Mr David Lammy
MP for Tottenham · Labour · United Kingdom
“I am delighted to welcome the shadow Housing Secretary to the Dispatch Box. He, of course, could have been doing that job every week if he were better with numbers.”
“The right hon. Gentleman has not proposed what the Conservatives would do if they were in office. They released 10,000 under four different schemes, with no impact assessment when they released them, no victim contact when they released them, and no warning. They did it on the sly.”
“This is a very serious issue and the right hon. Gentleman is experienced in this House. He knows that while he was Home Secretary, the Conservative Government had an early release scheme that let out 10,000 offenders—10,000. They had six schemes within a year.”
“I have been asked to reply on behalf of the Prime Minister, who is attending the NATO summit. Working with our allies, we are strengthening Europe’s role in the alliance, which remains the cornerstone of our national security.”
“The right hon. Gentleman insists on proving that he cannot count. We lost 16,000 police officers when the Conservatives were in power. The British people have not forgotten what they did to our country. After two years of this Labour Government, I will compare our record with theirs every day of the week.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I have the honour to say that His Majesty the King has accepted our advice to grant Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in the United Kingdom, a conditional pardon. [Hon.”
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“I have a feeling that my hon. Friend is clear about which side of the argument she is on. This Minister is not a bad man. so we will be interested in what he has to say—and which side he will pick in the forthcoming leadership battle.”
“My hon. Friend makes a serious point. According to the Government’s answer to my written questions tabled earlier this month, “No decision has been taken on the future of Land Registry”. I fully expect that line to be trotted out later today, but the serious questions that hon. Members are raising about transparency in this important institution must be heard.”
“I entirely agree, and indeed I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, whose party has for a considerable time been one of the custodians of our land. That is why this is such a serious issue.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is deep concern about a hike in fees and a profit motive distorting a public institution that we all value. I hope that the Minister will take that on board and give the House some comfort on that in the coming hours. I give way to the right hon. Gentleman.”
“The hon. Gentleman is demonstrating why he should be a Privy Counsellor and why he has been knighted. The Government should accept the cogent case being made by esteemed Members on the Government Benches. We are aware that there is a general sense that the Government are itching to privatise the Land Registry. Unlike with the 2014 consultation, this time around the status quo is not even being offered as an option. The wording of the consultation document is focused on how, not if, the Land Registry operation should be moved to the private sector. We know that the Government have commissioned bankers at Rothschild to size it up. We also know that potential buyers are linked to offshore tax havens. I am here today, alongside colleagues across the House, to make our opposition known and to call on the Government to think again.”
“The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is yet to publish the responses to the latest consultation, but I have taken the time to read through the responses to the January 2014 consultation. I quote Clifford Chance, the law firm, certainly no stranger to the profit motive or enemy of the private sector, which said that privatisation would create: “An inherent conflict between a private sector company, whose main purpose is to maximise shareholders’ profits, and the need of consumers for a low cost, high quality and risk free service”.”
“While the Government claim they will retain “ownership” of the land register, a private company would be free to grant title and make changes to the register as transactions occur. The consultation document talks of putting “the right protections in place” to ensure that the Land Registry would continue to deliver an impartial service to customers. However, there is absolutely no detail about what those protections and safeguards might be. In the words of John Manthorpe, former Chief Land Registrar, “at the heart of this is the nonsense that a private company should have the power to decide the legal land and property title rights for others”.”
“If the House will forgive me, I will make some progress, because so many Members want to speak. The recording of land and property ownership is integral to the functioning of our economy and has been carried out with integrity and impartiality by the Land Registry since 1862. Indeed, the Land Registry’s reputation as wholly independent from the influence and pressures of the market is crucial to its work. The current consultation exercise tries to preserve that necessary independence by attempting to create an artificial distinction between “Land Register ownership” and a new company which “delivers Land Registry services”. That is totally meaningless in practice.”
“In time, whatever sum the Government might secure from a sale today will ultimately be paid for by the people and businesses who use and depend on the Land Registry’s services.”
