Ms Stella Creasy
MP for Walthamstow · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“I thank the Foreign Secretary for his clear-sighted commitment not only to talk about a two-state solution, but to actually try to act to achieve it, as the only foundation of a safe Israel and a free Palestine.”
“Could he reassure the House that we will not acquiesce and bend to such pressure, and that the only action that could ever be acceptable to us to make us contemplate reversing this ban would be a halt on the E1 development and a permanent end to settler violence?”
“I start by paying tribute to the new Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), for all the work she did on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee on these issues. I know that she will do a brilliant job in this role.”
“I do not really understand the technology, but I know that he does, and I understand and share his fear accordingly. We come here today to debate this Bill because we all know that trust is a bygone issue in our politics.”
“We would welcome her having that conversation, which might be more illuminating than whether she is concerned about Zach Goldmsith’s leaflets. I add my support to the amendments tabled by my hon.”
“From today, if we do not take a stand with this Bill to tackle the ways that money has infiltrated our politics, the risk is that they will think we are acting in the interests of our own back pockets.”
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“The longer this place pretends that that is not going to be a problem—that debt is not going to be part of everyday life for millions of people who have never really had to deal with it before—the more the vultures will circle. I have tabled other amendments later on in the Bill, and I do not know whether we will get to them today, but I know we will get to them on Thursday. Those amendments are about how we protect consumers, but sunlight is the best disinfectant—knowing where the damage is being done. These new clauses and this data are about recognising that we will not get everything right now. There may be all sorts of consequences. What happens if the implementation of the vaccine takes longer to do and more industries go bust? We have already seen Arcadia going into administration today.”
“Again, I do not wish to prosecute the Insolvency Act 1986 and how it works, but I do wish to set out that, if people cannot access those mechanisms, the breathing space is no breathing space at all—it is just limbo. We will not know that unless we put those measures in the context that these new clauses create by asking to have that information and that detail. If we do not ask ourselves why it is that every six minutes a person is declared insolvent and bankrupt in the UK, is that going to change over the year ahead? If not, is the breathing space working, or is it that people are not able to access alternative support? The Minister will need that information to be able to flex the policies, as he inevitably will have to because of the Monty Python foot of covid.”
“That is why the new clauses are about having that evidence in front of us. I am a big fan of evidence-based policy making—although it has not often been in vogue in the 10 years I have been an MP—particularly when it comes to debt. That is partly because the figures change. As I said in my first set of contributions, there is some evidence that people are paying down their debts and trying to be more financially resilient, but we know that a tsunami of unemployment and low incomes is coming our way, and we know it will hit people who have not had to deal with it before—people who have never had to budget in the way that they will have to budget in the coming months. The new clauses are about having that information and understanding why people take up particular options.”
“I am sure I could think of a better analogy if it was not a Tuesday afternoon. One in three of those people reporting a fall in income over the past seven months has already borrowed to try to make ends meet. They are already on that carousel, going round and round, putting a bit of money here, hoping they can put another bit there and wondering when it will stop—hoping that schemes will come through. I am sure we will have heard about the economic impact in the debate in the main Chamber today, so I simply say to colleagues on the Government Benches: “You cannot be concerned about the economic impact of the tier system if you turn a blind eye to the debts in our communities and what happens to them.” It is dangerous simply to presume that we can spend our way out of this, knowing that debt is not equally distributed in our country.”
“I will speak to new clauses 12 and 19. New clause 12 appears in the name of my friend, the hon. Member for Edinburgh West, but I recognise that she and I share a similar concern about seeing these measures in the round. As the Minister has spoken this afternoon, he has made the case for doing that, because he has talked very strongly about the policy intent and all the work that has been going on, but he has said limited amounts about the Monty Python foot of covid coming down on those best intentions. Both of these new clauses speak to that Monty Python foot and the very different circumstances people face in terms of having a stable income to be able to repay any debt, problem or not, over the coming years. We know that there is already a problem brewing on top of a problem—a double problem, as it were.”
