Mark Garnier MP: speeches 2025

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Speeches

7 Jul 2025 · Pension Schemes Bill · Hansard source
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The former City Minister raises a good and important point. He tries to bring together a number of related but quite disparate issues that we need to think carefully about. I would not want to make Conservative party policy on the hoof at the Dispatch Box, though the Minister urges me to do so. These are important points, and I think my right hon. Friend would understand that I would not want to rush into anything without careful, considered thought. These are issues on which he and I—and the Minister, of course—might get together. As I said, we need a bold, ambitious plan to ensure that every worker in this country can look forward to a retirement free from poverty and insecurity. That means looking again at contribution rates, the role of employers and how we support those who are excluded from the system. Another omission in the Bill is the failure to extend the benefits of auto-enrolment to the self-employed. There are over 4 million self-employed people in the UK—people who are driving our economy, creating jobs and taking risks. Too many of them face the prospect of old age in poverty, with little or no private pension provision. Research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that only 20% of self-employed workers earning over £10,000 a year save into a private pension. With the self-employed sector continuing to grow, the Bill misses an opportunity to come up with innovative solutions for this underserved group in the workplace.
7 Jul 2025 · Pension Schemes Bill · Hansard source
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It is an important question, and one that I will come to in due course. Watch this space for a fascinating manifesto in the run-up to the next general election—I am sure everybody looks forward to it.
7 Jul 2025 · Pension Schemes Bill · Hansard source
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The hon. Member makes an important point. The earlier people start putting money in, the better. As a result of compound interest, over many years they will end up with a bigger pension pot, even if at the beginning the contribution is quite small; the amount aggregates over a long period. We will discuss that in Committee. We are concerned about the lack of detail in the Bill. Too much is left to the discretion of regulators and to secondary legislation. Parliament deserves to have proper oversight of these reforms. From my discussions with the industry, it seems there is tentative support for many of the reforms in the Bill. However, the message that keeps coming back is that the devil will be in the detail, so I hope that as this Bill makes progress through the House, the Minister will be able to fill in more of the blanks—and I am sure he will; he is a diligent individual. I move on to the most important thing that this Bill hopes to achieve: growth. We want to support Labour Members on the growth agenda, but too often they go about it in slightly the wrong way. Surpluses in defined-benefit pension schemes are a great example. Interest rates have risen post-covid, and that has pushed many schemes into surplus. In principle, we support greater flexibility when it comes to the extraction of these surpluses, but there need to be robust safeguards; that is certainly the message coming back from the industry. Under the legislation, there is nothing to stop these surpluses being used for share buy-backs or dividend payments from the host employer, for instance. Neither of these outcomes necessarily help the Government’s growth agenda. We would welcome a strengthening of the Bill to prevent trustees from facing undue pressure from host employers to release funds for non-growth purposes. In addition, to provide stability, the Government should carefully consider whether low dependency, rather than buy-out levels, will future-proof the funds, so that they do not fall back into deficit. Although the Government are keen to extract surpluses from the private sector, there is not the same gusto shown in the Bill when it comes to local government pensions. The House has discussed in detail the Chancellor’s fiscal rules, not least earlier today. Under the revised rules introduced by the Chancellor, the measure of public debt has shifted from public sector net debt to public sector net financial liabilities. As a consequence, the local government pension scheme’s record £45 billion surplus is now counted as an asset that offsets Government debt. This gives the Chancellor greater headroom to meet her fiscal targets—headroom that, dare I say it, is shrinking week by week. I do not wish to sound cynical, but perhaps that is the reason why the Bill is largely silent on better using these surpluses. This may be a convenient accounting trick for the Chancellor, but the surpluses could have been used, for instance, to give councils pension scheme payment holidays. The Government could make it easier to follow the example set by Kensington and Chelsea, which has suspended employer pension contributions for a year to fund support to victims and survivors of the 2017 Grenfell Tower tragedy. These revenue windfalls could be redirected towards a range of initiatives, from local growth opportunities such as business incubators to improving our high streets. We could even leave more money in council tax payers’ pockets. I turn to the part of the Bill on which we have our most fundamental disagreement: the provisions on mandation. The Bill reserves the power to mandate pension funds to invest in Government priorities. That not only goes against trustees’ fiduciary duties—although I appreciate and recognise the point the Minister made earlier—but means potentially worse outcomes for savers. Pensions are not just numbers on a spreadsheet; they represent a lifetime of work, sacrifice, and hope for a secure future. The people who manage these funds and their trustees are under a legal duty to prioritise the financial wellbeing of savers. Their job is not to obey political whims, but to invest prudently, grow pension pots and uphold the trust placed in them by millions of ordinary people. That fiduciary duty is not a technicality; it is the bedrock of confidence that the entire pension system rests on. These pension fund managers find the safest and best investments for our pensions, no matter where in the world they might be. If things go wrong, we can hold them to account. But if this reserve power becomes law, we have to ask the question: if investments go wrong, who carries the can? Will it be the pension fund manager and the trustees, or the Government, who did the mandation? Likewise, while the reserve power in the Bill focuses on the defined-contribution market, the shift in emphasis has potentially profound impacts across the sector. UK pension funds, along with insurance companies, hold approximately 30% of the UK Government’s debt or gilt market. If mature defined-benefit schemes move from the gilt market to equities, that potentially has a profound impact on the Government’s debt management, or ability to manage debt, and therefore interest rates and mortgage rates. For that reason, we would welcome the Minister confirming whether any concerns have been raised by the Debt Management Office, and possibly the Bank of England. There is widespread opposition from across the industry to this power—I am approaching the end of my speech, you will be pleased to hear, Madam Deputy Speaker. There are better ways for the Government to deliver growth, such as changing obsolete rules and removing restrictions. In the annuity market, solvency rules prevent insurers from owning equity in productive UK assets. Wind farms, for example, deliver stable returns through contracts for difference and contribute to the Government’s green agenda. They could be an ideal match for long-term annuity investments, while also delivering clean energy. Releasing the limits on the ability of insurers to fully deploy annuity capital has the potential to unlock as much as £700 billion by 2035, according to research by Aviva. Rather than imposing top-down mandates, we want the Government to maximise growth opportunities from our pension industry by turning over every stone and seeking out the unintended consequences of old regulations, not imposing new ones. I will conclude, Madam Deputy Speaker, as you will be delighted to hear. [Interruption.] Yes, I have taken a lot of interventions. We reaffirm our commitment to working constructively with the Government. Stability in the markets is of paramount importance, and we recognise the need for a collaborative approach as the Bill progresses through the House. We will bring forward amendments where we believe improvements can be made, and we will engage in good faith with Ministers and officials to get the detail right. We want to go with, not against, the grain of what the Government are seeking to achieve through this Bill, and I look forward to working with the Minister in the weeks and months ahead.
