss this open goal?

[Vicky Ford]

The top priority for vaccines must be to protect those most at risk of dying or being hospitalised by this hideous disease. It also involves protecting those who are caring for those most at risk. That could include, for example, a carer of a clinically extremely vulnerable child, but it would not necessarily include everyone who is working in an early years setting.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Vicky Ford and Tulip Siddiq

Monday 18th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

We have already announced in the spending review that we will put additional funding into early years entitlements in the next financial year. That will allow us to increase the hourly funding rates for all local authorities by at least 8p an hour for two-year-olds, and by 6p an hour for three and four-year-olds; of course, those in areas of higher disadvantage get higher amounts of money. That will pay for a rate increase that is higher than the cost nurseries may face from the uplift to the national living wage in April.

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab) [V]]

Ministers are telling everyone to stay at home, yet early years providers are being told to stay open for as many children as possible or lose funding. This month’s funding changes mean that nurseries, pre-schools and childminders will be punished financially for having lower demand than usual, or for limiting their opening during lockdown, and 19,000 providers could close by summer as a result. Is that a price the Minister is willing to pay, or does she think those warning about this are wrong?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Vicky Ford and Tulip Siddiq

Monday 12th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab) [V]]

Data from Ofsted shows that the number of nurseries and other childcare providers with coronavirus cases has, on average, been doubling every week since the start of September, yet many early years workers cannot access covid tests or get quick results, which is forcing them to stay at home. I have heard from a nursery in Surrey that has been forced to close as a result, affecting 40 children and depriving their parents of childcare. Will the Minister confirm whether childcare workers still qualify for priority testing? If so, why are they not getting it?

[Vicky Ford]

Yes, I can absolutely confirm that education and childcare workers, including those in the early years, are essential workers and have priority access, via the online booking portal. That has been the case since April.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Vicky Ford and Tulip Siddiq

Monday 7th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

I thank all the staff at Pace and special schools across the country for all that they do. We have worked with the sector to provide detailed guidance, which we continually update as needed, and we will continue to do so going forward. Those who need tailored support will be glad to hear that specialist therapists, clinicians and other support staff can attend school sites and provide those interventions as usual. In terms of our £1 billion of catch-up funding, there will be three times more going into special schools than into mainstream schools.

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab) [V]]

Many children with special educational needs and disabilities will find their return to school after a prolonged period of absence extremely challenging. The Children’s Commissioner for England has warned that Government guidance on school exclusion could encourage a zero-tolerance approach to challenging behaviour that may result in children with SEND who are struggling to readjust being excluded in large numbers. Can the Minister reassure me that she will not allow this to happen, and will she commit to reporting to the House the number of children with SEND being excluded from school as the term progresses?

[Vicky Ford]

Permanent exclusion should only ever be used as a last resort and must be lawful, reasonable and fair, and that is why we have already asked all schools to be understanding of the needs of all children and young people, including those with SEND, especially as they return. That is exactly the point I covered in my open letter last week to all children with SEND and their families. Off-rolling is never acceptable and will be monitored by Ofsted.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Vicky Ford and Tulip Siddiq

Monday 22nd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Being online has had great benefits for children, giving them access to educational resources and entertainment but also enabling them to stay in touch with family and friends, which is vital to their wellbeing. Social media companies have a role in keeping children safe. This Government are committed to creating a statutory duty of care on companies to protect their users, especially children. But they should not wait for us to legislate—they should act.

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

Charities such as the NSPCC and Barnardo’s have highlighted how children are at increased risk of online harm during this pandemic. It has been over a year since the Government’s White Paper on online harms, which set out the need for a duty of care regulator. Every day that this is delayed, more and more children are put at risk. So I ask the Government now: at what point will they stand up to the tech companies, put vulnerable children first, and bring forward a Bill on this?

[Vicky Ford]

I thank the NSPCC and Barnardo’s for the work that they are doing with the Government to help to keep children safe online, but also in the home and outside the home. We are committed to introducing a duty of care on social media companies. We published the initial response to the consultation in February and a full response will be published later this year. We are working with the sector on a detailed code of conduct. But the first thing we must do to keep children safe is to get them back in school, and I would like the hon. Lady to support us in doing that.