Financial Services Bill — House of Commons, 2021-01-13
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Patrick Bosco McFadden (Labour, Centre-left): I will not detain the House for very long. As this is my last contribution to the debate on this Bill, I begin by thanking the Minister and his Bill team for their patience and forbearance throughout our proceedings—it feels like we have been dealing with this for a few months now. I also thank the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), who has gone through the Bill assiduously and tabled many amendments I thank the Clerks in the Public Bill Office, Kevin and Nick, for helping us. They play a particularly important role in helping Opposition Members to draft and discuss amendments. The ideas are our responsibility, but they give us very good and important technical advice I thank the Committee Chairs, the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq), and all the Members who have taken part in the debates, tabled amendments or spoken in any way. I make particular mention of my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle), whom I congratulate on her recently awarded damehood. Finally, Mr Deputy Speaker, I thank you and your colleagues in the Chair We have not opposed the principle of the Bill, and we will not vote against Third Reading tonight, because we recognise the need for post-Brexit stability in regulation. We also recognise that this is possibly the first of a number of pieces of legislation of this type. We have sought to improve the Bill in various ways, either in Committee or today on Report. With the exception of the FinTech and financial crime amendment, the Minister has been, for the most part, resistant to these amendments, but a number of key issues have been raised. I hope that he and the Treasury will consider the broad sweep of issues raised around things such as: crime and money laundering—there is a real desire in this Parliament not to see our financial sector being regarded as an easy place for those things to happen; consumer debt and protection—Members have voiced quite passionate concerns, particularly given the year that we have just been through and the impact on household finances, that consumers are given help with what for many is a growing debt burden, and protection against mis-selling or inappropriate treatment by financial services providers or companies; mortgage prisoners, who we have heard about tonight, many of whom are locked into very difficult and disadvantageous mortgage products; plus the broader issues that we have raised about post-Brexit financial services, equivalence, green finance and so on The Government made a big decision—a big choice—particularly in their reincarnation, or incarnation, since December 2019: to place the issue of sovereignty above considerations of market access. We might go further and say that they chose to place the issue of sovereignty above considerations of economic prosperity, although perhaps Ministers and Members abroad would contest that. None the less, a choice like that was certainly made and it has big implications, potentially, for a sector that contributes a significant proportion of our GDP, employs around one in 14 people in the country, earns a lot of export revenues for the country and is a very significant contributor to tax revenues that pay for public services. We all have a great deal of interest in how this sector will be run as we have come to the end of the transition period. As I said earlier, we want this sector to be successful, to be innovative, and also to be responsible We want to ensure that the sector does well, but also that the public is properly protected against the risks inherent in an economy like ours, having such a globally significant financial services sector, and the risks if things go wrong, which we saw in our recent history. We certainly do not want to see a slash-and-burn approach to regulation in order to compensate for the decision—I stress the word "decision"— to lose at least a proportion of the market on our doorstep. It is in that spirit that we have approached the Bill, that we have tabled the amendments, and that we have chosen the amendments that we have put to the vote. Thank you.