Resolution of Central Counterparties (Modified Application of Corporate Law and Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2023
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Baroness Vere of Norbiton
That the Grand Committee do consider the Resolution of Central Counterparties (Modified Application of Corporate Law and Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2023.
The Parliamentary Secretary, HM Treasury (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)
My Lords, these draft regulations make necessary technical and consequential legislative changes and provide legal protection for contractual arrangements to ensure that the expanded resolution regime for central counterparties, or CCPs, operates as intended.
Resolution is the framework for managing the failure of certain financial institutions. Within this framework, the Bank of England is the UK’s resolution authority and leads on resolution processes once instigated. The UK’s current resolution regime for banks and building societies was introduced in 2009, and this was partially extended to CCPs in 2014. A new, bespoke and expanded regime for CCPs was created this year through Schedule 11 to the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023.
CCPs are firms that provide clearing services for large volumes of financial trading activity. They sit between buyers and sellers and guarantee the terms of the trade. They are systemically important pieces of market infrastructure—without them, the financial system cannot function effectively. The failure of a CCP and the resulting loss of its clearing services could lead to serious consequences for financial markets, financial stability and public funds. The UK’s expanded CCP resolution regime will enhance the Bank of England’s resolution powers and ensure that the UK is aligned with international standards on CCP resolution. To fully implement the expanded CCP resolution regime, the Government must lay a number of statutory instruments. Two of these are being debated by your Lordships’ House today.
The first set of regulations, the Resolution of Central Counterparties (Modified Application of Corporate Law and Consequential Amendments) Regulations, make the necessary changes to existing legislation to ensure that the expanded CCP resolution regime can function as intended. These modifications have two main parts. The regulations will ensure that resolution powers under Schedule 11 will continue to be treated in a similar way to the existing CCP resolution regime in the Banking Act 2009. This largely consists of mirroring changes made under the Banking Act to the Companies Acts 1989 and 2006.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, and to the noble Lord, Lord Livermore, for their kind welcome to my new role. From Transport to Treasury—how exciting. This is indeed my first outing, and I get to do some very, let us be honest, technical SIs. Like the noble Baroness, I too looked for the exciting or the unusual in these SIs and, unfortunately, I have not necessarily succeeded either. They are important and necessary to bring the new expanded regime into operationalisation, but I do not think there is anything in them that would trouble noble Lords. Judging by the questions raised by the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, it is more about the process, making sure that people are aware and ensuring that the CCPs actually function, which the noble Baroness pointed out.
I turn first to the noble Lord’s questions, because he was kind enough to give me sight of them before the debate, which is always incredibly helpful, because I always try to do my very best. I know I will not answer all today’s questions so I will, of course, write. I will start with notifying the interested parties. It should be noted that the CCP resolution liaison panel was convened in June this year to discuss the secondary legislation under Schedule 11, including the substance of these instruments. This panel includes a variety of industry stakeholders, including the three UK CCPs, organisations that represent large numbers of clearing members, insolvency experts and regulators. We have a wide range of people there, which feeds into the noble Lord’s point that it is disappointing to receive 14 responses to a consultation. However, for a consultation such as this we got responses from trade bodies and we are satisfied that the industry is well aware of what is going on and that it will be implemented on 31 December. The panel was not only consulted on these SIs but also on the code of practice, which describes how the Bank will use its powers under Schedule 11. This will be published when the new regime comes into force.
I am content that the industry is well aware of what is happening. We will continue to liaise with the industry as the regime comes into force and as the code of practice is published. That code will, of course, be laid before Parliament and updated and reissued—and therefore re-laid—as appropriate should any amendments be made.
In addressing the consultation responses, it is fair to say that we looked at all the feedback we had from the initial consultation and covered all the issues that were raised in the response. There has been ongoing consultation since then to ensure that the detail is correct, and that the relevant trade bodies and CCPs were fully involved in ensuring that not only the provisions of the FSMA but the subsequent delegated legislation required were robust. So we have done quite a lot of consultation and I do not believe that we could have done much more. It is certainly not my feeling that we have missed anybody out or that there is a groundswell of opinion out there that people needed to be heard.
With the FSMA, we very much tried to set out which elements should be in primary legislation versus some more technical measures which should be in secondary legislation. This legislation does not change the policy set out in the FSMA; it makes necessary changes to company law, which sometimes needs to be changed separately. It creates protections for important contractual arrangements, as necessary.
Noble Lords will have noticed the cash call limit. There are some things that everybody knows may need to be lifted in 10 or 20 years’ time; these are entirely appropriate for secondary legislation.
The noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, asked me a number of questions about the operationalisation—not only the way that these clearing houses work but who bears the biggest cost when they get into financial trouble. At the moment, given the potential impact on the UK’s financial stability from a CCP’s inability to continue to provide these clearing services, what we have done, and it is prudent to have done so, is ensure that the Bank of England has all the powers it may need in a full range of possible market stress scenarios. As the noble Baroness rightly pointed out, these things are often global and happen very quickly. Some may fare worse than others. In the unlikely event that this happens, it would be a highly unpredictable scenario. That is why we have tended more to set out a framework for how it would happen rather than go through the detail of any possible scenario.
The UK already has effective rules for CCPs’ own recovery arrangements. These include the requirement that a CCP’s total prefunded financial resources cover the losses from the default of two clearing members—not just two clearing members but those with the largest exposure. That is a fair balance between the likelihood of something happening and the necessity of tying up capital to provide a sufficient cushion. However, the Bank of England has a range of other powers that it would be able to bring to bear over the course of resolution not only on the CCPs but on those members within them to ensure that we end up with market confidence and that the system continues.
The noble Baroness mentioned “no creditor worse off”. The Treasury is required to have regard to the “no creditor worse off” safeguard in the event that a resolution occurs. Therefore, no individual will be worse off after a resolution than they would have been if the CCP had gone into insolvency. So, yes, these are not tidying-up measures but just key technical points to bring the regime into being.
I will write to the noble Baroness on how there can be no implications for set-off and netting. I understand what they are, but I want to reassure myself that I used the right words, and I will reply in writing, if that is okay. I have a little more information on whether clearing members should be required to make a bigger contribution, but I will also set that out in writing. There are probably one or two other points but, for the time being, I commend this instrument to the Committee.