Financial Services and Markets Bill

Debate between Peter Grant and Chris Grayling

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 26th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant]

As has been said throughout the passage of the Bill, our chief concern has always been that too many provisions in it do not go far enough. I am pleased to say that the other place has tightened up some aspects of the Bill. It is disappointing that this evening the Government seem determined to oppose some amendments that could have addressed more of our concerns and, in at least one case, seem determined to make an amendment that makes things even worse.

In the interests of brevity, I will not go through all the Lords amendments that the Government are happy to accept; I ask Members to take those as read. The first Government proposal that I have some concern about is their motion to disagree with Lords amendment 7. I appreciate that they have tabled alternative amendments, which they might think say pretty much the same thing or better, but Lords amendment 7 explicitly refers to targets set by any of the UK’s national Parliaments. They are not mentioned anywhere in the Government’s amendment (a) in lieu. I hope the Minister can explain why the Government are opposed to giving targets set by the devolved nations of this Union of equals the same status as those set in this place, because some of those targets and activities will relate to responsibilities that are explicitly devolved to one or more of the other nations of the United Kingdom. It does not seem very equal that some Parliaments can have their targets effectively regulated and others cannot.

I do not have any issue with Government amendments (b) and (c) in lieu of Lords amendment 7, although it seems strange that they have been tabled as alternatives, because they are entirely compatible with it. In fact, the Government could quite easily have tabled them in the Lords at the time.

As was said by the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq), Lords amendment 10 is a good amendment. I do not understand why the Government want to take it out. Are they against financial inclusion? If they think that financial inclusion is a good idea but that this amendment is not best way to pursue it, I would remind them that they have had months to come up with a better amendment. “Take it back, don’t agree it just now, and we promise to bring something back in the near future.” However, we have been promised effective measures on financial inclusion since before I was a Member of this place, but it has not happened yet, and the problem is getting worse all the time.

To answer the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom), it is all very well for the Government to find ways to make post offices the last bank in town, but they are being shut left, right and centre as well, so there is no long-term protection for access to cash, especially in our poorest and most deprived communities, of which I represent more than my fair share. It is no comfort to them to be told, “The bank has closed, but you can use the post office,” if, as I have seen happen literally at the same time, the Post Office is saying, “We’re going shut the post office, but you can still use the bank.” That does not give any protection or comfort whatsoever.

Lords Amendment 36, on illegal deforestation and so on, is also a good amendment that we would have supported. We are willing to accept the Government alternative as an improvement in some regards. The biggest concern we have—it is one on which we would very much want the opportunity to give the House the chance to express its will this evening—is about one of the crazy ways in which this place deals with things, especially once legislation has been back and forth between here and the Lords. If this House wanted to disagree with Lords amendment 38, as I think quite a few of us will, we will not be allowed to do that unless the debate finishes within three hours. The ability of the democratically elected House of Commons to scrutinise and perhaps overturn a decision taken by the undemocratic, unelected House of Lords along the corridor therefore depends on how many people want to speak, how long they want to speak for, and how fast they want to talk.

Lords amendment 38 is about politically exposed persons and the way they are risk-assessed in relation to money laundering. It makes a very broad assumption about the amount of due diligence that needs to be exercised to prevent money laundering in the case of a politically exposed person from the UK—someone who, in the words of the amendment, is

“entrusted with prominent public functions by the United Kingdom”.

The assumption is that they are always less of a potential money laundering risk, as are their family and “close associates”, whatever that means. That is far too broad and sweeping an assumption.

I do not have an issue with any regulation being worded in a way that is proportionate to the risk, and I can understand the attraction of being able to designate some individuals as less of a risk than others, but this exemption is far too sweeping. What do we mean by “entrusted with prominent public functions”? As we all know, we have had very recent examples of people who were entrusted with the most prominent public function of all—the office of Prime Minister—turning out to be totally untrustworthy. How do we define a “close associate”? Would, for example, Evgeny Lebedev have been regarded as low risk simply because he could accurately have been described as a close associate of the then Prime Minister, who himself has turned out, as the House now agrees, to have been untrustworthy? When is a close associate not a close associate?

[Chris Grayling]

I want to probe a little on this. Would the hon. Gentleman classify somebody who, for example, gave a parking space to a camper van as a close associate?

[Hon. Members]

Aah!

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant]

I stand corrected, Mr Deputy Speaker. Unless I said more than I intended to, I think I was asking a question; I was not expressing an opinion.

