Alternative Investment Fund Designation Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted and Baroness Vere of Norbiton

2nd reading
Friday 1st March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I will come on to gold-plating. I am not entirely sure that everybody is in alignment on whether or not this regulation is implemented, but consultation is just good government. I do not see us making substantial changes to the regulatory scope on the basis of having not done it before we are not going to do it now. We need to get it right, but we absolutely support the investment company sector and want to get on with this. That is why I am so grateful to my noble friend Lady Altmann for bringing this forward, allowing us to have a conversation in the Treasury and beyond.

I turn to the second element: cost disclosures. My noble friend Lady Altmann has rightly identified that EU-derived legislation is not currently fit for purpose, as many other noble Lords, the Government and the Financial Conduct Authority would agree. The packaged retail and insurance-based investment products regulations, commonly and more easily known as PRIIPs, were originally meant to provide more transparent and standardised disclosure for retail investors across the European Union. Noble Lords are well aware that there are many problems with the EU PRIIPs regulation. It is prescriptive, misleading to retail investors and prioritises comparability over a wide range of financial products at the expense of consumer understanding.

That is why, as part of the Edinburgh reforms, the Chancellor announced that, as a priority, the Government would reform PRIIPs. We have already made significant progress on delivering this commitment. Most recently, at the Autumn Statement last year, the Government published a draft statutory instrument to replace PRIIPs with a new framework tailored to UK markets.

We understand industry’s concerns regarding broader legislation that prescribes firms to calculate their costs as they are required to do so now, and so the Government and the regulator have not stopped there. At the same Autumn Statement, the Government announced that they would bring forward the repeal of relevant cost disclosure provisions in the markets in financial instruments directive, or MiFID, alongside the replacement of PRIIPs.

Many noble Lords have mentioned that the FCA has published the forbearance statement, and some feel that it has not gone far enough. I will ensure that the FCA is made aware of the debates that noble Lords have had today. There has been significant criticism, which it will no doubt be interested in, and some suggestions of how it might be able to go forward.

I hope that this brief summary has provided sufficient reassurance to my noble friend Lady Altmann, and to all noble Lords, that the Government are treating this as a priority. We have a comprehensive plan to alleviate the harms faced by the investment company sector, but are committed to making sure that we get it right for the long term, to ensure that 150 years already gone by becomes another 150 years in the future.

I have mentioned consultation, so I will move on from that to cover some points raised in the debate on timelines. I accept that, for many noble Lords, and indeed Ministers, it is never fast enough. This was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Hannan and the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson. We are delivering a very ambitious programme to build the smarter regulatory framework for financial services. At Mansion House, the Government removed almost 100 pieces of unnecessary EU legislation from the statute book, and now we are looking at wider reforms—those mentioned in the debate today and others, including Solvency II—that will deliver the biggest potential benefits.

I note that my noble friend Lord Hannan would have liked us to go through things in a different way. The Treasury is very much focused on looking at where we can have the biggest and quickest potential benefits to economic growth. We are conducting a phased approach to bringing in this change of regulation because we must also ensure that the system and different financial sectors can cope with this change in legislation.

I note the invitation from the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, to make commitments from the Dispatch Box on certain matters. I am not able to do so just yet—maybe soon.

There is debate around gold-plating. I hope that that will all be laid to rest as we are able to reform this and ensure that we have the right framework going forward.

My noble friend Lady Altmann mentioned investment companies being removed from platforms. We note and recognise the frustration that some investment companies feel at having been removed from investment platforms. I reassure her that, although this is a commercial decision, the Government and the FCA are well aware of this issue and are carefully considering what options are available. Ditto in the use of the EMT, the MiFID template. This is a voluntary template, but we understand that it may not be providing the best information to retail investors at the current time.

Many noble Lords have noted the competitiveness of the UK capital markets. That is what underpins the smarter regulatory framework. Despite recent challenges, the UK has many vibrant and dynamic capital markets, and they remain some of the deepest and strongest globally. However, we cannot rest on any laurels; we have to keep moving forward in this area. That is why the Government are delivering on my noble friend Lord Hill’s listings review, the wholesale markets review, and the Chancellor’s Edinburgh and Mansion House reforms.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies, mentioned the FCA’s activities and scrutiny of the regulator’s role. My noble friend Lord Reay mentioned the FCA’s D&I work, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer. Parliament does have scrutiny over the FCA and many other regulators. Assimilated law is being replaced, in line with the UK’s domestic model of regulation. This means that the UK’s independent financial services regulators will generally set the detailed provisions in their rulebooks, instead of firms being required to follow EU law. This approach was following two consultations and it received broad support across the sector. Parliament debated this approach during the passage of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023, and it secured parliamentary support then.

The Government recognise the importance of effective parliamentary scrutiny of the regulators, including their approach to rule-making and other activities that they may choose to undertake. That is why FiSMA 2023 introduced additional mechanisms to strengthen Parliament’s existing ability to scrutinise the regulators’ work, including requirements for the regulators to notify parliamentary committees, such as the new Financial Services Regulation Committee, of their consultations and to explain, when publishing final rules, how representations by parliamentary committees have been considered. I warmly welcome the formation of that committee. It will be hugely helpful, and it is quite right and proper that independent regulators are held to account by Parliament.

I will write with a few further comments on the investment in the UK capital markets by UK pension funds and on a few other issues which have arisen and need a fuller response. For the time being, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady Altmann and many other noble Lords for their continued championing of the investment company sector.

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

I am sure that my interruption is unwelcome, for which I apologise, but it is quite important. Further consultations have been measured and, as my noble friend Lady Kramer pointed out, the aspects of PRIIPs and MiFID where there has been gold-plating that is causing these problems were never consulted upon. It is within the gift of the FCA to make changes.

These cost disclosure issues have featured massively already in two consultations from the Treasury on PRIIPs and in evidence that was submitted to the Treasury last summer, after my own attempt to amend FiSMA 2023. On these discrete issues, legislation does not need to be amended; what the FCA is doing needs to be amended. Support has been heard from these Benches and the Labour Benches for the Government taking more intrusive action. Has that message been received or are we still bogged down in officialdom and consultations? That is what we want to know.