“In situations such as that with covid, which we know is an income shock, people might be expected to use their savings account, but they cannot because they do not have any money in it, so it is even more apposite to ask whether they have other assets that they might be able to draw on in comparison with their counterparts.”
“It is right that we ask ourselves whether this measure will get to the root of that problem—to the communities and people we represent who will not be able to save and whose lives will always be askew, because their counterparts have been able to benefit from that growing asset wealth, whether that is people who have inherited property or people who are now in communities such as mine, where housing costs and housing values have risen to such an extent that their children will be able to benefit from them, including from schemes such as remortgaging.”
“In looking at tax and benefit policies, and savings policies, the fact that someone can inherit £1 million in property without paying any tax at all stands against those families with £15,000 of debt who will never be able to put any money aside because they will always owe somebody else. All Governments of all colours have been burned before in trying to address some of these factors, and in taking a narrow view purely of income levels. I am old enough to remember TESSAs—not just the fantastic Dame Tessa Jowell who is sadly no longer with us, but tax-exempt special savings accounts, which drove income inequality in this country in terms of people’s ability to put money aside.”
“The 10 million households that have no savings at all stand in a very different place from the one in 10 children born in the 1980s who will inherit more than half average lifetime earnings. Property is the divider within our society and that trend has got a lot worse over the last 30 years, yet very little Government policy on tax and savings begins to address that and the income inequalities that it creates. When we are looking at a savings scheme and expecting people to have money to put aside––even what might seem very modest sums––we have to set it in the context of the other assets they have access to if we really want to get to grips with those inequalities in society.”
“The Help to Save scheme is about improving that situation. It is increasingly obvious that in constituencies and communities like mine that are riven by gentrification and inequality, it is assets that are the difference between success and failure. That is necessarily different from savings accounts, and it is right that when we are looking at what we are doing to help those on the poorest incomes succeed in life, we are cognisant of that fact and include it in our thinking. What do I mean in layman’s––or perhaps laywoman’s––terms? One in five mortgages are issued with the help of the bank of mum and dad. People with the bank of mum and dad are always going to be more successful and stable than many of those constituents who do not have access to that. Those are the people at whom the scheme is targeted.”
“One reason why I support the new clauses is that I do not think we can have a conversation about savings without talking about assets. There are increasing inequalities in our society. Indeed, the new inequality is not so much about income as assets. We are looking at why people do not take up the scheme, what we can do to make it work and whether it serves the purpose that we are trying to get at. While we come from different political traditions, I hope that the Minister would agree that income inequality is of itself a negative draw on our economy and social cohesion. Perhaps that is the best way I can put it to him. One day, I will tempt him towards the more radical socialism of egalitarianism. When we have people who have plenty and people who have very little, or indeed no access to anything, our society suffers.”
“I hope that the Minister will accept this new clause and my difficult second album about savings. This is two sides of the same coin of how people make ends meet. I would wager that that is why he has put them together in this portmanteau or Christmas tree Bill––given that it is 1 December, we may as well call it that. It is about how we make sure that people have the money they need, whatever the weather or time of year and whether things are going well or badly for them. Just as we would want people to get help when they get into debt, we also want them to get help to have rainy day money, as it might quaintly be called now. I said that to a member of my staff who looked blank and probably tried to look it up on Instagram. Clearly, helping people on low incomes to save is critical.”
“I rise to support what my Front-Bench colleague said on new clause 3 and to speak to new clause 14, which seeks to underline the question that she set. Given that this is a good scheme, why has it not been taken up more widely? The Minister may have thought that I was just a one-trick pony, obsessed with debt. Let me tell him that my difficult second album is very much about savings. I know that he had concerns about the drafting of my previous amendments and I want to put on the record my thanks to the Clerks, who have been incredibly helpful and patient with me in seeking to get the wording right. We all appreciate the hard work that they do behind the scenes to ensure that our drafting is intelligible, even if it is not inevitably accepted by the Minister.”