7 Jul 2025 · Pension Schemes Bill · Hansard source
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It is a great pleasure to be here with you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I welcome the Minister to his place. He has been here a couple of days over a year and is already taking an important Bill through Parliament. It is good to see him, and I very much look forward to working constructively with him as the Bill progresses through the House. While the Bill is not perfect, the Minister will be pleased to hear that there is cross-party consensus on many of the planned changes. That is because we all want our pension system to be working better. If we rewind back to 2010, we inherited from Labour—dare I say it—a private pension system that was not quite ideal. The move from a defined-benefit pension-dominated market to a defined-contribution system had left millions of people behind. Back in 2011, only 42% of people were saving for a workplace pension. The cornerstone of change was auto-enrolment, which has been an overwhelming success, as I am sure the Minister will agree. Now around 88% of eligible employees are saving into a pension, and the remaining 10% who opt out tend to do so because of sound investment advice. The Conservatives are proud of our rock-solid support in government for our pensioners. The triple lock ensured that we lifted 200,000 pensioners out of absolute poverty over the course of the last Government. Workers deserve dignity in retirement, not just a safety net in old age. They deserve to look forward to their later years with hope, not anxiety, and with choice, not constraint. That is why before the last election, the previous Government had turned their attention to two central issues: first, getting the best value for money out of our pension schemes and, secondly, pensions adequacy. I will come to pensions adequacy later, but let me start by recognising some of the positive measures contained in the Bill to make our pension funds work better for savers. When Labour gets pensions policy right, it is often by building on the Conservative legacy, recognising what works and seeking to extend it. That is why we broadly support the measures in the Bill that seek to consolidate and strengthen the gains of auto-enrolment. We also welcome the continued progress towards the pensions dashboard, which will revolutionise the way people access their pension information and plan for their financial future. For too long, the complexity and fragmentation of pension pots has left savers confused and disengaged, as we have heard. If you are anything like me, Madam Deputy Speaker, and are thinking more actively, dare I say it, about your retirement income—actually not like me; you are a lot younger. [Interruption.] Mr Speaker is like me; he is thinking about his pension. He will have spent countless hours trying to track down old pensions. The dashboard, however, will put power back into the hands of savers, and we will support measures in the Bill to improve its implementation and delivery. I want to highlight the creation of larger megafunds in both the public and private sectors, as well as the consolidation of the local government pension scheme, as sensible and pragmatic steps. The LGPS is one of the largest pension schemes in the UK, as we have heard. It has 6.7 million members with a capital of £391 billion, yet it is highly fragmented into 86 locally administering authorities. There is a great deal of divergence in the funding positions of those councils, even among geographic neighbours. They range from Kensington and Chelsea, which has a scheme funding level of 207%, to neighbouring local authorities like Waltham Forest, Brent, and Havering, which were underfunded in the 2022 triennial review. While we support the concept of these megafunds, there are legitimate questions that I hope the Minister will address in Committee. We do not want to see constituents from one council area unwittingly funding shortfalls from neighbouring areas. Like many people in this House, I first cut my teeth in politics as a councillor. Soon after being elected, I was appointed chairman of the finance committee on Forest of Dean district council. One of our tasks was to oversee the performance of our local pension fund. Let me assure the House: the Forest of Dean is a truly wonderful place, but it is not the City of London. Our finance committee was made up of dedicated local councillors, but when it came to scrutinising the pension fund, we were—to put it kindly—out of our depth. Meanwhile, the pension fund managers, with their packed diaries and weary expressions, seemed to treat a trip to rural Gloucestershire as a rare expedition to the outer reaches of the Earth. One thing struck me about small local government pension funds: they simply did not work. But it is not just in local government, small funds are—albeit with some notable exceptions for bespoke funds—not fit for purpose in a global investment environment, as we heard from the Minister. The creation of larger funds will enable greater scale, better investment efficiency and, ultimately, better value for money for members. It will allow our pension funds to compete on the world stage, to invest more in UK infrastructure and to deliver higher returns for British savers. There are other areas of the Bill that we support and welcome. The consolidation of small, fragmented pension pots is a long-overdue reform. Bringing those together will reduce administrative costs and prevent the erosion of savings through unnecessary fees. The introduction of a value-for-money framework is essential to ensure that savers are getting the best possible deal, not just on charges, but on investment performance and retirement outcomes. We also welcome the development of guided retirement products. We cannot simply leave savers on their own to navigate complex choices at retirement. Changes to provide greater support for those facing terminal illness will provide comfort to those in extremely challenging circumstances. These are all positive steps, and we will work constructively with the Government to ensure they are delivered effectively. While there is much to welcome, there are also significant areas where the Bill falls short and areas that require attention if we are to deliver a pensions system that is truly fit for the future. Most fundamentally, the Bill does not address pensions adequacy. The uncomfortable truth is that millions of people in this country are simply not saving enough for their retirement. The amounts people are saving, even with auto-enrolment, are too low to deliver a decent standard of living in old age. Research by Pensions UK shows that more than 50% of savers will fail to meet the retirement income targets set by the 2005 pensions commission. Closing the gap between what people are saving and what they will need must be the pressing concern of this Government. We urgently need the second part of the pensions review to be fast-tracked, with a laser-like focus on pensions adequacy. We need a bold, ambitious plan to ensure that every worker in this country can look forward to a retirement free from poverty and insecurity.
4 Jul 2025 · Space Industry (Indemnities) Bill · Hansard source
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I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I speak on this Bill as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for space. I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow East (John Grady) on having such a massive effect on the UK space industry by changing just two words in the Space Industry Act 2018. His Bill is perhaps one of the most sublime Bills relating to the space sector that I have seen. It is truly incredible that we can have such a change to our industry. We have had a space sector in this country for many years and it has been quite successful. As we have heard, it is currently worth about £19 billion a year and employs about 52,000 people, but the sector’s potential is absolutely enormous. The expectation is that, by 2035, the global space sector will be worth £1.8 trillion, and it is the ambition of this country at some point to get about 10% of that sector. That would be £180 billion a year of economic activity, so it is incredibly important. The hon. Gentleman made important points about the space sector and all the exciting things we can do beyond the Kármán line in space. Importantly for those Scottish Members present, we will see the most symbolic part of the space sector to the north of Unst in the Shetland islands, hopefully before the year is out: a launch from British soil. That is genuinely very exciting. Our whole economy can benefit. The hon. Gentleman is helping to open up an opportunity for the City of London, which for a long time has been a financer of innovation, trade and many different things. Importantly, it has been one of the biggest wholesale and specialist insurance markets in the world. By changing two words in the 2018 Act, the hon. Gentleman is not only unleashing spaceflight licensing for the UK but unleashing yet more opportunity at Lloyd’s of London. On top of that, as we see more space businesses coming to locate in the UK because of that opportunity, we will see even more opportunities, such as space companies being listed on the London stock exchange, bond issues and a whole load of corporate finance activities. Beyond that, there will be yet more activity in the legal sector, for example. The Bill is therefore incredibly important. The hon. Gentleman has done something incredibly simple but incredibly important, and all in the space sector are incredibly grateful. I have a small anecdote about Buzz Lightyear—we heard mention of his catchphrase, “To infinity and beyond!” I met Buzz Aldrin’s son a few years ago and made a joke about “To infinity and beyond” to him, and he turned around to me and said, “The Disney corporation never paid my dad enough for that.” I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his Bill. It will be truly transformational.
1 Jul 2025 · High Net Worth Individuals · Hansard source
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In her Budget last year, the Chancellor tucked away about £10 billion over the next couple of years from reform to the non-dom tax regime. It is important to remember that the OBR said in its fiscal outlook that that figure was “highly uncertain”, and a high-level survey by Oxford Economics found that fully two thirds of non-doms are considering leaving the country in the next couple years as a direct result of those policies. That implies not an increase of £10 billion but a decrease of £8 billion. The Chancellor has created a fiscal black hole of £18 billion with just one policy alone. In this week of heroic U-turns from the Government Front Bench, will the Minister confirm whether they will be axing this tax? When will it finally be condemned to the history books?