Let us not forget that over the last 10 to 15 years a huge amount of dirty money from Russia and other former Soviet republics has been laundered into the United Kingdom by people who, at least financially and in terms of their donations, were very closely associated indeed with leading politicians. It has to be said that, had Putin not carried out a second invasion of Ukraine last year—if he had been satisfied with the original illegal activity in Ukraine 2014—that money would probably still be coming in, because the Government only moved in a big way on dirty Russian money after the second invasion of Ukraine. They did not do anything, or anything like enough, in 2014 or afterwards, so we have to ask whether they are really serious about cutting off this dirty Russian money at source and handing it back to the people that it was originally stolen from.

I thought it was quite interesting that the Minister said that it was a bad idea to agree Lords amendment 10, to improve financial inclusion, at such a late stage, when the Government are happy to accept Lords amendment 38, to weaken our defences against money laundering, at the same late stage. That may give an indication of what the priorities might be of people who wield a lot of influence over the Government—maybe not the Minister’s own priorities.

As I have said, we in the SNP continue to support the Bill. Our concerns on almost all counts have been in areas that did not go far enough, such as the accountability of the regulators—the Financial Conduct Authority, for example. My issue is that the regulators have not been held properly to account for the myriad times they have failed to regulate and have simply not protected the public and investors. Other authorities have not protected pensioners. We can look at Blackmore Bond, London Capital and Finance, Premier FX, the British Steel pension scheme, the AEA Technology pension scheme, and hundreds of other financial scandals that were allowed to happen—or certainly allowed to happen as badly as they did—because the regulators did not do the job they were set up to do. They should be held accountable to this place and to the public for their failures to regulate. I am concerned that if we tie them up with too much regulation about how they regulate, and if they are worried about being dragged into Parliament or politically overruled when they do regulate, there is a danger that they will start to lose their independence from political interference, without which no regulator on these islands can ever be effective.

It is disappointing that the Government seem determined to reject some Lords amendments that would have made the Bill better, and to push through at least one that will significantly weaken it. It would be sad indeed if this elected Chamber were not allowed to express its will on whether amendment 38 makes the Bill better or worse. I for one believe that it makes it worse, and I hope we will be able to divide the House on it tonight.

[Chris Grayling]

I find it slightly ironic that I am following an SNP spokesman demanding more action on financial fraud, but there is always a place for a bit of amusement in the House. I will focus my remarks on the issue of deforestation.

[Peter Grant]

I am absolutely confident that the Scottish National party Westminster group will submit clean audited accounts to the Electoral Commission before the deadline. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Conservative party parliamentary group will not?

[Chris Grayling]

I think I may have touched a slightly raw nerve there, Mr Deputy Speaker.

First, I am personally grateful to the Minister, who has been extremely responsive on an issue that is crucially important, not just to the future of this country but the future of our planet. The loss of forest cover around the world—cleared for the growing of soy, the planting of palm oil plantations and beef cattle ranching—has been ecologically disastrous for the planet. Of course, in many of those areas, it has not created sustained agricultural land, but land that has been used for a few years and is now lying semi-derelict.

One of the great challenges for us as a planet is to restore some of the land that has been lost and replant some of the forest that has been lost, but we cannot tackle this problem unless we bring it to a halt now, and in many parts of the world, there are still real issues with illegal deforestation to produce those products. As a Government, we have already taken steps that I think are pathfinders: the introduction of the Environment Act 2021 has set a path for dealing with forest risk products, particularly in the supply chain and our retailers. That was a positive step that I think will make a real difference, and I look forward to seeing that process completed through the secondary legislation that identifies the individual products we are tackling. Through his amendments, the Minister has clearly set that as a starting point for financial services as well.

However, there is now a broadening consensus about the need to extend the due diligence provisions that we have introduced for the retail sector to financial services. The financial sector is lending money to, investing in, and doing bond issues for international businesses that have sometimes done a good job of monitoring their supply chains, but other times simply do not do enough to protect the products they are sourcing from the risk of illegal deforestation. The Minister may reference the Global Resource Initiative work led by Sir Ian Cheshire, who has been a great champion of this issue, and the Minister was very right to have been willing to pick up the initiatives set out in that report.

It is also something that is increasingly backed by the financial sector itself. I do not believe there is any contradiction between a successful financial services sector and proper responsibility in key areas such as deforestation, and we now see that the GRI report and the direction of travel set out in Lords amendment 7 is attracting support from institutions, including well-known ones such as Aviva, that amount to nearly £3 trillion of funds under management. The support is there, and I am grateful to the Minister for picking up that initiative and being willing to run with it. My request of him is not simply that we get on with it; we need to ensure that what he has announced today does not end up as just another review. Governments have review after review—not all lead to action. I take the Minister at his word that he will make this a process of action, rather than simply a further stage of looking at the issues again.