“It is wonderful to serve under your chairmanship, as ever, Mr Davies. The Minister is explaining that there is a process for enforcement. We all know that this issue is very specialist. If he thinks the current regulations and sanctions are appropriate, could he set out how they are being enacted and monitored? Frankly, it requires someone with a specialist understanding of how these rates can be manipulated to enact them in the way he outlines. If he does not want to add the amendment, could he explain how these issues can be investigated, and what resources there are to do that?”
“The Minister has set out the criminal sanction. I am interested in whether there is support and resourcing expertise in relation to the criminal element, as opposed to the regulatory element.”
“My right hon. Friend is making a powerful and important case about the importance of ensuring that we do not inadvertently support money laundering or standards that could enable that by accident. It is worth reflecting that in February this year, the EU anti-money laundering watchdog, MONEYVAL, called for Gibraltar to do more. One question for us in this legislation is whether there are things we can do to ensure that we are not inadvertently creating access that would enable such behaviour, now that we are leaving the European Union, which might have been offering that level of scrutiny. Does my right hon. Friend have a view on joining up those dots?”
“That seems an eminently practical example of the sorts of things that might happen if people with criminal convictions, who may still be able to access financial regulations as a result of the Gibraltar regime, are now able to operate in the UK.”
“My hon. Friend is giving the speech that I wanted to give, so I thought I would intervene. One example, to express some of the concerns we might have, is the fact that in the Gibraltar regime there is currently no legal requirement to refuse registration to someone with a criminal record. In practice that does happen. It is something that the FATF report flags, but it is not inevitable. One thing we might want to think about for our regulatory regime—and I take the point made by the shadow Minister about not suggesting that the UK regime is perfect—is looking at whether there are lessons in the report that should be put into the Bill to make sure we do not create such a back door.”
“While we are considering the variations for companies based in Gibraltar as opposed to the UK, it would be helpful if the Minister answered the question that the insurance bodies could not: about VAT benefits for companies based in Gibraltar and the likelihood, now that we have left the European Union, of companies moving more industry to Gibraltar because of that benefit, which could also affect consumers. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be helpful if the Minister set out those figures? The industry seemed slightly coy when we spoke to it about those matters.”
“Can he clarify that if there are companies that are historically registered in Gibraltar, which we would not want to see registered here, perhaps because the people running them have criminal records, will they retrospectively be denied a licence, or is it only those from new registrations onwards, as with the current Gibraltarian regime?”
“The Minister was just talking about the Financial Ombudsman Service being extended. One of the things that we might be concerned about is that our constituents might experience fraud from companies based in Gibraltar, perhaps in relation to insurance. Many of us can think of some famous Brexit backers who run insurance companies in Gibraltar and might have concerns about these issues. The FAFT report tells us that at the moment the supervision is only for new companies. There is a historical legacy of companies that have not previously been registered that might, therefore, under new supervision, be companies that we would not want to see operating in the UK. The Minister talked about the FOS’s requirements being retrospective, but that will be the same with the FCA.”
“The shadow Minister is making a powerful case, and I suspect he is about to move on to this point. In layman’s terms, the Government are asking financial companies, which represent hundreds of thousands of jobs in our country, to deal with more paperwork, more bureaucracy, more regulation and a tougher business environment in which to operate. Does the shadow Minister think that these major financial companies are going to adhere to that because they are rather fond of London, or might they make different commercial decisions because we have not secured the kind of regulation he is talking about as yet and move themselves to other parts of the European Union?”
“He says he envisages the FCA’s performing this role, so will he set out how he sees it performing that role if we do not say, “Actually, could we in a couple of years’ time get some information on how consumer risk has been identified and addressed in this process?”. That is harder to quantify, but no less important.”
“I do not think any of us doubt the Minister’s intention to get this right and to recognise that these decisions have a consumer impact. The challenge, which I think we all see, is that it is one thing for the FCA to conduct a public consultation on high-cost credit firms, for example—he knows my specialist subject—but on something like LIBOR or the Basel regulations, which is less tangible but no less impactful, the argument he is making seems rather to strengthen the point the amendment makes about including consumer risk as one of the things to be reported on, because it does not immediately grasp people’s imagination until a catastrophe such as the last financial crisis happens.”
