Financial Services Bill

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts

Committee stage
Wednesday 10th March 2021 Grand Committee

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Hodgson for directing the Committee’s attention to a set of issues that lie at the heart of the agenda for workers’ rights and social justice in the workplace. Let me begin by saying to him that the Government are committed to making the UK the best place in the world to work, and I found myself in considerable sympathy with a great deal of what he said about the connection between employee well-being, high-quality work and national prosperity.

The Government certainly have a role in furthering those ends, and I hope that my noble friend will agree that we have already made good progress in bringing forward measures that support our flexible labour market, while also ensuring the protection of workers’ rights, such as: banning the use of exclusivity clauses in zero-hours contracts; extending the right to a written statement of core terms of employment to all workers; closing a loophole whereby agency workers are employed on cheaper rates than permanent workers; introducing a right for agency workers to receive a key facts page when signing to a company; and quadrupling the maximum fine for employers who treat their workers badly.

The Government are committed to bringing forward measures to establish an employment framework that is fit for purpose and keeps pace with the needs of modern work practices, in due course. We are also committed to building back better from Covid-19. Alongside the Budget, we published our wider economic plan for significant investment in skills, infrastructure and innovation, in Build Back Better: Our Plan for Growth.

During the pandemic we have taken unprecedented action to protect jobs, most notably through the coronavirus job retention scheme—one of the most generous such schemes in the world. And from April 2021, the national living wage will increase by 2.2%, from £8.72 to £8.91, and will be extended to 23 and 24 year-olds for the first time. Taken together, these increases are likely to benefit around 2 million workers.

I fully appreciate that if we are to build back better, progress should be measured by more than just dry economic trends. However, most people would agree that a large part of human and civic well-being lies in people’s livelihoods, and I remind the Committee that in last week’s Budget the Chancellor set out his plan to protect the jobs and livelihoods of the British people.

Amendments 108, 109, and 110 would essentially require the FCA to have regard to “sustainable good work” when conducting their functions, and to embed this principle in the financial system as a whole. Financial services firms would then be required to apply the principle in all their activities, including investment decisions.

The FCA is responsible for a large number of firms and has been given three operational objectives: to protect consumers; to protect and enhance the integrity of the UK financial system; and to promote competition. So I am afraid I do not believe that the FCA is the right body for this function, given its current role, particularly as the issues go far beyond the subject of financial services.

Amendment 122 would require the FCA and the PRA to consider the impact of employee share schemes on sustainable economic growth. The Government want to support hard-working people to share in the success of the businesses for which they work. To encourage this, we offer several tax-advantaged employee share schemes. These provide a range of tax benefits to participating employees and businesses. We keep all employee share schemes under review, to ensure that they remain effective in these ways.

However, once again I do not believe that the UK’s financial services regulators are best placed to carry any changes forward. It is important that they remain focused on their core objectives. Giving them a diffuse set of objectives could undermine focus on consumer protection, financial stability and the sound functioning of financial markets. The body best placed to keep employee share schemes under review is the Government, and we see no need to impose this additional condition on the FCA and the PRA. So, while I am the first to acknowledge the importance of the matters that my noble friend has raised in this debate, I hope he will understand why I do not think it appropriate to amend the Bill in the way that he proposes.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am exceptionally grateful to everybody who has taken part in this debate, including the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, who was the first to raise the concept of building back better, which was later picked up by everybody, including my noble friend the Minister.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, who always brings a degree of detailed and forensic expertise to these areas. Of course, I am well aware of her work with the employee share ownership association, as I am of the work of my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond on employee ownership trusts, which are critical. I share the interest of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, in finding out the results of the consultation that is under way in this general area. It is not often that I find myself supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, but I am glad to have her along for the ride. The noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, was certainly right to remind us all how fast everything is changing and that we need to make sure that we are not trying to tackle yesterday’s problems and failing to tackle tomorrow’s.