“It is one of a kind, and users are compelled to pay the fees during any transaction involving land or property. There is only one Land Registry; it is a compulsory monopoly and we need to reflect on what would happen if this public monopoly became a private monopoly. We would have profiteering—pure and simple—by ripping off the public with inflated fees. The Minister refused to answer my written question of 6 June about what steps would be taken to ensure that Land Registry service fees did not increase in the event of privatisation, so I hope we will hear something from him today. We are left to assume that the “protections” and safeguards that the Secretary State mentioned in the foreword to the consultation document do not include any protection from vastly inflated service fees.”
“My hon. Friend makes a very serious point. Even if there were a case for these proposals—I suspect all of us agree that there is no case—now cannot be the time to continue with them. There is no doubt that a private company would seek a profit and become a compulsory monopoly business, driving up the fees charged to users—the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas). A sale price of about £100 billion has been mooted in the press. A private company would therefore look to recoup this investment through the fees it charges and then turn a profit for its shareholders. The argument we often hear in favour of privatisation is that competition will drive prices down, but this completely disregards the fact that the Land Registry is a unique asset in our lives.”
“This privatisation is not only woefully misguided, but plain wrong and should be abandoned before the public interest is sacrificed in favour of a short-term profit. I look forward to what the Minister has to say and the many contributions from Members in this House this morning.”
“Crucially a private company would not necessarily be subject to the Freedom of Information Act, so would have no duty to supply such data when asked. Confidence in land and property in our society depends on a land registration system that is administered with integrity, neutrality and absolutely no conflict of interest. It is a nonsense that a private company should be given an adjudicatory role on the land rights of citizens, other companies and the Government. It is a nonsense that a publicly owned Land Registry that is performing well and returning healthy dividends to the public purse should be turned over to a private owner. And it is a nonsense that this is being forced through by a Government apparently committed to tackling offshore tax evasion and corruption in this country.”
“As recently as last month, the Minister for the Cabinet Office told the Open Government Partnership in South Africa: “The UK is a leader on transparency...Increasing openness and tackling corruption are 2 sides of the same coin.” A public Land Registry could open up its data to support efforts to tackle the endemic corruption and abuse of the property market. Currently, the average fee for the searching and provision of Land Registry data is £3. Journalists and campaigners have made use of that function to lay bare the true scale of offshore ownership of UK property, much of it derived from shell companies set up to avoid tax or to launder dirty money. A private organisation would have no obligation to open its data and would be able to charge whatever it liked for providing such data.”
“We are faced with a severe housing crisis and institutional tax avoidance on a huge scale. First, we need serious steps that will make it harder for shady offshore entities to buy up property in this country, and secondly, we need to make it harder for opaque shell companies to shield themselves from scrutiny and investigation. Privatising the Land Registry would achieve the complete opposite. Surely the most basic common sense tells us that the first step in any crackdown on tax evasion, money laundering and corruption should be to ensure that data about who owns what are made public and are not privately held.”
“London is not a place to stash your dodgy cash.” How, then, can we be in this situation? I noted with interest the Prime Minister's article in The Guardian , in which he said: “We know that some high-value properties—particularly in London—are being bought by people overseas through anonymous shell companies” using “plundered or laundered cash.” The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has also said that it is aware of the problem. Perhaps the team who wrote its consultation document could let the Minister know. I listened with interest to this year’s Queen's Speech, which promised that “legislation will be introduced to tackle corruption, money laundering and tax evasion.” I say this is in the strongest possible terms, and I say it as a warning to the Government.”
“The Panama papers leak earlier this year brought to light the industrial use of tax haven shell companies by tax evaders, oligarchs, corrupt crooks, drug traffickers and arms dealers seeking to conceal their wealth. More than half the 214,000 companies whose details were leaked were incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, and many channel their money into the UK property market. A total of 100,000 properties worth £170 billion have been registered by shady and opaque overseas entities in the UK to hide their true owners. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister and Members of his Government have consistently spoken of a crackdown on offshore tax evasion and dirty money. Indeed, the Prime Minister himself declared last year: "There is no place for dirty money in Britain...”