“Is it not also important to recognise that some of the strongest drivers for reaching some of those emissions targets will come from the financial sector itself? For example, the move towards decarbonising pension funds has been hugely beneficial in promoting renewable energy. It makes sense to join the dots when it comes to our country’s financial objectives and our wider social and climate objectives.”
“The shadow Minister is making a powerful speech. I take the point made by the Government side, but I always wonder: what about the counterfactual? What problem will there be if we do not put these things into legislation? What message would that send about what might be jettisoned if, God forbid, we had another crisis on a similar scale to this year’s? Action on climate change is something that we simply cannot afford to go slow on. The counterfactual on this is an important issue, because it gives us an opportunity to say that if we do not put it into legislation, we are sending a message that this might be an optional extra, rather than an integral part of our future as a country.”
“Apologies; I did not realise the Minister was going to move on. He has made an incredibly powerful case for the importance of including such a commitment, and he has essentially said that the Treasury might look to include it. He said that it had looked only at the immediate and specific regulatory requirements. Of course, many of us believe that we are facing an immediate and specific crisis, so can he tell us why the Treasury has not already taken on the issue of climate change, given that he has made a case that it should be part of it? He has gone for pop No. 3 in the shadow Minister’s list. There might be a sixth option here, which is: “If we did not come up with it, we are not going to support it.” That would be rather short-termist, surely.”
“We should put on the record that the gender pay gap has not slipped but has been abandoned as a commitment by the Government. I hope the Government will rethink that quickly, given the importance of the case that the hon. Lady makes. It has not slipped—it has gone.”
“The challenge that the Minister has with these instruments is exactly the issue around the gender pay gap. We were told that that did not need to be written into the legislation, because there would be a commitment. As we have seen this year, that commitment has not been absolute. It has been abandoned by the Government. The Minister has said that he agrees with those commitments and the issues that the shadow Minister has raised, and that they might be put into legislation. Does he recognise that, for those of us who are committed to those high standards, the point of such amendments is to put it beyond doubt that they will actually happen? As we have seen, if we do not put them beyond doubt, it is tempting for future Administrations and future regulators to remove or weaken the protections.”
“If we are recognising that, it is worth noting that other nations that we compete with have already put gender quotas into legislation and beyond doubt, so we are behind our economic competitors. Ultimately, as we all know, the point about such regulation is that it would also make us more competitive. Blasting through the discrimination that has stopped us doing it would help our economy as well as our society.”
“Under the model we have coming forward in this Bill, it is not clear to me, without the involvement of Select Committees, where those conversations could take place, apart from with the financial ombudsman. Again, we are waiting until institutions potentially fail and organisations can pick up the pieces for that consumer voice to be heard.”
“The amendment is a way of getting that right, of having a place where those conversations could take place around financial regulation with a regulator that now has much more extensive powers than previously. It is a way of making sure that, as a democracy, we have a space where we can raise those concerns before problems happen. When we get to the new clauses I have tabled, one of the concerns I will raise is where we see other regulators—in particular, I think of the financial ombudsman having to intervene where our financial regulators have not been able to do their job around supporting and protecting consumers, and so the ombudsman has picked up the pieces.”
“However, I argue that it is worth looking at where the Select Committee process can add value to financial regulation in this country because, so clearly, it is our constituents who have paid the price when financial regulation has not looked at consumer risk and has not been able to ask questions before a crisis happened. Many of the issues that our Treasury Committee, for example, as one body that may be involved in this, has looked at have come from our constituents raising concerns and a recognition that something might be on its way. Many of us would argue, and I suspect the Minister would agree, that sometimes regulators have been slow to react because they have been trying to balance the needs of the industry with questions about whether interference might cause more harm.”