25 Jun 2025 · Access to Banking Hubs: Hertfordshire · Hansard source
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It is a great pleasure to serve under your talented leadership, Sir Desmond. It is very good to be here. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra). This may be his debut debate in Westminster Hall, but I am sure that it is the first of many. He has always been a champion for his constituency and I am surprised that he has not been here a thousand times before. As he eloquently put it in his opening remarks, banking hubs show why banking must remain at the heart of all our communities, and we should cherish the role of banks in our society. I have long been a huge fan of the banks, having been on the banking commission, which was a great opportunity to see just how important they are. We all talk about their importance for banking local businesses and local communities, but banks perform two extraordinarily complicated functions. The first is taking money from where it has accumulated and delivering it to where it is needed—for loans for businesses and all the rest. But they also do something else—they are almost like Doctor Who in their ability to transform time. They take money that has been put on deposit overnight and turn it into a 25-year mortgage that pays for all our constituents to buy their homes and bring up their families. We must never forget how incredibly important banks are. The previous Government recognised the importance of maintaining essential banking services as a foundation for public confidence in the sector. We provided a system of free and convenient access to banking through Post Office’s branch network. The banking framework partnership between Post Office and more than 30 of the UK’s banks and building societies means that consumers and businesses can access banking services through the Post Office network where there is not an alternative bank. Post Office now has more branches than all the banks and building societies combined. I hope the Minister agrees that the banking framework was a real success story—one of many success stories, by the way—of the previous Government. However, we in the previous Government also recognised that post offices do not completely fill the hole left by the loss of the high street bank. That is why we also introduced banking hubs, as we have heard today, which have been a successful concept where they have been delivered. I welcome the fact that the new Government have now embraced the idea and set an ambition to deliver hubs across the country by 2030—I understood it to be 500, although the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), said that it was 350, so it would be helpful if the Minister clarified exactly how many the Government are hoping to have. The new hubs, whether there are 350 or 500, are a new solution to meet wider banking needs, particularly in communities where the last bank branch has closed. Members have made many eloquent points about the decline of banking services in their constituencies. In my constituency, adjacent to that of my hon. Friend the Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson), Stourport-on-Severn, my second biggest town, has just one bank left—a TSB—and Bewdley, the third biggest town, now has no banks at all. I hope the Minister will address how Members could be more involved in deciding where new banking hubs will be located—that is an important point. I am sure that all Members would like to have input and make representations to get these services in every constituency. Local knowledge and community engagement must be at the heart of these decisions. That is why Members of Parliament, as the elected representatives of these communities, must be part of that process. Banking is rightly a commercial sector, so I would also like to hear how the Minister can encourage banks to deliver their own innovations. For instance, the multi-bank kiosk proposed by the Building Societies Association has already been piloted. With a cost of just one third of a traditional banking hub, the kiosks offer a cost-effective, building society-led solution that could work alongside banking hubs in areas that have a strong mutual presence but lack a high street bank. Will the Government support the expansion of the kiosks and encourage more private sector innovation alongside banking hubs? I do not want to hold the room for too long, so I will draw my words to a close. Today’s debate and the recent Backbench Business debate on high street banks have shown just how much Members support high street banking services. I look forward to hearing from the Minister how the Government will support our high street banking services. Once more, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South West Hertfordshire for the extraordinary hard work he does for his constituents.
25 Jun 2025 · Draft Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities etc.) (Amendment) Order 2025 · Hansard source
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That rather depends on one’s point of view. I think it was fortunate for everyone in this room apart from Conservative Members. Moving on, we are absolutely supportive of bringing these products within the scope of financial regulation. As we have heard, the sector has seen rapid growth. Because the products are now used by millions of people, the last Government rightly acted to protect consumers from harm—or wanted to act. The proposed regulations require FCA authorisation, affordability checks and clearer information for consumers, which are all measures that we absolutely support. An ability to access the Financial Ombudsman Service will also give consumers an avenue to escalate any issues. However, as these regulations have been developed, several concerns have been raised by businesses operating in the BNPL market, and I hope that the Minister may be able to address those issues today. First, the exemption for merchants offering their own BNPL products could create inconsistencies and consumer risks. I appreciate the sentiment for keeping an exemption, and Conservative Members do not want to expose small businesses to burdensome regulation. For example, the local gym should not be required to undertake the FCA approval process to provide a 12-month membership; I am sure that many people would agree with that. However, a potential loophole still exists. A large e-commerce website, such as Amazon, could offer BNPL directly and not come under these regulations. That is because there is no way in the Consumer Credit Act to distinguish between a large e-commerce site and a small or medium-sized enterprise. Currently, no online retailer is operating its own version of BNPL, as opposed to using a third party provider. However, I am sure that the industry would welcome reassurance from the Minister today that the Government will be looking at any knock-on effects that these regulations might cause. Opposition Members also welcome the Treasury’s saying that work is under way to review and reform the Consumer Credit Act, but I hope that the Minister will confirm that the review will specifically address the issue of definitions, ensuring that there is a way to distinguish between the largest retailers and small businesses. Will the Government also provide further details on how they will go about monitoring the prevalence of retailer-provided BNPL services, and at what point they will intervene once they see evidence of such activity taking place? Secondly, short-term lenders have highlighted the fact that although interest-free agreements under 12 months will fall under a new regime, longer or interest-bearing agreements remain subject to older rules. A 10-month interest-free instalment agreement and a 14-month low-interest agreement may be economically and structurally similar, but one will benefit from modern disclosure rules while the other will not. I hope that the Minister can address whether that has the potential also to be reviewed as part of the review of the CCA. Finally, the regulations do not address late fees, which can disproportionately impact vulnerable consumers, so again I would welcome the Minister’s setting out today whether the Government will also keep that under constant review. The Opposition support the intent of these regulations, but call for the Government to address some of the outstanding points raised by the industry in order to ensure robust consumer protection and a level playing field for everybody participating in this market.
25 Jun 2025 · Draft Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities etc.) (Amendment) Order 2025 · Hansard source
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It is an absolute joy to serve under your very professional and diligent leadership and chairmanship of this Committee, Mr Stuart. I also congratulate the Minister on his debut in a Delegated Legislation Committee. He does it masterfully. These buy now, pay later measures, as colleagues will recall and as pointed out by the Minister, were consulted on extensively by the previous Government. As the Minister also pointed out, there was an unfortunate general election, which got in the way of us actually—
20 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source
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I start off by saying a huge thank you to the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) for the extraordinary amount of work she has done across this whole debate. This is the first time I have spoken in this debate, and, like many Members whose speeches I have heard, I come to it through personal experience. I have heard many stories of people whose relations have died; in my case, it was my mother who died. In 2012, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. My father-in-law was a consultant, so I phoned him up and asked what that meant, and he said that she had a 90% chance of dying. I was prepared for it, but eventually the time came when I got the call saying that her health had started to deteriorate, so I went down to see her—I spoke to the Whips, and took time off work here—and watched the start of the decline from something as painful and difficult as pancreatic cancer, which, as those who have witnessed it will know, was not a nice moment. My mother was not frightened of dying at all. She would talk about it; she knew that she was going to die. However, she was terrified of the pain, and on many occasions, she asked me and Caroline, my wife, if we could make it end. We could not, of course. She had very, very good care from the NHS—the nurses came twice a day, she was on a morphine driver, and the GP came to see her, so she was looked after well. However, as she deteriorated, we could see that she was in indignity and a huge amount of pain, until eventually, she died. It was, of course, not one of the happiest moments of my life. Contrary to that experience, two or three years ago, I found myself going to the memorial service of one of my constituents, who was a truly wonderful person. She, too, had died of pancreatic cancer, but because she had been in Spain at the time—she spent quite a lot of time in Spain with her husband—she had the opportunity to go through the state-provided assisted dying programme that is provided there. I spoke to her widower very briefly, and it was fascinating to talk to him about it: he said it was an extraordinary, incredibly sad thing to have gone through, but that it was something that made her suffering much less. It was almost a sort of quiet Sunday afternoon when it happened. I saw those two people—my mother, who had the indignity and the pain and the suffering that she was terrified of, and my constituent, who had the opportunity to end it in a dignified way—and when I came to this debate, I was absolutely convinced that this was the right thing to do. I have spent the past six or seven months engaging as hard as I could with those who I hoped would be able to persuade me of a different decision—to try to persuade me that I was wrong in my assumptions. I have spoken to a huge number of people; I have joined in meetings with campaigners; I have read every email that has come in; and I have spoken to doctors and religious leaders, and I have yet to be persuaded that this is a bad thing to do. There has been a huge amount of debate here—over 100 hours of debate, when we add it all together. There have been loads of amendments, and people on both sides of the debate have been incredibly thoughtful, but are we possibly getting rid of the good in trying to find the perfect? I do not know—I am not the world’s greatest legislator—but having listened to these debates, and given what I have seen at first hand, at the end of the day, I can only go through the Aye Lobby to support the hon. Member for Spen Valley in all this extraordinary hard work. The time has come when we need to end suffering, where suffering can be put aside, rather than trying to do something super-perfect and allowing too many more people to suffer in the future.
