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It is Good Friday and John McFall is at home in Dumbarton, but
has a full schedule. He has church commitments, but before
that, a gruelling schedule of interviews and preparations for the
public release of a Treasury Select Committee report. Although he
is stepping down as an MP and from his role as Treasury Committee
chairman, his workload is by no means winding down.
Having joined the Labour Party in 1970, John made his way
through the ranks of his constituency party, before being elected
to Westminster in 1987. Reflecting on what motivated his
involvement in politics and any political role models he had at
that time, he remembers reading Anglican Archbishop Trevor
Huddleston's book on his experiences of apartheid in South Africa,
'Naught For Your Comfort', and it inspired him: "his mission
was something that I had to look up to". He has been the MP for his
local area for over 20 years now, and was selected as Chair of the
Treasury Select Committee in 2001, serving two terms in that
role.
In his role as Chair of the Treasury Committee, John has
established a formidable reputation for robust questioning and
holding key figures to account during the recent economic crisis,
and this has led to a significant number of influential reports and
recommendations to Government. In what he hopes will be a 'legacy
report', the Treasury Committee report 'Too important to fail - too
important to ignore' covers the banking crisis and the reforms
which are needed, and this is something which won't happen
overnight. On the cover of the report there are tulips. He
explains that they are there to symbolise the 1637 Dutch tulip
mania, which serves as a reminder that financial crises are not
new, and they are likely to continue in the future; but his point
is that it is the importance of responding properly to the
situation that is crucial now. "We've got to sort out a
system whereby we give an implicit subsidy to banks to operate with
the result that the taxpayer is on the hook", he says.
Restoring public confidence and trust in the banks is therefore a
key concern. He also refers to another recent Treasury Select
Committee report on women in the City as evidence that the whole
financial system needs to be reconsidered. Although there are
a lot of females employed in the financial services sector, they
are disproportionately employed at lower levels. "What we're
doing by not promoting enough women in the city, in the words of
one eminent economist who came to the Committee, is we're
'discarding half the population'. You can't have the most
efficient system if that's what you do."
The banking crisis has taken up much of the Committee's time in
the past two years, and having been awarded the Which? Consumer
Champion of the Year Award for 2009 for his role in improving
financial services for consumers, John admits that there are some
consumer issues for which he would have appreciated some more
committee time. Credit cards, store cards and high APRs, in
particular their disproportionate effect on people on low incomes,
are issues which he would have liked to have looked at.
Nevertheless, he remains proud of the progress the Committee made
on other consumer issues, particularly drawing attention to the
issue of cash machines, which led to the installation of 600 free
withdrawal cash machines in low income areas, and a mandatory
requirement for cash machines to display signage indicating whether
they are free to use, "so you can't go to a cash machine now
without that being up in big print and that's a result of the
Treasury Committee. So any time I pop my card in I think 'that was
us!'"
Recognising the importance of financial inclusion is obviously
an issue close to John's heart. On child poverty, he notes
that although good progress has been made, the danger of the
"ambitious" targets set by the Government of eradicating child
poverty by 2020 being jeopardised by the current economic
situation, is something that requires to be closely
monitored. Whoever his successor to the Treasury Committee
is, he says "I'd advise them to keep lashing the government on that
issue."
On civic involvement with the Parliament and the Government,
John thinks that the Jubilee 2000 campaign was "a template for what
the churches and civic society can do together". Although his
faith is a personal matter ("I believe that in politics you're
there to represent everyone in society, and therefore I see my
beliefs as a private affair"), he believes that political
engagement by churches and the opportunities this brings for
sharing the social teachings of the church with politicians is
important: "there's a common good and there's a vision of a better
society, and the churches have a hugely relevant role in
that." He was recently involved in an event organised by the
Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, held at Schroeders
Bank, at which a group of high-level City officials and academics
explored the relevance of the Pope's encyclical on social teaching,
Caritas in Veritate, for the financial sector. This, he
believes, is a good example of how churches can get involved in
addressing the issues that the financial crisis has created.
John served as an MP prior to devolution, and has now seen ten
years of the Scottish Parliament in operation. While there's
been a change to the types of issues he sees in his casework with
some of the "nuts and bolts" issues, for instance health and
education, having been passed over to MSPs at Holyrood, he doesn't
think there is a lack of involvement from Westminster by any means:
"over 50% of all expenditure is still undertaken by the UK
government, so on the issue of welfare, taxation, defence, foreign
affairs and finance - these are huge issues." However, John
gets "a bit weary of the argument about Scotland and devolution -
is it an event or a process? If we continually see it as a process,
we're going to miss the big picture as we go along."
Recognising that when he first arrived at Westminster he had
perhaps naively thought that he could change "the big things in
life", he cites former Speaker of the House of Congress, Tip
O'Neill's famous quote that "all politics is local" as the reality
of his role as an MP, and finds this rewarding: "when you achieve
the small things in life, that gives you a boost, you know, because
it affects people's lives".
He is held in high regard not only amongst constituents, but
fellow Parliamentarians. A recent letter from a Conservative
colleague on the Committee thanking him demonstrates the reputation
which he has built up over the years with colleagues across party
boundaries. The highlight of John's parliamentary career has been
his time as Chair of the Select Committee, and his passion for the
role, despite not having come from a financial background (he was a
teacher prior to becoming an MP) is evident.
John's wife, Joan, arrives with tea just as we move on to what
John would regard as his low point of his Westminster career.
She agrees with him that being denied a position on the Labour
front bench after playing a crucial role whilst the party was in
opposition was bad enough, but the fact that he found out via his
daughter who was watching on the television was "particularly
low". However, Joan is pragmatic: "that's politics" , and
John says "you learn from your low points and your mistakes, and
then you say every cloud has a silver lining, and I've had a big
silver lining with the Select Committee. The amplitude of life and
politics is greater than average life: in other words, the highs
are higher, but the lows are lower."
Enjoying exercise, John is in the gym 4 or 5 times a week: it's
"fight the flab" these days rather than a "gruelling hour in the
gym" (though he was a marathon runner not so long ago); but,
perhaps more importantly, it gives him time on his own to think. He
hasn't had much time to unwind recently, but when he does he enjoys
a good book, or going to the cinema, something he'd like to
rekindle when he has more time.
As for his immediate plans when he is no longer an MP? "I've
been given good advice, and it's to sit back and reflect for a
while, and don't jump into anything quickly, so hopefully I will
follow that advice. I've had a life of 'doing' all my life,
and it's been a busy life, and it's been a privileged life, and an
enjoyable and responsible life as well; but I'd like to go from a
life of 'doing' to a life of 'being' - and that's a hard
transition."