“We are told that “91% of respondents did not agree that creating a more delivery-focused organisation at arm’s length from Government would enable Land Registry to carry out its operations more efficiently and effectively”, and that “89%...not be comfortable with non-civil servants processing land registration information”. However, although the overwhelming majority of respondents made it clear that the Land Registry must remain publicly owned, the Government are back, disregarding what was said just two years ago and making their case again. A further issue of vital significance is the impact that a privatised Land Registry would have on the transparency of our property market.”
“Sadly, we know that this Government have previous: just look at what they did to Royal Mail. Let me deal briefly with the conclusions of earlier studies. In particular, the Government’s quinquennial review of 2001 found that the privatisation of the Land Registry “should be firmly rejected”, and would “be an act of…considerable folly”. It is clear from the responses to the consultation on proposals to transfer the Land Registry to a service delivery company in 2014 that the proposed privatisation was decisively rejected by most of the respondents.”
“If the Land Registry were making a loss and being subsidised by the taxpayer, I could understand the Government’s enthusiasm for privatisation, but it has made a surplus in 19 of the last 20 years, and it returned over £100 million to the Treasury last year alone. The Land Registry pays rich dividends to the public purse, and there is absolutely no reason why it should pay dividends only to wealthy investors and shareholders in the future. Satisfaction with the Land Registry is currently running at 96%. Far from being a basket case of public sector inefficiency, it is a shining example of a successful public service being run efficiently and effectively. I must state in the clearest possible terms that privatising it would be daylight robbery and a national scandal.”
“I must make some progress. We therefore reach the crux of the issue: the Government are looking to sell off the family silver to turn a short-term profit to try to make their sums add up. As the most recent Budget showed, the Government’s plan to close the deficit is dead in the water, so now they are looking around for assets to cash in. This privatisation is purely political, with absolutely no regard for what is right for the Land Registry or indeed the people of this country. The short-term profit derived from any sale will be dwarfed by the increased costs that are ultimately paid by all of us in the form of increased fees, and it will be dwarfed by the lost revenue to the public purse in the medium to long term. There is no economic rationale for this privatisation.”
“When the Minister says the Government have no plans, is he in fact pronouncing on the consultation? He has heard the House this afternoon: no one has risen to speak in favour of privatisation. Obviously, one is reflecting carefully on whether to test the strength of feeling by putting the matter to a vote. It is important to understand what the Minister is saying, because the real concern is that this is a Treasury-driven proposal—that was one of the reasons he gave. If that is the case, it probably is right that the House of Commons demonstrates to the Treasury that it probably would not get the privatisation through.”
“Resolved, That this House notes the important role the Land Registry plays in registering the ownership of land and property in England and Wales; further notes that the Land Registry has made a surplus in 19 of the last 20 years and paid back £120 million to the public purse in 2015 alone; believes that any privatisation of the Land Registry will have serious consequences for transparency and accountability in the UK property market and hinder efforts to crack down on corruption and money entering the UK property market via offshore jurisdictions; expresses grave concern that all the potential bidders for the Land Registry have been found to be linked to offshore tax havens; notes that the Government has acknowledged that property can provide a convenient vehicle for hiding the proceeds of criminal activity; notes that the Prime Minister stated in July 2015 that there is no place for dirty money in Britain; regrets the Government’s decision to seek short-term profit at the expense of the public interest; opposes the proposed privatisation of the Land Registry; and calls on the Government to reconsider that proposed privatisation.”
“I hope that the debate gives some comfort to those deeply concerned across the country and to those who work for this great institution. With that, we can perhaps move on to the next debate. Question put and agreed to.”
“This afternoon, the strength of feeling in the House has been conveyed. Across the House, there is opposition to the privatisation of the Land Registry. I think we can describe the Minister as one of the Government’s more eloquent junior Ministers. I think he acknowledged that he was making a case for looking at the matter, but that he clearly had not made a compelling case for privatising it. He used phrases such as “listening very carefully to the House” and “merely looking at it.” On that basis, those who read the debate in Hansard and reflect on what he has said and on what he has not been able to say in any convincing form might conclude that it is unlikely that the Government will move forward in this way. Certainly with the majority as it is, it is clear that the Government would not command the strength of the House.”
