Nicky Morgan: Tory attacks on business ‘unforgivable’
Treasury committee chief says Tories should celebrate job creators NOT attack them. That’s why, in a furious rebuke, she brands Boris and Jeremy Hunt...
GIVEN some of the serious – and arguably quite dry – jobs Nicky Morgan has had during her career in the City and Westminster, it is perhaps unsurprising that she is not often credited with having a sense of humour. Clearly people aren’t asking her enough questions about embattled banking bosses.
‘Ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha,’ is Morgan’s response when asked whether Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Ross McEwan can expect the ‘Paul Pester treatment’ after recently incurring her wrath. McEwan can relax for now. The chair of the Treasury Select Committee adds t hat s he currently has no plans to call him into Parliament again, despite recently accusing him of havi ng ‘ wit hhel d information’ about a police investigation into RBS during an evidence session.
McEwan denies the allegation, but he will no doubt be wary of Morgan. Paul Pester last month stood down from TSB shortly after Morgan had written to his board to say she had ‘ lost confidence’ in their chief executive during the bank’s IT meltdown.
Morgan was pleased with the resignation, but refuses to bask in Pester’s downfall. ‘I don’t see things in terms of victories,’ she says. ‘It’s not about trying to win scalps or to get people to resign.’
Morgan’s Westminster career began i n 2010 when she was elected as an MP after 16 years in corporate law. She quickly ascended the ranks of the Conservative Party, rising to become Education Secretary before being sacked by Prime Minister Theresa May after the EU referendum. (Morgan got her own back, to an extent, by criticising May for wearing a pair of £ 995 leather trousers.)
Now, as head of the influential Treasury Select Committee, Morgan occupies one of the most powerful non-governmental offices of Westminster. Unfortunately for her, this does not translate into a particularly glamorous physical office. Her modest, dimly lit workplace offers a not-so-stunning view of the roof of Portcullis House, a modern building on the parliamentary estate. Seeing the funny side once more, Morgan suggests she must have offended her Tory Party whips when they were doling out office space.
Morgan is the select committee’s first female chair, and has made gender diversity a central issue for her team of MPs. She is confident the City is changing for the better, but acknowledges there remains a ‘macho culture’ in some areas.
During her work with the committee Morgan says she has experienced one or two ‘ patronising’ comments and she reveals some challenges in persuading people she would be good at the job. ‘Those canvassing on my behalf definitely reported back a bit of, “Well, what does she know about it?”. And they said: “Well, she’s an ex-lawyer, been in the City for 16 years, been in the Treasury – kind of strikes me that she’s probably quite qualified for this role.” People made assumptions.’
One of the toughest challenges Morgan faces in her role is fastapproaching.
This week, ahead of the Budget next Monday, her committee is expected to release its report on how it feels the Government should tackle disputes between small businesses and their lenders.
The issue has been hurtled to the front of her agenda by revelations over the past year about RBS’s turnaround unit, GRG, and HBOS Reading. ‘I’ve had constituents who have been caught up particularly with GRG who have lost everything – often lost homes, marriages, mental health,’ she says.
‘I’m angry on their behalf. Often it’s difficult to know if we can put their situation completely right.
‘But if I can do something about making sure the institution recognises what went wrong, what they’ve put right, has it really changed – then I hope that’s where the select committee can really get to grips with the situation.’
Away from her select committee, the Loughborough MP is best known for being a staunch Remainer.
She was one of 15 Tory MPs dubbed ‘ The Brexit mutineers’ by one newspaper in November last year – and has the front page framed on her desk to prove it.
Morgan has attempted to steer her committee away from focusing solely on Brexit, and has instead tackled wide-ranging issues from economic crime and cryptocurrencies, to work childcare policy and the work of the Financial Ombudsman Service.
But inevitably the UK’s departure from the EU is never far from the minds of the bankers, businessmen and policymakers that she speaks to as part of her committee work. Various bodies have suggested Brexit threatens tens of thousands of financial services jobs.
‘We have a fantastic track record and financial centre in London,’ she says. ‘I think it’s a great shame that we are putting that at risk at all.’
Morgan sees her current job as ‘looking out for’ financial services firms as they prepare for an uncertain Brexit in March next year. But she does accept that she is partly to blame for the various predicaments they face – Morgan was, after all, part of the Remain-backing Government that called an EU referendum in 2016.
‘Obviously I voted for there to be a referendum,’ she says. ‘We didn’t get the result that we wanted. So we have created uncertainty, and I think it’s difficult for the Conservative Party.
‘ As a party of business we have created uncertainty for people who would have traditionally regarded us as being on their side.’
It has been a tough year for the Tory Party and its relationship with the business world. Corporate Britain was appalled over the summer when Boris Johnson, then Foreign Secretary, responded to a question about employers’ Brexit fears by saying: ‘F*** business.’
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt then caused further outrage when he suggested it was ‘ completely inappropriate’ for companies like Airbus to make warnings about Brexit. ‘I was pretty angry about that,’ says Morgan .‘ I think it’ s wholly unforgivable for a party that should be celebrating entrepreneurs and wealth creators and jobs creators and taxpayers.
‘Particularly people like Secretaries of State – who rely on those taxpayers to have the money to spend in their departmental budgets – I think that that was not a good place for the party to be.’
She adds: ‘I think that a lot of business people felt unloved and unappreciated. We’ve already made life hard enough for them. I think we now need to demonstrate that we’re on their side. Although they do need to bear with us while Brexit negotiations continue.’
A lot of business people feel unloved. We need to show we are on their side