“Amendment 22 is an eminently sensible idea to say, “Hang on a minute, where there had been previous scrutiny and challenge from democratic institutions, we need to replicate that within the UK Parliament.” It comes from that perspective of saying that it is in everyone’s interest to have that check and balance because it has been of benefit under the previous regime and, under that regime, there has been too narrow a consumer voice. I am not going to prosecute that argument in full today, because I am going to save it for the Minister for the new clauses that I have put down and how I think he can do that. I can see his disappointment already.”
“The reality is that over the past six or seven years of having the Financial Conduct Authority that has not always been the case. The Bill gives those regulatory bodies more powers. As the shadow Minister has pointed out, it removes one of the mechanisms for consumer voice through the democratic process within the European Union. Therefore, it is right that we ask how we replace that and whether there are gaps in what has happened to date that mean it is even more important, when asking whether the financial regulators are living up to the issues we might want them to have regard to, that that consumer voice is being heard in that process.”
“We talked this morning very strongly about the impact of financial regulation on people’s everyday lives, the financial crisis and what could be learned from that. Many of us will have seen among our constituents people whose lives were decimated when financial institutions were found wanting and how that has driven the concerns about consumer protection in the wider work of the FCA. My concern as a Member of Parliament who has long had an interest in personal debt in this country has been about how that conversation is part of those bigger questions. As I mentioned this morning, often we look for specific issues when it comes to consumer voice and financial regulation. On the wider impact, it is almost a given that somehow regulators will think about consumers.”
“The shadow Minister has focused on the consequences of leaving the European Union and the lacuna that will be created in terms of financial regulation by the Bill if we do not have that clear commitment with the Treasury or any other financial body to look at Select Committees and the role they might play. I want to focus on the other end of that telescope and what it has been like to seek to give consumers voices within the existing regulatory framework, what lessons that might offer us in the future regulatory framework and why involving Select Committees might be a way forward. I am sure the Minister would say that working out how we make sure our constituents are heard is a work in progress.”
“As this is my first speech, let me say how fantastic it is to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq—none of us ever says anything other. I rise partly to presage what I am sure the Minister knows is coming, given our previous correspondence on my concerns about existing financial regulation in this country and where the voice of the consumer is heard in that. I am sure he has looked avidly at some of the new clauses that I have tabled, which seek to get at that and which I note will come much later, in the shape of new clauses 15, 18, 21 and 23. The shadow Minister has set out clearly how amendment 22 reflects those concerns. Again, where in the new financial regulatory regime being brought in by the Bill will the voices of our constituents be heard?”
“After all, that is exactly what happened in 2008: everybody leveraged each other, so the capital was gone, and when the roundabout stopped, it was our constituents who paid the price. I know by now, on the first day, that Ministers will think we are a broken record, but to ask the Treasury simply to provide that information and to look at it from a consumer perspective does not seem an unfair thing to do, given the history and the legacy of this that we have seen for so many in our constituencies.”
“Many years ago, when I first came into Parliament, we were dealing in 2010 with the aftermath of the financial crisis, and it was a very painful crisis for many. Everybody asked why we did not see what was happening. Why did we not see it coming? How could we not have seen that banks were over-leveraged? How could we not have seen that mortgages were being resold in the subprime market? The truth was that it was a closed shop, so everybody was marking each other’s homework and saying, “I am sure this will be fine.” This seems to me the mildest of amendments, simply asking whether we have the information to ensure that such an occurrence could never happen again, when we are talking about something as simple as the capital requirements that banks and financial institutions should have.”
“We are talking in quite abstract terms, but it is worth remembering that when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac fell apart in America, consumers were the first to feel the repercussions that were felt around the world. This financial regulation comes in in the aftermath of that, because it is still going on. There are still people and families who are paying the price for what happened in the financial crisis. This is not about reheating and repeating the arguments about who caused the financial crisis. It is about recognising that consumers in all our constituencies paid the price, first and foremost. As others have said, when we think about financial regulations, it can feel quite technical, distant and obscure because of the language we use, but let us remember back to those days.”