“The hon. Gentleman has just made an excellent point, but may I ask him this? Given the iconic status of Glastonbury, and given the problems that clearly existed before the last branch closed, did the bank bother to consult him before making its decision, or was he presented with a fait accompli?”
“We have Spurs—the best premiership football club—building a new stadium in the constituency, yet the bank did not think that it was worth picking up the phone and calling the local authority leader or the local MP to say, “We are thinking about this. What do you think? What will the High Road look like in the months and years ahead?””
“In just two weeks’ time, that HSBC will close its doors for the last time. My constituents have been told to travel to Southgate if they want to access a branch, but the journey takes at least 45 minutes by bus. What is the impact of that closure on the elderly? What is the impact on the disabled, the vulnerable and local traders who rely on such branches? I am appalled that HSBC’s management did not feel it appropriate, or even a matter of common courtesy, to consult the local Member of Parliament, the local authority, councillors or the community before making that decision. The situation is an outrage because my constituency is a target regeneration area for the Government and the Mayor. The Treasury has underwritten regeneration in Tottenham to the tune of £500 million.”
“Indeed, the rate of closures experienced in traditional manufacturing and inner-city areas is 3.5 times higher than in areas defined by academic researchers as middle England—mainly suburbs and small towns. It is therefore a cruel twist of fate that those who are most likely to be adversely affected by branch closures are the people living in those areas in which most closures are happening. Do we really want this country to become like some areas of the United States where those who are already deprived and poor are bereft of quality financial services and left to flounder? Again, that is why this debate is so important. I know the situation to be true because earlier this year HSBC decided to close its branch on Tottenham High Road after almost 100 years. That followed the closure of a branch of Barclays the year before.”
“Indeed, 90% of the 600 branch closures between April 2015 and April 2016 took place in areas where the median household income is below the average of £27,600 a year. Move Your Money has told me that, far from responding to demand pressures, the major UK banks are simply closing branches in poorer areas and opening or retaining them in more affluent ones. We are seeing the creation of a dual financial system in all but name, with one section for the wealthy and the middle classes, and another for those on low incomes. The University of Nottingham has found that the least affluent third of the population has borne the brunt of two thirds of the total closures since 1995.”
“Just because more people are repaying small debts to friends or carrying out basic money management online or by using an app on their phone, that does not mean that branches are becoming redundant—far from it. The Social Market Foundation has found that, when it comes to big financial decisions such as taking out a loan or a mortgage, or seeking financial planning advice, the majority of consumers still use bank branches. In these troubled economic times, ordinary folk want to be able to go into their branch and get good advice so that they can properly plan their finances, but in towns, villages and cities across the country, that is soon going to be nigh on impossible. That is why this debate is so important. Banks are disproportionately shutting up shop in lower income areas.”
“Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and RBS have been hit with fines of more than £55 billion since 2010, and that figure is set to rise to £75 billion by the end of next year, but who takes the hit? Their customers, whose views and needs are completely disregarded by the banks’ management teams. It is not as though there is no evidence to tell the banks that their customers value their local branches and want them to remain. Research from the Competition and Markets Authority in April 2015 found that 63% of current account customers felt that having a convenient local branch was either “essential” or “very important”. Research conducted for TSB in June found that 69% of people believed it was important to have a bank branch close to where they lived.”
