My Lords, I thank the Minister for that. I hope that it convinced her; I fear that it did not convince me. It is some time since I was on the Financial Services Consumer Panel, but I am still in close touch with the panel and I will be quoting it later on its disappointment with the Bill.
However, I want to take a moment to talk about the really interesting question that the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, raised. It was interesting in itself but so was
the contrast with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, which is a chartered institute and has a code of conduct or ethics—I cannot now remember what it is called—which does include putting the customer first. In a sense, that is all we are trying to do for the financial industry, which could learn a thing or two from the surveyors.
I thank my noble friend Lady Drake for her intervention, particularly the examples she gave. She usefully reiterated the reason why consumers in this industry need particular help: the complexities and the asymmetries of knowledge on these long-term products. She also warned that if we do not introduce somewhere in law that you must put your client’s interest first—and I do not think that something that is in an FCA rule is actually law, but I could be wrong about that—then we will carry on with a compliance, keeping-to-the-rules regime, which is of help to no one and continues to produce poor outcomes. As my noble friend warned us, there may be more to come, with pension unlocking.
The most important thing I have to say to the Minister is that treating customers fairly, which was in FiSMA and is now in the Act that my noble friend Lady Drake and I cut our teeth on in the House four years ago, is not the same as putting customers first. That is the extra push that we want. Although the Minister mentioned the duty of care on business in general, businesses have duties to shareholders and everyone else, which is why the client often comes a bit far down the pecking order.
If the Minister is right that no additional remedies would come from our amendment, then I see no harm in including it. She has not said what harm this would do. However, I fear that on this, just as the Government voted against a code of conduct for the financial industry when we were doing that Bill, they are again going to turn their back on consumers in this vital area.