11 Jun 2025 · Space Industry · Hansard source
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The hon. Gentleman is always here. A number of important things have come up in this debate, one of which is the importance of the clusters. We have heard talk the north-east cluster and the Cornwall cluster. For me, Cornwall is incredibly important: as the hon. Member for St Ives knows, my spiritual home is in Newlyn. My grandparents were Newlyn school artists, and I was brought up looking across Mount’s bay to Goonhilly downs. We also heard how Jodrell Bank is incredibly important as an inspiration; I remember being inspired by what was going on there as a child back in the 60s. We can see that there are extraordinary opportunities. Businesses across the whole of the country are involved in the space sector. We are seeing extraordinary things going on in, for example, Northern Ireland, which has a very good aerospace legacy. Queen’s University Belfast is using that legacy in looking at the phased array antennas that are being designed and built to enable space-based solar power. That is an incredibly important and successful piece of work. When we eventually get to the stage in which space-based solar power stations are beaming energy back to Earth, Queen’s University Belfast will have been absolutely instrumental. I have been heartened by the views of many Members. The clusters are very good, and Members will be pleased to hear that I know all the cluster chiefs, one way or another. In Cornwall, Gail Eastaugh is the pushiest of them all. She is truly dynamic and an absolute advocate for Cornwall. We had a drop-by space event a few months ago to promote the space cluster; people turned up with their little banners, but Gail brought something the size of the Chamber wall in order to promote Cornwall—it was very good. The hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth made a point about Newquay spaceport, which we must remember was a success. It was not the Newquay spaceport that got it wrong; a fuel filter in a Virgin rocket got it wrong. We must never forget that everything we wanted to do was a brilliant success. I thank the Minister and the shadow Ministers, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Buckinghamshire and the hon. Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted, for their contributions. The sector is very exciting, and I get the sense that people are unified behind all this. We know there is a grand strategy and we want to be dominant in the sector. We might have disagreements or arguments over the tactics to achieve that, but if we share the common vision of a grand strategy, we can get there. It is incredibly important for our economy, our productivity and the future. As a mature economy we need to find ways to be increasingly productive in order to deliver a better quality of life for everybody, and space will absolutely deliver that. The Minister spoke about the industrial strategy, and in a couple of weeks I will take a forensic look at that. The global space finance summit at the end of the year is so important. We have a lot of important sectors in the UK economy that we take for granted, and those sectors need space as much as space needs those sectors. If we want to continue to be relevant in the financial services sector, we have to be relevant for the most modern type of finance and the most modern types of opportunities. That is why we have to be good at space finance and think carefully about it. I would very much like an invitation to come along and speak at the summit. I thank everybody who contributed to the debate. I get the sense that there is a strong unity of vision in the room, and this is a fantastic opportunity. As they say, to infinity and beyond! Question put and agreed to. Resolved , That this House has considered the impact of the space industry on the economy.
11 Jun 2025 · Space Industry · Hansard source
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I beg to move, That this House has considered the impact of the space industry on the economy. I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and to my non-financial interests. For the purposes of this important debate, I speak as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for space. The global space industry is set to expand over the coming years as businesses take advantage of the huge drop in launch costs driven by tech billionaires such as Elon Musk with his SpaceX business and Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin. No longer is space the sole domain of Governments; it is available to everyone with an idea of how to exploit the opportunities that space presents. Indeed, the global space economy in 2023 was valued at about $630 billion, but that number is expected to expand to $1.8 trillion by 2035—a compound annual growth rate of about 9%. Some optimists expect growth to outpace even that impressive figure, with expectations reaching as high as $2.2 trillion by 2035. Even for the most pessimistic economist, however, it is expected to still exceed $1.2 trillion, a figure that sees the global space industry outpacing global GDP over that period. As I said, that growth is being driven by the 90% drop in launch costs over the last 20 years, but it is also being driven by commercial innovation in areas such as components and software. As clever people invent ever more clever things, deploying assets in the harsh and complicated area of space is becoming increasingly affordable. In turn, that has driven a broad set of investors to look to space for opportunities. Meanwhile, we have all become more relaxed and enthusiastic about the idea of space as a commercial entity in itself, and we already know that space has changed our lives enormously. After all, we have no excuse not to find a location or a fast route to a destination, now that we all have satellite navigation in our pockets. That technology will enable fresh, new technologies. Companies such as Amazon are already looking at rolling out drone delivery services enabled by satellite navigation, and that will expand to things like driverless Uber taxis as we advance our driverless technologies. It is already the case that the technology behind satellite navigation goes far beyond just letting us know where the nearest pub is. Position, navigation and timing technology, or PNT, provides timing signals that enable our payment system. Who here realised that buying a ticket on the tube this morning, coming into work, was enabled by a satellite passing overhead at 17,600 mph? According to a 2024 report by McKinsey, 60% of the growth in the space economy will be driven by five industries: state-sponsored defence, digital communications, supply chain and transportation, food and beverages, and consumer goods and lifestyle. The report also pointed out that space’s return on investment will be more than just financial. Space will play an increasingly crucial role in mitigating world challenges, ranging from disaster warning and climate monitoring to improved humanitarian responses and more widespread prosperity. That is the fabulous opportunity globally, but what of the UK’s ambitions? Back in 2013, the UK Government set a plan to secure 10% of the global space economy. That plan would have given us about £180 billion of activity by 2035, but it feels like that ambition has been quietly dropped—not necessarily by this Government, but certainly over the closing years of the previous Government. The UK space economy is valued at about £19 billion and supports some 52,000 jobs through nearly 2,000 businesses. That is a good start, but we need to be more ambitious. We need to decide what role we want to play in the global space economy, not least because the space economy will help us to address our productivity problems here in the UK. At one end of the spectrum is the business of launch. Launch is, of course, a small part of the space economy, at about 10%—but launch is, to the purist, not really space. For sure, the space economy cannot exist without launch, but it is an enabler; it is logistics; it is the white delivery van of the space sector. It is, however, the most symbolic part of the space sector. It is the piece that fires the imagination; it is the image that excites people to follow space as a sector. We have already had a successful horizontal launch from Newquay. Every part of the Newquay spaceport worked perfectly. The rocket separated from its Boeing 747 and successfully deployed the second stage into space. However, as we all know, a fuel filter in the Virgin second stage failed and the flight was lost, but Newquay performed in every way that it should have done. Later this year we will see the first vertical launch from the far north of the Shetlands. The SaxaVord spaceport has been working for years to develop the launch site, and it is entirely possible that the first launch from British soil will be with the British launch company Orbex. The Government have financially supported both Orbex and the SaxaVord space centre, but those are private companies that also have private investors, which is crucial for the space sector. Unfortunately the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) cannot be here. He has had a prior engagement in his diary for a long time to go and judge a Blackface sheep competition, which he has to go to, but he has been instrumental in the success of the SaxaVord space centre, which has done an incredible job in delivering the first vertical launch from the UK. Continued Government support for our launch sector is important. The Government have supported Orbex to the tune of £20 million this year, and that will pay for the development of low Earth orbit launches from SaxaVord. Orbex is keen to develop its product range, and its next milestone is medium Earth orbit with heavier payloads. Support for it to develop its next generation launchers could come from the European Space Agency and its European launcher challenge. The ELC programme is designed to turbocharge European launch opportunities. With demand rising and the queue for SpaceX launches getting ever longer, there is a huge opportunity in Europe with the UK leading the charge. That is why the UK Space Agency is keen that the UK continues to support membership of the European Space Agency and its support for the ELC. Imagine our joy as a nation, with the Minister as the person partly in charge, when we see a British-designed and built rocket thrust skywards from British soil later this year. It will be a moment of intense national pride. But it is important that we have a follow-up to that key moment. We need