“It does not strike me as fair that ordinary people are paying the price for the failure and mistakes of banking executives. Those ordinary people have been good to the banks. They have loyally paid in their savings month after month. They have taken out their mortgages with their bank. In the cases of Lloyds, Halifax, RBS and NatWest, they have bailed them out after the banks got themselves into trouble during the financial crisis. The banks have got themselves into trouble time and again, lurching from one scandal to the next, by aiding and abetting clients who want to avoid paying their taxes, fixing the LIBOR rate, money laundering, mis-selling PPI—the list goes on.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) and the hon. Member for Wells (James Heappey) on securing this important debate and echo the concerns that have been raised. Looking at the evidence, it appears that the Government lack the political will to hold the banks’ feet to the fire. What happened when a review into banking culture was announced? It was quietly shelved a few months later. What happened when branches were closing down at a rate of almost two a day in rural communities and deprived areas across the UK, affecting local businesses, the elderly and the disabled? Very little indeed. And what is happening when banks renege on their promise to retain the last bank in town, meaning that 1,500 communities have lost all their banks? Absolutely nothing.”
“I think of parts of this country that not so long ago had floods, for example. It takes a long time for a high street, a village or a town to get over a flood. Are the banks going to blame lack of footfall and say, “Things were a bit depressed for a few months so we just couldn’t stand by you. We’re disappearing”? Customers have stood by them, so it is about time that they grew some, as my mum would say, and stood by the community.”
“More than a third of total high-street spending is contingent on the ready availability of cashpoints. I was told by HSBC that one reason why it was closing my local branch was footfall on the high street. I pointed to the fact, which it had seemed not to realise, that we had had riots just a few years before and that we had found wonderful businesses that wanted to support the high street, not desert it, as it made its way back from the riots. Given that this bank was meant to be one of our national institutions, citing footfall as its reason was deeply painful to my constituents. In tough times, people remember who their friends are. The banks should think carefully about their customer base and how their customers feel when banks desert a community that has already been through the mill and is trying to build its way back.”
“In June 2014, research by YouGov for the British Bankers Association found that over 50% of people see a branch as important, with that figure rising to 68% for SME customers. The impact of branch closures goes far beyond local businesses having nowhere to go to get credit or to do their banking. The consequences are grave for the whole high street. Local retailers are hit hard by the fact that customers go elsewhere when they do not have easy access to cash, which is still the preference for many, despite the rise of chip and pin and contactless payments. Cash still accounts for 46% of high street sales, with that figure rising to 75% in newsagents and convenience stores. On average, local ATMs inject some £16 per withdrawal directly into nearby stores, which amounts to £36 billion a year.”
“When I was a 16-year-old with what felt like very little prospects way back in the mid-1980s, I got a little job over the summer holidays in that local HSBC branch—it was then Midland Bank. I feel personally affronted that the bank where I saw my first prospects, and where I had put on a suit and thought that I might have serious job one day, is to be shut down without HSBC even thinking of consulting me. It meant a lot in the local community that I used to work in the bank, but HSBC was not interested. That is what big banking has come to in this country after all that we have paid in. I am frankly appalled by HSBC’s behaviour. Given that the Government talk about being a friend of small business and the high street, it is important that they think carefully about this issue.”
“The hon. Lady makes an excellent point; that is also my experience. I am talking about consultation with democratically elected people. Banks certainly ought to speak to the local authority leader before making a decision to say, “We’re thinking about it. What do you think the impact might be?” All of us, as professionals and Members of Parliament, are used to having private, confidential conversations every day of the week. We are sometimes able to say, in private, “Have you thought about this or that?” We can talk about the future economic context of a community of which the bank may not be aware. But there was none of that; I was presented with a fait accompli. Frankly, HSBC was patronising.”
“On that basis, it really is time the Government got a grip of this quiet scandal and tragedy that is taking place across our country and really hurting a lot of local communities. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester for bringing this debate to the House.”
“The Government have not assessed banks’ compliance with the commitments in the protocol, I assume because their conclusion would be that there is no mechanism in place to police whether banks have fulfilled the commitments that they made in relation to closing down a branch. If a bank says that it is closing a branch but will work out an arrangement with the post office so that customers can bank there, or will move its ATM so that customers can still use it, are those promises worth anything if there is no way to enforce them? The access to banking protocol is merely being used as a Trojan horse on both sides. Banks can claim they have followed the protocol, no matter how meaningless it is, and that therefore their hands are clean and they do not need to do any more.”
