Baroness Kramer (LD)

My Lords, it was exceedingly remiss of me, when I spoke earlier, not to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Pitt-Watson, to his role. We have had so many conversations that I have begun to think of him as the established Minister, yet sitting just a few Benches away is the noble Lord, Lord Stockwood; we are so glad for his presence and that he will stay engaged with this Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Livermore, was also with us earlier: he was a relentless proponent of the Government’s position and I will miss my engagements with him. Clause 3 deals with access to banking services. The Government have told us that the powers in this clause are intended to allow them to incorporate into law and regulation recommendations from the independent public review of access to banking services, chaired by Richard Lloyd and due in October. The review will evaluate the impact of ongoing bank branch closures and access to face-to-face banking across the UK. We on these Benches strongly support this review. Banks have closed a third of their branches in the last five years and, since 2015, nearly 7,000 bank and building society branches have shut down. We have been strong advocates of the banking hub scheme to create at least minimal access to services; 235 have opened, but the commitment is to a total of only 350 hubs. Much stronger action is needed, and soon. But—and it is beyond my comprehension why—Clause 3 has not been drafted for the narrow purpose stated by the Government of implementing the recommendations of the Lloyd review. It allows the Treasury to amend any Act of Parliament and to give any powers it wishes on access to banking to the FCA. Nothing is confined to the Lloyd review; it is Henry VIII on steroids. I put down Amendment 7, which would limit powers to allow the Treasury to implement only those provisions arising directly from the Lloyd review. That at least has been consulted on and had some broad engagement. The Government have not accepted that amendment. We therefore cannot accept the huge constitutional breach that Clause 3 represents. If the Conservative Benches move ahead with their Amendment 10, which would knock Clause 3 out of the Bill, I have strong hopes that the Government will come back with proper wording in the Commons, by which time the Lloyd review will have been published. As I say, we expect to support every aspect of the recommendations from the Lloyd review, although we have not yet seen them, but we cannot set the precedent of allowing sweeping powers that go way beyond the stated objective to be incorporated in a Bill of this significance.