to define what our ambition is for space and, to a certain extent, what we mean by “space”. The last Government published a space strategy, but that was seen at the time as more of a list of hopes—a kind of manifesto, rather than a strategy with tactics and ambitions. We need to be clear about what it is that we want to do in this area that will undoubtedly increase UK productivity. We already know and recognise that the UK space economy broadly falls into five sectors. First, we have a strong service sector of downstream applications that are driven by satellites. This is the largest sector and includes satellite communications, Earth observation and navigation and timing services. Those sectors, as I have mentioned, power sectors such as agriculture, climate monitoring, finance, transport, humanitarian relief and defence applications. Because of the ever-increasing demand for data, the service sector is a lead growth driver for the space economy. Second is our manufacturing and engineering sector, which manufactures rockets and satellites. The UK is a leader in small satellite manufacturing through companies such as Surrey Satellite Technology. But within this sector we have fascinating companies such as Magdrive, looking to develop non-chemical drive systems for in-orbit manoeuvring that will extend the life of a satellite significantly and, I believe, as much as twentyfold. We also have lead companies here in the UK that look at the sustainability of space: Astroscale and ClearSpace. Both of them are excited about the upcoming announcement of a UK sovereign mission to literally clean up space debris. It would be helpful if the Minister could perhaps give us a clue about how that is progressing. Then we have spaceports and launch—that great symbol of a spacefaring nation that I have already spoken about. Fourth is research and development, an area we have been strong at for decades. We are proud to have strong academic institutions doing extraordinary work in forging new technologies, including areas such as in-space manufacturing, where zero gravity makes for an interesting formation of crystalline materials. Fifth is space data and analytics, driven by huge leaps forward in artificial intelligence and big data. But we should not see space as just about space stuff. I have long argued that we need to ensure we maximise the opportunity across all sectors of our economy, and that brings me to finance. The City of London has been innovative in finance for a few centuries now. It financed the growth of trade that built the British empire and our economy. Right now we have an opportunity here in London to seize the space finance markets. I look back at the inspiration given by the former Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer in the late 1990s. He saw an opportunity in the flagging UK film industry, so he created a financial trigger to encourage investment into that industry. Despite being abused by some who benefited from it, his tax break created investment into our film industry that has been transformational. The success of the UK film industry can trace its origins back to that single act. The Harry Potter franchise would have always been a huge success, but were it not for that single act of tax planning, those spells would almost certainly have been cast with an American accent. That single act of tax planning can be adopted for the UK space industry. It does not need to be complicated, and it would generate more income for the economy than it would cost. Something as simple as, for example, tax-free commissions on space-related primary issues of bonds and equities would send a signal to the world’s top space financiers that the UK will be the centre of excellence for space finance. With all these bright financial wizards here in the City of London, space companies would be attracted to locate right here, to secure the finance and list on the London stock exchange. It does not stop there. Our already strong space insurance market would get even stronger. Space legal services would grow. Our position as a global thought leader in the future of space would blossom, and—importantly, for our valuable financial services industry—the City would continue to be at the cutting edge of developing financial needs. It would create a symbiotic relationship between financial services, in which we are already world leaders, and the global space industry, in which we want to be among the world leaders. I have spoken about how the Government can support the space sector, but I want to talk more about how the Government can be a customer of the space sector, and that brings me to the strategic defence review. The SDR looks good for space. It identifies the three main areas in which space is relevant to the Ministry of Defence. Watching situations develop from the height of space gives a spacefaring nation a tactical advantage over aggressors who do not have those advantages. We can not only look at the ground with the normal vision spectrum but use infrared Earth observation, which gives us the opportunity to spot a column of Russian tanks warming their engines in the dead of night ahead of an early invasion. Meanwhile, radio frequency observation gives us a chance not only to listen but to see where the enemy’s actors are located in a battlefield. We can see all sorts of activities across a range of spectra, in surprising detail. Similarly, the SDR recognises that space gives us the advantage when responding to threats. Battlefield management and response can be orchestrated from space—again, giving us a tactical advantage. Of course, the SDR recognises that these space assets are, in themselves, a potential target, so defence of the space domain becomes as important a part of the MOD’s activities as defence of our own territories. Indeed, it is not just the MOD’s assets that need defending. While things such as Skynet are important to the MOD, position, navigation and timing satellites are important to our economy. As I mentioned, if we lose navigation satellites, we lose our entire payments system. The SDR provides an opportunity for the UK space sector, and the trade body, UKspace, has already published an intelligent briefing note on the SDR, giving advice to members on how to take advantage of the review and what it means for the sector. It is optimistic, and so am I. Although the space section of the SDR’s 145 pages amounts to just one and a half pages, the document presents a lot of opportunities. The commitment to spend 3% of GDP on defence, and defence that seeks ever greater technologies, should be seen as a huge opportunity for the sector. The document recognises that defence procurement is unfathomable for all but those with extensive experience—the primes. The review seeks ways of opening up Ministry of Defence procurement to small and medium-sized enterprises, which is a very good thing. The MOD, acting as the Government as a customer for space, must be easy to navigate for those wanting to sell and to support the Government. The SDR raised one area of concern, which is where space sits in Government and who champions it. The SDR suggests a Cabinet Sub-Committee or ministerial group that looks after space. I have seen this before, having been on the ministerial group of 12, from memory, who could claim an interest in space. Back in 2017, it included the science Minister who had the lead in his portfolio, me as a trade Minister, a Minister from the Department for Exiting the European Union, and Ministers from the Department for International Development, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Ministry of Defence and anybody else we could think of. Some Ministers did not have a clue why they were on it. Others did not have much of an interest. In due course, space became a Cabinet Sub-Committee, chaired at the start by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and then by the Prime Minister. It met just once, I believe, and it was obsessed by launch, which is important but, as I have mentioned, represents just 10% of the space economy. The problem is that space is both unique and ubiquitous. For a launch site operator, it is real estate. For a launch company, it is logistics. For PNT users, it is supply chain management. For internet users, it is data. For most, it is commercial. It is located in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, but most would agree at this stage of the cycle that one thing space is not is a science project. That is not to level criticism at either the DSIT Secretary or his civil servants, who do an excellent job of championing the sector. Should space be in the Department for Business and Trade? That is an interesting question. I am delighted to see the Minister from DBT here today, who is responding on the commercial aspects of space—a side of space that is bigger, more important and more relevant to our economy than the simple science of it. However, the sector would far prefer the lead Department to be the Cabinet Office, as it crosses so many Departments—that is what organisations such as UKspace are saying. I will finish with an example that illustrates the point. I chair the advisory board of the Space Energy Initiative and am a non-executive director of Space Solar Limited, with no financial interest in either. That is a good example of how space will deliver something vital for humanity, which is energy. Humanity has always needed energy and developing energy has progressed our societies. We started as hunter-gatherers thousands of years ago, but after we learned how to farm and ensure regular calories for ourselves, we developed the skills that gave us civilisation and culture. When we figured out that coal produced more energy than wood, we started the industrial revolution that continues today. But we now realise that we need to produce energy at ever-increasing levels. Indeed, we heard in yesterday’s statement that the UK will need twice the capacity by 2050, and I wager that we will need it earlier than that. We need to deliver that capacity sustainably. Demand for energy will go through the roof: by 2030, the US will be producing around 4,000 TWh of electricity a year. Just one need, global artificial intelligence, will demand more than that. As we are all moving to electric vehicles too, we can see the colossal problem facing us. Nuclear is good, and we heard yesterday that there will be plenty of opportunity, but it will take time, be expensive, and produce waste that is tricky to deal with. Wind and solar are renewable and relatively cheap, but they are not baseload and not dispatchable. They cannot be predictably turned