John Glen: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I associate myself with the remarks of a number of Members this afternoon concerning the death of Sir David Amess. He was a true blessing to this Parliament and a great character whom we all loved, and he will be sadly missed. I have listened carefully to the various contributions this afternoon. As ever, this has been a very...
John Glen: I fully accept the point that the hon. Lady makes, in that at the moment, those protections do not exist, and that is why we have to regulate appropriately and proportionately. I want to say a bit more about what I think we should be doing. It is reasonable that buy now, pay later products use a bespoke approach to consumer disclosures, as well as to the form the credit agreement must take,...
John Glen: A continuous payment authority (sometimes called a “recurring” or “automated” payment) is a regular payment, where a payer has given consent for a firm to take one or more payments from a customer’s payment account. These are often established to enable regular payments to be made for goods or services via a payment card – for example, for a magazine subscription – and are...
John Glen: The Government wants to ensure that people, regardless of their background or income, have access to useful and affordable financial products and services. There are wider initiatives that low-income households will benefit from when accessing insurance. For example, from 1 January 2022, new FCA rules for home and motor insurance will require insurers to offer renewing customers a price...
John Glen: At their October meeting, G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors welcomed progress made by the IMF to provide options for members with strong external positions to channel a share of their allocated Special Drawing Rights (SDR), including considering viable options to voluntarily channel SDR to Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs). The IMF and MDB partners are developing...
John Glen: At the IMF’s Annual Meetings in October, the Chancellor committed to channelling up to 4bn Special Drawing Rights (SDR) of the UK’s new allocation, starting with an additional loan of SDR 1bn to the IMF’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust which provides zero interest loans to low-income countries. The Chancellor has also welcomed proposals for the IMF’s new Resilience and...
John Glen: The Government will continue to monitor risks to the UK economy, including from significant developments in the Chinese property market. Our monitoring will inform any action needed to mitigate risks.
John Glen: The FCA has published research on cash acceptance by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which found that the primary motivation for accepting cash is to provide customers with choice. While it remains the individual retailer’s choice as to whether to accept or decline any form of payment, including cash or card, nearly all (98%) of surveyed businesses stated they would never turn...
John Glen: Since the introduction of the bank levy in 2011, total revenue raised by the (a) Bank Levy and (b) Bank Corporation Tax Surcharge up to an including 2020-21 can be found in the ONS monthly public sector current receipts publication. https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxe s/publicsectorfinance/datasets/appendixdpublicsectorcurrentr eceipts These taxes were introduced...
John Glen: The Financial Policy Committee (FPC) of the Bank of England is responsible for identifying, monitoring and taking action to remove or reduce systemic risks with a view to protecting and enhancing the resilience of the UK financial system. In September, the FPC judged that the banking sector remains resilient to outcomes for the economy that are much more severe than the Monetary Policy...
John Glen: The Government regularly monitors trends in household debt levels in order to inform policy making to help people manage their money well and access support if they need to get their finances back on track. It does so by working closely with the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS), the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and engages regularly with a range of other stakeholders on their research...
John Glen: We have had a considerable debate this afternoon, both on Second Reading and in our scrutiny in Committee. I have made clear on a number of occasions the Government’s intentions in this legislation. I wish to thank the Opposition spokesmen for their contribution and thank my officials, but I do not have anything further to add.
John Glen: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) and the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) have raised a number of questions arising from what I said. The Government are clear that we support this transition away from LIBOR by providing additional legal certainty for contracts relying on LIBOR past the end...
John Glen: What we are saying is that the fall-back provisions, if they are without reference to LIBOR, would still apply. Where LIBOR is the reference, we are trying to ensure this synthetic methodology would not trigger that fall-back provision on the argument that it is distinct from the LIBOR provision in the contract. Essentially, we are trying to establish that the synthetic LIBOR methodology is...
John Glen: Thank you, Madam Chairman. I am grateful to you for being in the Chair at this point. I realise that a number of these provisions have already been considered on Second Reading, but I am keen to explain the clauses in turn. Owing to their technical nature, I will explain them paragraph by paragraph at times. I hope that the House will bear with me. As I said on Second Reading, the Bill...
John Glen: I want to address thoroughly all the points raised by the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) and the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) about legal certainty, the temporary nature of this provision, and concerns about what will happen to the population of mortgage holders. This is clearly a technical Bill. The Government are taking clear action to ensure that...
John Glen: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. Many Members will have heard of LIBOR in the context of the manipulation scandals almost 10 years ago. The London interbank offered rate is the rate at which banks lend to each other in wholesale markets. As the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) knows too well, from his experience on the Parliamentary...
John Glen: I cannot give the hon. Gentleman a precise figure. However, in my remarks now and further on, I will give an explanation of those that are excluded and therefore necessitate the creation of this synthetic rate. If he would just bear with me, I will get to the point, and he should feel free to intervene subsequently if he is not satisfied. The Bill builds on the provisions of the Financial...
John Glen: As ever, my right hon. Friend makes a reasonable point, and I will come on to address the potential divergence, and the implications of the synthetic methodology for the existing rate that we are about to institute and protect in the Bill. In short, there is a lot of volatility in the market, and it is difficult to be fully confident in determining the exact quantum of any difference between...
John Glen: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) for the points he has made, and I recognise the relatively unusual procedure being adopted here. He was present during the passage of the Financial Services Act 2021. Indeed, he contacted my office last week for a briefing prior to this Bill, which I made available to him and Opposition Front Benchers earlier this week. I hope...