Speeches by Glen.

“What people in the industry would possibly say is that, when you started, you were there to ensure that the payment system worked for everyone; you were an enabler. As the decade has progressed, instead of being a force for good, you have become something that is a policeman of behaviours. How would you want to charact…”

“Could we turn to supervision? You set up your supervision division two years ago. I believe you have been consulting on the approach to take since April 2024. Could you explain that interval from when you were started to 2024 and what is happening now with supervision, please?”

“Thank you, Mr Geale. The PSR was set up following the banking Act in 2013. Since 2015, when it was established, headcount has increased by 198% and expenditure by 116%. It is important at the start of this session that we understand what you think that has led to. What is the principal role that the PSR has played in t…”

“Several of my constituents in Salisbury have recently retired from the civil service. When they have contacted Capita, they have not been able to obtain their lump sums, so are getting into debt and have lost out on interest. Others have been cut off and ignored. Could we have a statement or a debate on this matter? It…”

“I am going to bring the others in, but I want to pivot, given time, into the broader issue of financial education. I failed, as Economic Secretary, to persuade my colleagues in Government to do anything to extend the obligations on financial education. This Government have brought that in, but to get that embedded into…”

“The next topic is looking at financial education and capability. The FCA has the Mills review, which was launched last month. That is looking at AI’s impact on retail finance. We would acknowledge that hyper-personalisation could lead to hyper-exclusion, if those algorithms almost verify cost to serve, and so on. What …”

“Is that how efficient they are at referring to people who can help?”

“We know that there is a counter-argument to this. The banks would say, “We are under all these different obligations.” The Government will be slightly sensitive to this, optically, in terms of adding in more bureaucracy, cost and so on. How would you counter that to say that these interventions would not be prohibitive…”

“Can we go back to the issue of the fair banking Act? The argument is that the consumer duty that the FCA oversees protects existing customers but does not deal with those who are excluded and unable to become customers. In our earlier conversation, we established that the strategy does not do the analysis of the gap, i…”

“Just to quickly abbreviate another set of questions I was going to ask you, why would the consumer duty not be satisfactory on that? That is what the FCA would say, would they not, in terms of resisting a fair banking Act?”

“Ms Williams or Mr McAteer, do you want to say something on this area?”

“Sorry to intervene, but I want to get to the heart of this. You accept the principle that banks will not always be able to serve everyone, but you recognise that they have an obligation. It is about the mechanism and the obligation they have to refer to others. That is the space where intervention could happen.”

“If it does not work, then fine, but if it does work, let us keep it. That is basically what I think. Could I turn to you, Professor? Can you help us to understand, when banks fail vulnerable people, because they cannot match their product to the needs of a vulnerable person, what you think should happen? We do see a pa…”

“I personally found that very helpful. Thank you.”

“Could I follow up on the no-interest loan scheme? We have worked on this previously. I have always thought this could make a meaningful contribution, if scaled up. Mr Bland was not so sure. I wonder where you think we are at with this. What is the big decision point that would determine whether it is scalable or not, o…”

“Could I move to Ms Williams? I wanted to address this issue that we had last week with Matt Bland of ABCUL. The Government have committed to this £30 million credit union transformation fund. I wonder what you think about that. The Financial Inclusion Commission wants to get to £3 billion by 2030 in terms of the afford…”

“It is conceivable that an affordability test on one transaction would not have sight of others. Therefore, the overall indebtedness of the individual would not be dealt with.”

“Can I just follow up on that last point? Does the Government intervention on buy now, pay later account for multiple purchases across multiple platforms to assess affordability? If you have done buy now, pay later five times and you want to take a sixth, how does it account for the aggregate debt?”

“I am a member of the Financial Inclusion Commission, as Ms Williams knows, and I should declare that in the context of what we are discussing today.”

“I welcome the Government’s apology for the maladministration and the Minister’s clarity today, but many Salisbury WASPI women will be very disappointed by the decision. Could the Secretary of State say a little more about what options he looked at to compensate the poorest, most vulnerable of the WASPI women? I recogni…”