Financial Services Bill — House of Lords, 2021-04-19
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, who has just delivered what I can describe only as a bombshell of a speech—one that makes the case for the extraordinary importance of this amendment and for a far broader cleanout of the Augean stables of our financial sector and its so-called regulation and, indeed, of our entire UK system of government I remind noble Lords that Amendment 33 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sikka—also signed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, and to which I am pleased to attach my name—creates for the FCA a "duty to make a statement about ministerial directions on investigations" I also remind noble Lords of a key part of the speech that we have just heard. On 30 May 2017, possibly in response to previous invitations, the Thames Valley police and crime commissioner wrote to Prime Minister saying: "There is a serious problem with bank governance, which appears to be corrupt at the highest level in a number of our major banks. The governance system itself is being run by those most involved in cover ups and corrupt practices." That came from the Thames Valley police and crime commissioner, yet it appears that nothing has been done in response to that letter. I note also, as the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, said, that despite an initial offer of a meeting, the late Sir Jeremy Heywood subsequently declined to meet the police and crime commissioner. Who should be paying attention to this? I would say everyone in the UK, and indeed the world, for while it might be more than a decade since the threat presented by the financial sector to the security of us all was made so starkly evident, the threat remains and is undoubtedly even greater now than in 2008. Among those who should be paying particular attention, I strongly suggest, are all those who have been assuring us in this House and elsewhere that everything is fine: "Nothing to see here, just a few bad apples being cleared out". People have been saying that there is no problem with regulation or transparency, or the risks that the financial sector presents. They should pay attention to the noble Lord’s speech The House has heard my views before on the deep-rooted, decades-old—indeed, centuries-old—issues with our financial sector. I am not going to repeat those, which I explored at some length in Committee. Instead, I focus in this stage on the financial sector as a huge global crime issue, as a major United Nations initiative has recognised. I refer to the High-Level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity for Achieving the 2030 Agenda—the so-called FACTI panel. It is calling on Governments to agree to a global pact for financial integrity for sustainable development. This reminds us that while we often think of white-collar crimes and fraud as victimless, in fact they are crimes that damage the whole world, but particularly the poorest and most vulnerable in the UK and globally The FACTI panel, consisting of former world leaders and central bank governors, business and civil society heads and academics, says that as much as 2.7% of global GDP is laundered annually, while corporations shopping around for tax-free jurisdictions cost Governments up to $600 billion a year. We have heard often in debating the Bill, and elsewhere from the Government in particular, about how prominent the UK financial sector is on the global stage and about its world-leading role. There can be no conclusion from the FACTI report except that it is directed clearly at the UK and at your Lordships’ House The FACTI panel says that stronger laws and institutions are needed to prevent corruption and money laundering, and that the bankers, lawyers and accountants who enable financial crime must also face punitive sanctions. The report also calls for greater transparency on company ownership and public spending, stronger international co-operation on the prosecution of bribery, to which this amendment is particularly relevant, on minimum corporate tax, which I asked a question about last week, and on the global governance of tax abuse and money laundering. In Committee, I also referred to the Center for American Progress, not necessarily an organisation with which I often ideologically agree. However, it was making similar arguments to those of the FACTI panel. I invite any noble Lords with an FT subscription—which is all of us, through the Library—to look at stories tagged "financial fraud". They make for a sober set of reading Action is needed. We hear often about the need for the UK to be world leading. I want to reflect on a meeting—which I know was before the pandemic because it was in person, conducted upstairs in one of the Committee Rooms of your Lordships’ House—when I had a discussion with a group of University of Michigan master’s students. They were visiting with their professor while in Europe to study fraud; their entire master’s degree was in fraud and corruption, examining the scale of it around the world. Pointing down the road from your Lordships’ House, I said to them that the City of London was one of the global centres of corruption. I was perhaps not surprised but still interested to discover that there was no expression of shock or surprise from those students. They simply nodded in agreement, as if I had made a statement that to them was blindingly obvious The City of London has been trading on its global reputation with centuries of propaganda, backed for much of that time by the muscle of colonial power. The world has moved on and is less and less likely to believe the propaganda. Amendment 33 is a simple, modest and far from sufficient step, though an important one, to ensure transparency in the governance of our financial sector—indeed, transparency of our governance. I commend it to your Lordships’ House.