Annette Brooke
Main Page: Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)Department Debates - View all Annette Brooke's debates with the HM Treasury
(10 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Williams
That is a particular problem. The hon. Lady does not need to be reminded how perilous the farming industry is these days; some businesses barely have the capacity to survive.
People who have been sold tailored business loans have no protection because of a mere technicality. They have no guarantee of fair treatment from the banks. Most of my constituents who have been affected by hedge mis-selling have been sold TBLs, although I hesitate to say that they were sold them, because some of them were not aware that they were being sold them. Most of my constituents who are affected are out in the cold, so I return to the question that I have asked Treasury Ministers and the FCA, although I have received inadequate responses. I question how the FCA decides to interpret its principle-based regulation. I am talking specifically about TBLs from the Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks.
Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful case and I concur with what he says about tailored business loans. One of my constituents, who is here in the Gallery, has been affected on a large scale and is paying £33,000 per month as a consequence of swaps. He needs to be brought into the scheme. In addition, he has a tailored business loan, and I concur that those need to be brought into the framework urgently.
Mr Williams
I concur with my hon. Friend. Many of us have cases like the one that she raises that suggest that TBLs need to be brought into this review or another review of some kind.
The FSA famously stated in “Interest Rate Hedging Products—Pilot Findings” that
“poor disclosure of break costs”
was one of
“the most significant issues in assessing the compliance of a sale”.
How is it possible that poor disclosure of break costs can constitute a mis-sale when the customer is buying a stand-alone product, with all that that implies, and yet there is no mis-sale if the bank buys the interest rate swap allowance, conceals it from the customer and then holds the customer liable for its terms and conditions? That is unjust nonsense. If a feature is worthy of regulation when it is contained in one product, why is it not worthy of regulation when it is contained and concealed in another product?