on and off as demand changes. Gas is both baseload and dispatchable, but we want to move away from gas for good reasons. Biomass is not what we thought it was, and nuclear fusion is a distant dream. We need something that is sustainable, baseload, dispatchable and cheap—step forward, space-based solar power. Sounding like the stuff of science fiction, it has been possible for decades. Photovoltaics in space have been around since Sputnik 2 was launched in November 1957. Energy beaming was developed by Nikola Tesla in the 1880s, and we are familiar with it every time we listen to Radio 4 in the morning and hear one of our colleagues being beaten up by Nick Robinson. What has changed is a 90% reduction in the cost of launch. That makes the economic model feasible, so space-based solar power is developing at pace around the world. The lead development, with what we believe is the best technology, is right here in the UK in Harwell. I am pleased that the Government have supported the development of this leading technology with £10 million so far. We have seen support from the European Space Agency’s SOLARIS project, other innovation projects and a range of companies and universities. When I first pitched this to an Energy Minister under the previous Government, he said, “Yeah, but it’s space, no?” I pointed out that nuclear power is not part of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs because it is built on farmland, and he eventually got the point. That illustrates how the Government can make mistakes by looking at where space is, not what space is. Space energy solves a load of problems. Because a beam can be moved near instantaneously, it can not only provide gigawatts of energy but balance the grid very simply. Electricity can be exported to eastern economies before we wake up, and to the US when we sleep and demand here is low, improving our export opportunities and balance of payments. It is dispatchable, baseload, cheap and green. It will transform our economy with endless cheap, reliable energy. We have had good support from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, but the first power will not be delivered before 2032, falling outside the Government’s target of carbon neutrality by 2030. Because of that arbitrary political target, we run the risk of losing the space energy race to other nations. Although space-based solar power is an energy play, pure and simple, the associated engineering technology will transform our space sector. With satellites that are kilometres across, robotics are being developed in the UK to enable the manufacture and assembly of those satellites in orbit. The technology will enable the UK to take a lead in developing in-orbit assembly, thus further securing our place as a leading space nation. We have the opportunity here and now to lead in energy—our most critical need and asset—and in the space sector. In yesterday’s statement, DESNZ made an interesting choice. Space energy can deliver gigawatts of space-based solar power within a decade, but the Government have chosen to invest £2.5 billion in nuclear fusion. There is no doubt that space energy is an engineering challenge, but nuclear fusion is a substantial physics challenge. I ask the Minister to come up and see for herself what genius is happening right here in the UK. We have an opportunity to seize the moment, but we must not be left behind. Space is not just about where something is; it is about what it enables. Seizing both the metaphorical and literal high ground that space presents is vital for our economy, our productivity, our energy, our services and, frankly, how we save the planet.
11 Jun 2025 · Space Industry · Hansard source
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I thank all Members who made a contribution to the debate. It has been fantastic to hear from the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for Congleton (Sarah Russell), for St Ives (Andrew George), for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) and for Stockton North (Chris McDonald), as well as the Front-Bench contributions from the hon. Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted (Victoria Collins) and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith). It is a great pleasure to see so many different people and so many new MPs contribute to this debate from such diverse parts of the world, rather than just hearing the same old characters talking about the same old stuff—
5 Jun 2025 · Bank Closures and Banking Hubs · Hansard source
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I also congratulate the hon. Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) on securing this debate. A great strength of feeling about banks has been evident in this debate, and it is important to remember the importance of banks not just to our communities but to the wider economy. Banks provide services for businesses and individuals, but they also provide two other fundamental services. First, banks and building societies take money from where it has accumulated and distribute it to where it is needed for investment in infrastructure, businesses and jobs. Secondly, banks take overnight deposits and turn them into 25-year mortgages—so that our constituents can create a home and build a family—which is quite difficult for banks to do. The hon. Member for Blyth and Ashington made a couple of important points that I would like to address. The first was about the profits that banks make, and the second was about the policing of banks and the fact that banks apparently police themselves. Following the 2008 financial crisis, there was obviously a huge number of problems in the banking system. The Financial Services Act 2012 created two regulators, the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority, both of which—and particularly the PRA—are responsible for making sure that our banking system is sound. Banks need to have strong balance sheets, and to do that they need to make profits to a certain extent. I agree that some of those profits look obscene, and perhaps some banks could put some of that money back into our communities. None the less, if banks spend their money unwisely, we potentially run the risk of another banking crisis. Along with the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Pat McFadden), I am one of only two Members left in this House who sat on the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards from 2013 to 2015. Our work on that commission underlines the importance of banks in modern life, about which we have heard so much today. The commission found that holding and operating a bank account is now essential to participate in society and the economy, whether it is receiving wages, paying bills or accessing benefits. But we also found that people’s views on banks are shaped by their direct experiences. The more a person knows their bank, the more likely they are to have confidence in it. That means that if banks want to retain their customers, they must provide good, wide-ranging services. An inability to access banking services risks eroding that trust and confidence, as we have heard today, especially among the most vulnerable.
5 Jun 2025 · Bank Closures and Banking Hubs · Hansard source
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My right hon. Friend makes a good point. This is about face-to-face relationships, not something done through an app. Behind the statistics I cited are real people and real communities. The digitally excluded, older people, those in poor health and people with lower financial resilience mostly rely on cash. Small businesses and rural communities are hard hit. The question for Members who want to compel banks to keep branches open is how much digital-first customers should be charged to retain loss-making branches—notwithstanding, of course, that profit question. Of course, the answer cannot simply be to do nothing and to walk away from our responsibilities to those who are left behind. The previous Government recognised the importance of maintaining essential banking services as a foundation for public confidence in this sector. Through the post office network, we provided a system of free and convenient access to banking services, and the banking framework partnership between the Post Office and over 30 of the UK’s banks and building societies means consumers and businesses can access basic banking services through the post office network. The Post Office now has more branches than all the banks and building societies combined, and according to the Financial Conduct Authority, post office branches make up more than 66% of all branch-based cash access points in the UK. The last Government also introduced banking hubs, which we have heard a great deal about. I am conscious of time, and I do not want to incur your wrath, Madam Deputy Speaker, so although I have a lot more to say, I think it would be prudent for me to step aside and allow the Minister to face up to the passion about this issue from Members representing their communities.
5 Jun 2025 · Bank Closures and Banking Hubs · Hansard source
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I agree 100%. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Let us be clear that the decline of our high streets and the decline of bank branches have run concurrently as behaviour has changed over the last couple of decades and retail activity has increasingly moved online. Banks are, of course, commercial entities, and their decisions to close branches are often driven by commercial imperatives, which is not necessarily what we want to hear in this debate. Falling footfall, the rise of digital banking and the need to be cost-effective are just some of those reasons. As we have heard so often, there are now just 3,000 bank branches remaining in the UK, and that number is expected to drop even further in coming years. ATM numbers, especially free-to-use machines, have also declined. Only 14% of payments in the UK were made with cash in 2022, and withdrawals from the Link network are down 50% on pre-covid levels.
4 Jun 2025 · Draft Payment Services and Payment Accounts (Contract Termination) (Amendment) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source
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It was to do with the assessment being done of the impact on politically exposed persons. When can we expect that report to come out?
4 Jun 2025 · Draft Payment Services and Payment Accounts (Contract Termination) (Amendment) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source
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Not mine, perhaps.
