Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-02-01
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Mark Christopher Field (Conservative, Centre-right): I will be neither as discursive nor as time-consuming as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), but he made some important points. Even before 2008, banking was one of the most highly regulated industries. Although I agree that ideally we need to move towards a much more competitive world in the banking sphere, it is also worth reflecting that one reason why we have not had a great upsurge of challenger banks is because—at least in the retail banking sector—the banking world is insufficiently profitable to make it worth while for such competitors to come through. One reason for that is because there is ever more regulation and compliance in the retail world. It is therefore perhaps predictable that the furore surrounding this Bill has been concentrated on the role in the institutional architecture of the Financial Conduct Authority, and the changes that have already been referred to regarding the Government’s original proposals on the senior managers’ regime As the MP for the City of London, I have had my ear to the ground over 15 years as Governments—Labour, the coalition, and now Conservative—have grappled with devising a framework of regulation and compliance, in particular one that was fit for purpose in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008. We should all accept that that is not easy work and, in making such changes, it is important not to undermine our global competitive advantage in financial services—again, that was alluded to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chichester, who pointed out that the most effective regulatory framework will probably have an international nature, rather than one specific to the UK We should all be much poorer if regulation is designed simply to punish banks and bankers. By the same token, sensible voices from the City of London—there are more than might be appreciated by certain elements on the Opposition Benches—fully recognise that the British public need to see the risk of future bail-outs kept to a minimum. For all the talk of maintaining free markets and global capital flows, the sheer importance of the financial system to the economy as a whole means that there will continue to be some form of implicit guarantee from taxpayers in the event of a future financial crash. The price to be exacted by the public for that guarantee is rigorous regulation and watchful compliance, as well as the ongoing banking levy that has been introduced and is, I think, here to stay As the Minister will recall, I must confess that I have consistently argued against the reversal of the burden of proof, which had been proposed as a key element of the senior managers regime. I am pleased that we have not implemented what was going to come into place on 7 March. I should therefore rightly pay fulsome tribute to the Treasury for rowing back from this draconian and potentially unenforceable measure. Likewise, I am pleased that the Government have fiercely resisted attempts in the other place to resist that There was already plentiful evidence that senior executives of global banks were thinking twice about relocating, or indeed continuing to be based, here in the United Kingdom. The notion of a criminal liability being levied on management for actions committed by junior bank staff who were perhaps working even in another jurisdiction, and such liability being regarded by the courts essentially as strict, risked leading to an exodus of senior management from London. Indeed, it has been my understanding that the senior managers regime, as originally proposed, was the single biggest consideration in the ongoing deliberations by HSBC and Barclays that they might headquarter outside the UK—more important than concerns over the bank levy, bonus caps, remuneration caps and the whole ring-fencing agenda.