“Another problem with the protocol is that there is no firm definition of adequate replacement services; it is left up to the bank to assess and even define those. Leaving the elderly and disabled with no choice but to take a 90-minute bus trip is not an adequate replacement service by any stretch of the imagination. It is clear that when banks make their decisions, they do not take into account the public interest or the likely damage that a closure will cause. I cannot see how the access to banking protocol is anything other than a woolly and inadequate attempt to protect the bank’s name.”
“The protocol states that after a bank has decided to close a branch, it will engage with local stakeholders in order to understand the impact on the community, businesses and consumers. What is the point of a consultation after the decision has been made? That is not a consultation in the proper sense of the word—it is a notification of the closure. May we change the wording from “consultation” to “notification”? Once the horse has bolted, it does not make a blind bit of difference how customers or local businesses will be affected, so surely it would make sense to have a proper, full and open consultation process in place when the bank is considering the future of a branch, before serving notice on the local community in question.”
“In response to my written questions last month, the Government revealed their belief that “banks should act in the best interests of their customers and continue to serve the needs of the consumer as well as the wider economy”, and that “it is imperative that the banks live up to the spirit, as well as the letter, of the commitments in the protocol.” However, the Government also revealed that they have not “assessed the impact of the protocol or banks’ compliance with their commitments in the protocol”. Perhaps the Government have not bothered to assess the protocol because they know that it is irrelevant. It cannot and does not aim to alter any decision and, as such, pays mere lip service to the idea of access to banking.”
“My hon. Friend is right. The House will recall the hugely important role that building societies played in local communities 20 years ago. We destroyed that important relationship as they all merged and became banks, and now we are left where we are. That local proximity and that different structure were lost and now we have to reinvent it. I hope that the hon. Member for Wells is part of that reinvention. The Government should think carefully about whether we need a review of such new structures. If we do, the man to do it is my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas), who knows a lot about mutualisation and co-operatives. We need that back on our high street. The access to banking protocol is undergoing independent review by Professor Russel Griggs—I am sure that the Minister will refer to it.”
“May I say to the Prime Minister that I saw very closely the work that he did during the riots and I am very grateful for that? He will recognise that some of my constituents are among the poorest in Britain. In these very tough economic times, it is the poorest who will suffer. Does he recognise that young people, poor people and many middle class people who voted for remain want a plan, and that lies behind the call for a second referendum on the detail?”
“Does the hon. Gentleman also recognise another grave threat in Kenya: that of young men, in particular, being seduced by extremism? We saw that extremism again yesterday in Orlando. International development and the 0.7% commitment assist in the battle against that terrible, terrible seduction.”
“I am also concerned that, whether we are talking about Comic Relief or Sport Relief, there is an armchair approach to aid, whereby people just sit back, give money and do not ask hard questions about countries’ governance, transparency and trade—and in the end, it is trade that we want to see across the developing world. That said, this debate goes to the heart of the poverty that still exists in our world. Across the world, 124 million young people are not in school and not being educated. This country has a proud tradition, but it also has a colonial past inextricably linked to that of many of the countries mentioned in this debate. As a descendant of people from one of those countries—my parents are from Guyana—I think it is important to put that on the table. As we move from empire to Commonwealth, we remain interconnected.”
“I am grateful for the opportunity to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. First, I declare an interest as a former trustee of ActionAid and an ambassador for that fantastic non-governmental organisation, and also as president of the British and Foreign School Society, a grant-making trust that gives grants to developing countries across the world. It is vital to say at the start of this important debate that I do not believe that aid is a panacea. I lament some of the adverts that we see on television every week showing emaciated black and brown children with bloated bellies, and, frankly, the poverty porn behind too many of our great NGOs.”
“I am grateful for that intervention. The right hon. Gentleman will also recall Jubilee 2000, the campaign to write off debt, and our deep history with many of the countries where there is that debt and that environment. Yes, there must be aid, but there must also be very important discussions—discussions that we are failing to have as a society about how these countries move into economically stronger positions.”