4 Jun 2025 · Draft Payment Services and Payment Accounts (Contract Termination) (Amendment) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source
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It is a pleasure to serve under you, Mr Mundell. Congratulations on your tennis match this morning; I am glad it went well. Lawn tennis—you can’t beat it. This SI started its life in the previous Government and has come through more or less untouched. It is almost as if the general election never happened—it is extraordinary; we seem to have swapped sides somehow. On the basis that the SI was started in the previous Government, the Opposition will support the new rules. It is absolutely right that people and businesses have access to bank accounts. While the Farage-NatWest scandal brought the issue of debanking into the national spotlight, the statistics show that the scale of the problem is far wider. Nearly 400,000 bank accounts were closed last year, according to figures obtained by The Daily Telegraph via a freedom of information request. Many of those closures will of course have been for legitimate reasons such as financial crime, fraud or dormant accounts. For people and businesses that are impacted, often unfairly, the new rules will be very helpful. These are sensible steps that will improve transparency and give customers more time to find alternatives if their accounts are closed. However, the deal does not include a statutory review clause, which is possibly a mistake, and there has rightly been feedback. David Hamilton, a partner at Howard Kennedy, warns: “If customer exits are more onerous in terms of disclosures and potential FOS challenges, it may give banks pause to consider whether they want to onboard certain types of customers at all.” In other words, there is a real risk that the banks will simply become more cautious at the account opening stage, and they could make it harder for those perceived as higher risk, such as politically exposed persons—everybody in this room—or certain business sectors, to access basic banking services at all, which brings me on to my next point. The new rules on politically exposed persons have not yet been publicised. The Financial Conduct Authority’s consultation on the issue closed in October 2024. Its initial findings asked banks and financial institutions to do more to ensure that UK lawmakers and their families are not treated unfairly. It is essential that the new rules on debanking and PEPs are aligned and implemented at the same time to give both customers and banks clarity and consistency. Although we support the new rules, I would like the Minister to address the following key questions. First, why has the statutory review clause not been included in this SI, given the risk of unintended consequences for account holders? Secondly, what assessment has been made of the impact on people who may now find it harder to open a bank account in the first place? Thirdly, when will the new rules on politically exposed persons be published? Will the Government commit to aligning their implementation with the debanking reforms? Also, how will the Government monitor the impact of the changes, particularly on small businesses and vulnerable customers, and what steps will be taken if there is evidence that banks are becoming more risk-averse and excluding legitimate customers from the banking system? As I said, access to bank accounts is a basic necessity in modern Britain. Under the previous—might I say brilliant?—Government, we made it a fundamental right to have access to basic banking services. These rules are a step forward, but it is vital that we remain alert to making sure that they do not become another barrier put in place to stop businesses and consumers accessing banking services. The Minister might not have enough time to get an answer to my questions, but if she could perhaps write me a letter, that would be fantastic. As I said, we will support this measure.
14 May 2025 · Draft Pension Fund Clearing Obligation Exemption (Amendment) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source
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Yet again, we are in glorious agreement on both sides of Committee Room 9, which is rather fun. The Opposition absolutely agree with the draft regulations; as the Minister rightly says, the work was started under the last Government, and it is important that we continue to support it. However, we recognise the critical role that central clearing plays in safeguarding financial security. The Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association, which represents schemes with more than £1.3 trillion in assets, acknowledges that there are benefits: clearing reduces counterparty risk, increases transparency and, in normal times, helps to protect members’ savings. However, the evidence from the sector and, importantly, the experience of the liability-driven investment crisis in 2022 show that mandatory clearing presents a real challenge for pension funds. Most UK schemes do not hold large cash reserves, nor should they: the money should be invested for long-term returns for their pensioners. The need to raise cash quickly to meet central counterparty margin calls can force schemes to sell assets at precisely the wrong moment, undermining members’ returns and potentially undermining market stability. The LDI crisis in 2022 made things pretty clear; I remind hon. Members that the then Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister were sacked for creating that chaos. [ Interruption. ] It’s a fact of life. In the consultation undertaken by the previous Government, many stakeholders argued that a permanent exemption is the only way to provide certainty and avoid undermining the Government’s own ambitions in the Mansion House reforms. If the exemption were removed, schemes would be forced to hold more liquid, low-return assets, including cash, which would reduce the capital available for long-term investment in the economy. I am therefore delighted to support the draft regulations, but I have a couple of questions. First, on divergence from the European Union, the UK has opted for an indefinite exemption period, whereas the EU has allowed it to lapse, so clearing is now in place there, as it is in the US. Respondents to the call for evidence highlighted structural differences between the UK and the EU and US markets. Have the Government looked at the effect that that divergence might have on the competitiveness of the UK pension industry and on the relative stability of markets? My second question is about the long-term intentions as to mandatory clearing. I completely understand that the motivation behind the change is to remove the two-yearly uncertainty. However, the draft regulations provide for a permanent exemption, rather than ruling out clearing in permanency. The difference is a very subtle one, but have the Government considered ruling it out rather than having a permanent exemption? As we are looking at stability for pension funds, I would be interested to hear the Government’s point of view. However, the Opposition certainly do not seek to divide the Committee on this very good policy, which was initiated by the previous Government in one of their more glorious moments.
24 Apr 2025 · Bank Resolution (Recapitalisation) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source
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Before speaking to new clause 3 specifically, let me reiterate that the Opposition welcome the Government’s decision to carry over the legislation from the previous Parliament, and that the principles underpinning the Bill continue to enjoy strong cross-party support. We all want and need confidence in our banking sector, yet the failure of Silicon Valley Bank UK exposed a gap in our resolution framework for smaller banks. Unlike larger institutions, they do not hold the bail and bond mechanism known as MREL—the minimum requirement for own funds and eligible liabilities—reserves to facilitate recapitalisation in the event of a crisis. By providing the Bank of England with new tools to manage small bank failures, the Bill remains both prudent and necessary to protect financial stability and public funds. Moving on to the amendments we have tabled on Report, I want to make it clear that our approach is constructive and focused on strengthening the Bill, not obstructing its progress. As the Bill has made progress through both Houses, our intention has been to address a series of smaller but none the less significant issues that we believe require further attention. I appreciate that this might be a conversation we can continue in today’s debate, or beyond it, and I would certainly welcome conversations with the Minister, who has been incredibly open to direct conversations in her usual pragmatic style, to further discuss these matters. We have three measures selected for discussion today. I will speak first to new clause 3, which addresses a critical gap in the Bill’s scope: the protection of credit unions. These community-focused institutions have seen significant growth in recent years, driven in part by the eradication of predatory payday lenders, and they continue to provide a vital role in delivering affordable finance to those underserved by traditional banks. Membership of credit unions rose from 1.89 million in 2019 to 2.14 million in 2024—an increase of more than 260,000. However, while their importance has grown, their inclusion in our resolution framework has not kept pace. The Financial Services Compensation Scheme has paid £10.1 million in compensation to credit union depositors over the past three financial years, primarily due to small-scale failures, underscoring their potential vulnerability and the need for a tailored approach as the sector expands. The growth of credit unions is a success story, but it demands proportional safeguards. The Bill, however, excludes credit unions from its recapitalisation mechanism. While their smaller size and unique nature may differentiate them from banks, questions remain. How does the current resolution regime account for credit union failures as the sector scales up? Is there scope to develop a mechanism that protects members without imposing undue burdens on these community institutions? New clause 3 seeks clarity on this matter, requiring the Minister to produce a report outlining how the resolution framework can be adapted to protect credit unions, ensuring that their growth does not outstrip their regulatory safeguards. The vast amount of legislation for credit unions was written back in the 1970s. The previous Government made significant reforms for credit unions through amendments to the Financial Services and Markets Act, and I welcome the common bond reform consultation, which closed last month. I know that the Government are giving the sector serious consideration, and I am sure the Minister will agree that this is not about applying bank-style rules to mutuals, but about recognising their unique role and risks. Credit unions are more than financial institutions; they are engines of financial inclusion. They often serve small, working-class communities, whom I know the Government want to support specifically. As the sector evolves, so too must our approach. We must ensure that our regulatory framework grows. I hope the Government will support this amendment, which simply seeks to look more clearly at the options available when a crisis happens. Amendment 2 seeks to address a concern that has been raised with me by the mutual and building society sector. These institutions are not relics of the past, but vital components of our financial ecosystem. Although