I am not surprised that my noble friend the Minister could not accept these amendments. He rightly emphasised the work that the Government have done both in employment generally and as a result of the pandemic. If he had accepted the amendments, I probably would have fainted with surprise and been unable to reply to the debate. However, this issue is not going to go away. The weakness of our present regulatory system is that it merely catches and tries to prosecute the bad. In this part of the century, given all the challenges we face, the system should be doing more than that; it should be encouraging the good. This is an area where good could be encouraged, and that would have a huge trickle- down effect on our society as a whole.

Perhaps I may leave noble Lords with a quote from Robert Kennedy, who said that GDP measures

“everything … except that which makes life worthwhile”.

I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts

Thursday 3rd March 2016 Grand Committee

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Hodgson for introducing his amendment, which would, as he explained, create a legislative obligation on the department to report civilian casualties following RAF operations, including sharing the details of investigations with Parliament. I recognise that this is a probing amendment but I hope to show my noble friend that his concerns are recognised and being properly addressed.

I make it clear at the outset that the MoD takes very seriously—and always will—any allegations of civilian casualties. The Defence Secretary committed to review all claims of this nature. We have robust processes in place to review reports of civilian casualties and to launch investigations where appropriate, and we will continue to consider all available credible evidence to support such assessments.

It is important for me to emphasise that the Ministry of Defence takes all feasible precautions to avoid civilian casualties when conducting any form of military operation. All missions are meticulously planned to ensure that every care is taken to avoid or minimise civilian casualties, and our use of extremely accurate precision-guided munitions supports this.

We have a robust process in place to authorise air strikes that is tried and tested. All military targeting is governed by strict rules of engagement in accordance with both UK and international humanitarian law. Of course, the men and women of our Armed Forces are highly trained, including in the law of armed conflict. I should also make it clear that we will not use force unless we are satisfied that the use of force is both necessary and lawful. When we carry out a strike, we carry out a full assessment to determine the damage that has been caused, specifically checking very carefully whether there are likely to have been civilian casualties.

I can assure the Committee, lest there is any doubt, that the Ministry of Defence is committed to transparency as far as possible. We have been very open and transparent about the strikes conducted in Iraq and Syria. They are reported regularly online two or three times a week. These reports explain where the action has taken place and what effect has been achieved in the fight against Daesh. However, I hope that the Committee will agree that it is also paramount that we maintain personnel and operational security. This can include not revealing details about our targeting process, which may endanger personnel and our ability to operate.

Furthermore, while a requirement in primary legislation to publish data on a regular basis may be seen as a means of holding the current Government to account—and, for that matter, future Governments—it may also on occasions be a very inflexible tool which is soon out of date and redundant. As I have made clear, the MoD has clear processes and procedures to limit civilian casualties, and the principle of openness and transparency on this issue is something which the MoD and I strongly support. Where information is not disclosed, it is for very good operational reasons.

The noble Lord, Lord Touhig, asked about regular reports on Operation Shader, which, as he knows, is the counter-Daesh operation in Iraq and Syria. The Government’s first quarterly report on Syria was provided to the House of Commons by the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on 16 December last year. The Secretary of State of DfID, my right honourable friend Justine Greening, provided a second quarterly report on 8 February this year. I cannot be specific about the date of the next report but it will be issued in due course.

I will write to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, on the particular question she raised and to my noble friend in respect of those of his questions that I have not covered. In the light of what I have said on this matter, I hope my noble friend will agree to withdraw his amendment at this stage.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, I am grateful to all who have participated in this short debate—the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford. Apropos of his comment, I of course understand that this is a coalition, but I am thinking, “Physician, heal thyself”. We start by trying to make sure that the unpleasant things that our personnel are doing on our behalf are properly corrected first, and then, by setting standards, maybe our allies will follow.

I thank my noble friend very much for his full reply and his promise to follow up on the points that he has been unable to answer now. I hope that I made it clear that from our visit to RAF Waddington we were well aware of the very considerable care that has been taken to make sure that those on the ground are balanced by the cooler heads further away from the point of action. I understand the question of inflexibility. This is a probing amendment, but it was helpful for us to have a debate this afternoon, and I look forward to hearing the follow up in due course. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.