“I am struggling to understand why in this instance, with this amendment and this requirement of the Bill, given the role of the FCA in overseeing capital requirements, the Minister feels that it would not be important to have the data, so that we are not in a position in which that subprime lending happens again in a different guise. If we have learned anything—this is not just about the high-cost industry—it is that these models evolve. It is like water: exploitation in the system will find a way through unless we have robust procedures. It is possible to have both this report and a regulatory framework; the two are not mutually exclusive. If there is not a reporting provision, the Minister leaves a gap until one is in place.”
“I am sure the Minister will have some delightful conversations about the regulatory framework that will keep many people wide awake for hours to come, but the two are not mutually exclusive. This amendment and this debate are about capital holdings. Does the Minister recognise that what I said about what happened in 2008-09 is directly linked to this? We need to keep a tight eye on this, especially because of the global context in which it is happening. We cannot protect our economy and our constituents without some form of scrutiny and control. The Minister said that it is important to have parliamentary involvement, but he has just refused an amendment that would have brought the Select Committees into the process.”
“Tomorrow is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, as declared by the United Nations. British citizen Caitlin McNamara has spoken publicly about being seriously sexually assaulted by Sheikh Nahyan, the United Arab Emirates Minister for Tolerance. Has the Foreign Secretary raised that case with his counterparts in the UAE and demanded action on it? Have the Government looked at using Magnitsky sanctions, given that this gentleman is based in the UK and has property here? What are the Government doing in this case to show that it is not just words but deeds that matter when it comes to gender-based violence?”
“Hundreds of families in Walthamstow have finally managed to get their foot on the property ladder through shared ownership and now, as a result of this crisis, find themselves in properties that are almost worthless and facing huge bills. Will the Minister reconsider the decision to exclude bills that were incurred before 11 March, because many of those people have already tried to do the right thing and have incurred huge cost to themselves through the remediation works? Surely we should not penalise those people who have tried to act promptly on this matter.”
“Q You suggested there was a small VAT benefit to companies being based in Gibraltar. Obviously, this legislation would remove any other bar in terms of being based in Gibraltar but still being able to operate in the UK. Could you clarify what you mean by a small VAT benefit? Hugh Savill: That is why I offered to write. I am afraid I do not know exactly what the VAT arrangements are, and I will have to write it down. If I said any more, I would get something wrong.”
“I note, for example, that the proposals in relation to Companies House are not that it should be more discerning in the acceptance of the directors of companies registering, but rather that it should simply verify the accuracy of the identity and the information provided. Current initiatives do not go as far as you are suggesting would be reasonable. It seems hard enough just to get us responsible for ensuring the accuracy of the data, which is provided as a piece of our economic infrastructure, without getting to a position of demanding some kind of individual assessment.”
“If we will allow Gibraltar and the UK to operate in the way that this Bill does, do you think we could make it a requirement in the Bill to look at the criminal background of people applying for financial services? Duncan Hames: I should acknowledge that Gibraltar is not within the scope of the work that I do. I will not profess expertise on the rules as they apply in Gibraltar. I think Bloomberg reported today on a bank in Luxembourg and some of its practices. You ask a good question about the personal credentials that enable one to take on responsible roles in our financial system, whether in banks or other institutions.”
“Q I was thinking more of asking turkeys whether Christmas was a good idea. I want to follow up on this, because I have been waiting for the Law Commission on another piece of work that I worked on, which is already a year and a half overdue. It is not connected to financial services, but it indicates some of the challenges of waiting for the Law Commission to follow up on the FATF report, which makes some specific requirements about Gibraltar. This legislation is about the ability to trade between Gibraltar and the UK. I want to ask your opinion on whether we might be able to learn from the specific proposals in that report. In particular, it recognises that although this does tend to happen, there is no legal requirement to reject applicants with a criminal background in Gibraltar.”
“In some areas, such as private education or charitable giving, an educational training supportive approach might be appropriate to try to raise standards, but in other areas, as I have outlined, clear financial incentives need to be addressed. A firmer approach to supervision is proving necessary given the findings of, for example, the studies that I cited from HMRC, the SRA and OPBAS.”