the first known building society was set up in 1775 by ordinary working people helping themselves to build their financial resilience and get a home of their own, they remain current today. Building societies today hold more than £360 billion in assets and provide mortgages for more than 3 million people in the UK. They represent a significant proportion of the housing market and are a trusted source of savings for millions more. They provide a clear and important diversification in our financial markets, offering a clear alternative to shareholder banks. The Labour party stood on a clear manifesto commitment to double the size of the co-operative and mutual sector, which the Opposition agree is a very good policy. Today presents a good opportunity for Labour Members to demonstrate that commitment to the sector by enshrining in the Bill a requirement that the Bank of England consider the risk of demutualisation when using the mechanisms enshrined therein. There is a genuine fear in the building society sector that, without proper safeguards, the recapitalisation mechanism offered by the Bill could inadvertently become a back door for demutualisation. When a mutual institution faces resolution, the selection of a purchaser from the plc sector risks permanently dismantling its mutual status, undermining the very ethos that makes these institutions unique. Our amendment would provide a proportionate solution, requiring the Bank of England to consider the impact of demutualisation on members and the sector as a whole, while also exploring the feasibility of selecting a mutual sector purchaser, if one exists and meets the resolution objectives. This is not about privileging mutuals at the expense of financial stability; it is about ensuring that the Bank’s resolution tools do not inadvertently homogenise our financial landscape. Silicon Valley Bank demonstrated the need for agile resolution frameworks, but it also highlighted the importance of preserving institutional diversity. Mutuals and building societies often serve communities and demographics that larger banks frequently overlook. Their potential loss would leave gaps in financial inclusion and weaken the resilience of the sector. Importantly, without the millions of mortgages provided by the building society sector, particularly for first-time homeowners, Labour’s house building plans would be simply impossible. I hope the Minister appreciates that our amendment strikes a careful balance between safeguarding financial stability and honouring our commitment to a pluralistic banking system—one where mutuals continue to thrive as a cornerstone of community-focused finance. I remind Labour Members that it will be much harder to double the size of the mutual sector if, in the event of a failure, recapitalisation defaults towards the banking sector. I hope the Government will therefore demonstrate their manifesto commitment to the mutual and co-operative sector by voting today for new clause 3 and amendment 2. There remains genuine concern—shared across this House and reflected in the debates in the other place—over the risk of the recapitalisation mechanism being applied too broadly and potentially capturing larger banks that already hold substantial loss-absorbing resources, such as MREL. We continue to believe that the mechanism should be limited in scope and targeted at smaller banks that do not have the same capacity to manage their own failure. Amendment 1 would limit the use of the mechanism to what it was always intended to be: a mechanism for smaller banks outside the MREL regime. I appreciate that new clauses 1 and 2 have already been ruled out of scope, but it may be worth noting a couple of points on these measures. I wish to place on the record today that the Opposition believe the time has come for a review of how we set the threshold for MREL, as well as the protection ceilings for depositors under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. The current static nature of MREL thresholds disproportionately affects smaller and mid-sized banks, particularly challenger banks. By indexing MREL thresholds to inflation, we can ensure that the regulatory framework remains robust over time without stifling competition. These institutions often operate on tighter margins and face significant barriers in meeting rigid capital requirements, hindering their ability to scale and compete effectively with larger incumbents. While we appreciate that the Bank of England’s consultation on MREL closed earlier this year, we hope that the Government will consider these points. Threshold limits should not stay static with time. Likewise, we welcome the Government’s recognition of the need to review the Financial Services Compensation Scheme deposit limit. The recent announcement of the increase of the deposit protection scheme from £85,000 to £110,000, although very welcome, is certainly overdue. It is worth noting that if the limit had kept pace with inflation, it would be nearly two thirds higher, at around £140,000, according to the Federation of Small Businesses. It is worth noting that only 4.6% of Silicon Valley Bank’s UK deposits were insured by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme—
24 Apr 2025 · Bank Resolution (Recapitalisation) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source
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With the leave of the House, I wish to address one or two of the points made in the debate. The hon. Member for Hendon (David Pinto-Duschinsky) is an incredibly valuable contributor to the debate because of his experience back in the days of the 2008 financial crisis. If I remember correctly, that was largely a result of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, which almost compounded the problem by having a tripartite regime that looked after the banking sector at the time. If I remember rightly, the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time found it so scary that his eyebrows nearly turned white. One of the surprising things about that crisis was that just 10 years earlier we had seen the Asian banking crisis, which basically laid the groundwork for what subsequently happened in the west. Perhaps we in the west were too arrogant to believe that it could happen to us, yet it sure did. In my role as a member of the Treasury Committee from 2010 to 2016, and on the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, I looked at all these issues very extensively. It is incredibly important that we resolve the issue. As it has turned out, the Financial Services Act 2012 and the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Act 2013 have worked well in respect of some of this resolution. On the point about LDIs and the financial crisis as a result of the Budget, we dealt with the problem pretty swiftly and pretty brutally. When one of our leaders gets it wrong, we get rid of them fairly quickly. I suggest to the Labour party that if Government Front Benchers get things wrong, it is worth cauterising the problem and moving on. On credit unions and mutuals, we absolutely recognise the point about the mutual sector. We are not asking for demutualisation to be ruled out; we are asking for the prospect of avoiding demutualisation to be part of that very swift process. That is why we will press amendment 2 to a Division. I met the credit unions yesterday, and they are keen that the principle of new clause 3 is voted on, so we will press that as well. Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
24 Apr 2025 · Bank Resolution (Recapitalisation) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source
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May I first say a hearty congratulations to the Minister on bringing through her first Bill in the new Government? She was parachuted into the job rather recently, but she has done a magnificent job, and it has been a pleasure to engage with her. We share the aim of working in the interests of the wider economy, and we have worked together on the Bill. We may differ on a few tiny details, but we agree on its overall objective. As I mentioned on Report, I spent some time on the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards looking at how we can stop another banking crisis, and on the Treasury Committee doing pre-legislative work on the Financial Services Act 2012. This is an iterative and organic process. We will never be able to stop financial crises happening, but working together, we can ensure that there are no more instances of contagion flooding through the system. This Bill is extraordinarily good in following that iterative process, in order to make the banking system unsinkable, I hope—and I do not use that term lightly, as someone might have done in the film “Titanic”; this is genuinely very important. I pay credit to the former Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt), and the former Economic Secretary to the Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith), and their officials, who worked tirelessly to ensure that Silicon Valley Bank UK was transferred to HSBC over that weekend, which undoubtedly avoided wider disruption to the financial system. We are delighted that the Bill was introduced in the previous Parliament, and we welcome the Government’s decision to carry it over into this Parliament. I was about to say that our swords will cross in the coming months and years, but I do not think they will; I think we will almost certainly agree on things. We will engage with the Minister and her officials to ensure that we have a world-class financial system that is the envy of the world. Question put and agreed to. Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.
24 Apr 2025 · Bank Resolution (Recapitalisation) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source
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I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
24 Apr 2025 · Bank Resolution (Recapitalisation) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source
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My apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker. These are points that we feel are worth noting, but I take your comments. I will turn to amendment 3, tabled by the Liberal Democrats. Although we share the intent behind the amendment, which mirrors the Conservatives’ amendment on MREL limits for banks, there is a critical difference in its approach that gives us pause. Like us, the Liberal Democrats recognise that end-state MREL banks should not be the primary target of this legislation. However, their amendment introduces a requirement for a statutory instrument under the negative procedure that we believe would create more problems than it solves. Our concern lies in the potential impracticality of this approach. Banking crises can unfold rapidly, as we saw with Silicon Valley Bank UK, where decisions were made in a matter of hours, not days. A statutory instrument subject to the negative procedure becomes law the moment the Minister signs it, which is a good thing, and it remains in law unless either House rejects it within 40 sitting days. That creates a window of uncertainty. If Members were to pray against the statutory instrument, particularly in a hung Parliament, it could trigger market instability, which is precisely what this Bill seeks to avoid, so although we agree with the principle of limiting the Bill’s scope, we worry that the mechanism could tie the hands of a future Chancellor, hindering their ability to respond swiftly and decisively in a crisis. For those reasons, we cannot support the Liberal Democrat amendment.

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