Financial Services Bill

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, I have been on a pretty steep learning curve about the procedures of the House since last Monday. When the Motion to put the whole Committee stage of the Financial Services Bill into Grand Committee was withdrawn I imagined that the will of the House would be respected, that that would be the last we heard of it and that there would be no question of our now having to talk about some compromise on all this—namely that the Bill should be split, with some of it debated in Grand Committee and some on the Floor of the House.

Therefore, I talked to the Clerk of the Parliaments about it, realising that perhaps I did not totally understand. He explained that when the Government withdrew the Motion, it did not mean that they could not bring back another. I said, “What should I have done about the Motion that was put down originally?”. The Clerk said that that Motion should have been amended; it could have been amended at the last minute by a manuscript amendment, but he said that that was not much approved of in this House. However, I am afraid that that is what I have been forced to do today for the simple reason that the Motion was tabled on Friday, when the House was not even sitting. There has been no opportunity to table a proper amendment to it; it has to be a manuscript amendment. I apologise to the House for that but I did not see that I had an alternative.

I reiterate: we are talking about the Financial Services Bill. It is a major piece of legislation which has been drafted to reorganise our financial institutions completely and regulate them properly. I do not think that the people of this country would understand it if we were to put any part of this Bill in Grand Committee. This extremely important legislation needs very serious consideration by your Lordships. As well as that, this Bill brings out the best of your Lordships’ House. There is a tremendous amount of expertise here which needs to be brought to the fore. That can be done much better if the whole of Committee stage is debated on the Floor of the House.

I ask the House to consider seriously whether any of this Bill should be committed to a Grand Committee. As a noble friend said to me earlier, if we do not discuss the Committee stage of the Bill on the Floor of the House, which other Bills will we consider on the Floor of the House? It seems that the Government have a desire to put everything into Grand Committee. It is for us to stand up against that and say, “No, we want the whole of this very important Bill to be considered on the Floor of the House”. I hope that the House will support my amendment.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, we have before us a very important matter. As the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, has said, how we regulate our financial services and the financial services sector is vital to economic and financial stability. What our banks do and how they do it is important for the prospects for growth and employment in this country.

We on these Benches had not seen the terms of these Motions before today and we certainly had not agreed to them in the usual channels. I had a private meeting with the Leader of the House on Wednesday morning at which we discussed this matter and I told him in all honesty that I could not agree to the terms of the Motion, that I needed to have further consultations and discussions with my colleagues and that I would come back to him and the usual channels in due course. That I did first thing on Thursday morning, since when we have heard nothing about the Motion before us today. As for the Opposition’s role on this Bill within the usual channels, I wrote to the Leader of the House this morning, once we had seen the terms of the Motion before us. I would be happy to provide noble Lords with a copy of that letter.

My concern, much more than accusations from the Leader and the ins-and-outs of the usual channels, is what Members of this House want. When the Government tried to put the whole of the Bill in Grand Committee a week ago today I thought that the statements made by Members from across the whole of this House made clear what the majority of them wanted. At a very late hour, during that debate on the Floor of this Chamber, Members made it abundantly clear that they wanted the whole of the Bill to be considered by a Committee of the whole House. What Members of the House were telling the Government was clear.

Last Tuesday I had discussions with the Government about splitting the Bill and taking some parts on the Floor of the House and some in Grand Committee. I could see some merit in that approach, which is why we were prepared to consider it constructively in discussions within the usual channels. Yes we discussed it, but no we did not agree on it—precisely because I had to have discussions with my colleagues on the Benches behind me, which is the right and proper thing to do. In any case, we would not have agreed to the split that the Government now propose. Neither would we have agreed to only three days in a Committee of the whole House. We do not think that that split works. We also think that it was wrong not to include Part 4, on the mechanisms to deal with current issues, for consideration by a Committee of the whole House.

This House is self-regulating and on matters such as this it is for this House, and this House alone, to decide what it wishes to do. From our soundings, most Members on the Benches behind me want the Bill to be considered by a Committee of the whole House, which is what I believe many Members from all across the House want to see. That is precisely what the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, proposes.

I therefore look forward to this House, not the Government, deciding what it wants to do. From these Benches, we do not believe that the Government’s proposal is the right approach. We believe that the House should reject it and accept the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton. I hope that the Government will listen to the House when it makes its decision today.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, in the light of the assurances made by the Leader of the House on the Motion, I am genuinely puzzled as to why it is being brought forward. He has told us that it has nothing whatever to do with the decks being cleared for a House of Lords Bill. If that is the case, I simply do not know why the Government are so anxious to put preferably the whole of the Bill and at worst a significant part of the Bill into Grand Committee. I remind the Leader and the House that it is a pretty rare procedure in this House—less so in the other House—to split Bills between Grand Committee and the Floor of the House. Frankly, it is done for the best reasons, as I have said on occasions in the past, when the Government are under tremendous pressure of time.

Believe it or not, I have some sympathy with the Government when they claim that they are under tremendous time constraints. However, this simply will not wash in the current Session, when we have the smallest number of Bills and the lightest legislative programme of any Session in recent political history—certainly lighter than at any stage for the last 20 years; I have not gone back any further. There are, I believe, some 15 Bills this Session compared with an average of 30 Bills in a normal 12-month Session, so I cannot accept that there is any tremendous pressure on time for the Government, particularly when we finished a day or two early before the Spring Jubilee Recess, which was announced at the last minute. We even finished rather early before Prorogation of the last Session of Parliament, so the Government have cried wolf somewhat on the matter of time and without real justification.

As for the Leader of the House persuading his Back-Benchers, I imagine by saying, “Gosh, if we do not get this Motion through, it will be late night after late night”, I can only say that life gets tough at times. However, I cannot accept that argument, given that the Government are making all sorts of random decisions about having longer recesses than normal and not sitting when the House of Commons is sitting, which again is not normally the case. My argument is therefore really one of bafflement about the pressure on the Government’s time and, frankly, the Government not being able to accept that it means endless late-night sittings.

Lastly, I hope that the Leader of the House will at least acknowledge that it is not a very satisfactory way to treat the House to introduce this Motion on Friday night. I knew absolutely nothing about this Motion going down on the Order Paper until 10 o’clock this morning, like everyone else in the House—perhaps apart from some on the government Benches, I dare say. Anyone who wanted to put down an amendment had no option other than to put down a manuscript amendment, as the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, did—and I am very pleased that he did. Are we going to have to face this sort of government management of business in the future? Not knowing even a day before what could be a very important decision for the House to make really is a very unsatisfactory way to manage government business.

I appeal to the Leader of the House to listen to what I believe is a very strong view in the House. If he was desperate to put this Motion down, can he please explain the time pressures on him and why it had to go down today? What was wrong with tomorrow? I do not want to sound Machiavellian and suspicious, but the slight feeling is that perhaps the Motion went down on Friday and various people were telephoned over the weekend to the effect, “Please come along and support the Government so that you do not have to sit late at night, night after night”. I do not think that is a very credible argument, so I hope that the Leader of the House will give a satisfactory answer to those questions. If he cannot, he really should withdraw this Motion.