Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-11-11
Topic: Mixed Topics
Susan Kramer (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I realise that some of your Lordships will be surprised that we have introduced an amendment with a clause referring to the Green Investment Bank into a discussion of a Bank of England Bill. Your Lordships will be aware that the Green Investment Bank has been one of the great successes of the coalition era. It filled a gap left by a market failure which had resulted in any green project requiring long-term, patient investment having great difficulty in accessing that kind of financing. The Government put something in the range of £3 billion into the Green Investment Bank, which has been so successful that it has since leveraged an additional £6 billion from the private sector. It is universally regarded as one of the most successful creations for enhancing our long-term investment in green infrastructure. This Government have made the decision that they wish to privatise the Green Investment Bank. Discussions around that should and must take place in the context of the Enterprise Bill, but it is clear from the discussion so far that privatisation presents a problem. In order to completely remove the Green Investment Bank from their books, as the Government intend, they cannot continue to exercise any control over the bank after it has been privatised. They cannot require that the mission of the bank continues to be green investment; new owners could convert the bank to any other purpose at will after privatisation. Indeed, the Government cannot even require that the bank continue as a going concern. It would be quite possible for a new owner to absorb the existing assets into other parts of its business and make the decision that, as those assets were paid down, it would invest in a whole variety of other activities; it need not continue to provide a green investment bank at all. The Government, as I understand it, believe that they are helpless to provide for that requirement post privatisation. I do not think that is the wish either of the Government or, frankly, of Parliament As I say, this has been a successful bank. There are real concerns that private investors might turn the bank to another purpose—not because it is not successful but because there will be other ways to make money once the assets begin to return cash. Indeed, as I said, the reason why the bank was created in the first place was that the market showed very little interest in providing financing for these kinds of projects. Hopefully, attitudes have changed because the Green Investment Bank has established a very positive track record, but there is absolutely no guarantee. The future of the Green Investment Bank once it is in private hands is in question We faced a very similar problem when the system was set up to enable Royal Mail to be privatised. That privatisation is now going ahead. The Royal Mail, as your Lordships will be aware, was and is the vehicle through which a universal postal service is provided, under which every area of the country is covered by a postal service at a single, identical rate, which applies no matter where in the country anyone is. So my question became: if the Government could find a mechanism through which Royal Mail continued to have that set of obligations, could a similar mechanism provide for the Green Investment Bank to continue to have its existing obligations? The mechanism used for Royal Mail was that of the regulator, Ofcom I do not pretend that there is any quality in the drafting, but I have pulled together provisions from the Postal Services Act 2011 and the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act to try to establish a similar framework for the Green Investment Bank. The regulator in this case would appear to be the PRA, because that is the role it plays in relation to the banking industry I understand that the Government are willing to listen if we can find ways to keep the purpose for which the Green Investment Bank was created. I very much hope that moving the new clause creates an opportunity for the Government—for the Treasury—to become engaged. One problem that we often suffer from within government is that actions get siloed to one particular area. Frankly, the Green Investment Bank has ended up getting siloed over to BIS. But it is an issue that could impact equally well on the Treasury, because the Treasury has the relationship with the banking regulator which I propose to use in this case. It is on that basis that I move the amendment, and I hope that the Government will seriously look to see whether this route offers everyone a mechanism to get to the solution that most wish for.