Financial Services and Markets Bill

Debate between Lord Ashcombe and Lord Bridges of Headley

Committee stage
Wednesday 1st February 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Bridges of Headley (Con)]

My Lords, I will make a brief intervention. I declare my interests as an adviser to and shareholder in Banco Santander in Madrid. I have a lot of sympathy with some of the amendments in this group, especially those in the name of my noble friends Lord Holmes of Richmond and the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull.

I will take a quick step back. The Bill needs to be improved in three key ways. First, we need to improve the reporting by the regulators. Secondly, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, said, we need to make sure that the regulators are not marking their own homework, which is why it is important that we create a form of independent analysis. Thirdly, we need to improve parliamentary accountability. The amendments clearly address the first point on reporting. I will not repeat the number of points made very eloquently by the noble Earl and others, especially my noble friend Lady Noakes. However, I strongly believe that, as has been said, this will help regulators define their actions and, in so doing, help address confidence in the regulators that they are meeting those objectives.

I listened to the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer—I was about to call her my noble friend; she is a good friend—and she is absolutely right. We absolutely have to get right the balance between competitiveness and stability here. I do not think anyone here is arguing for a race to the bottom; that would be a disaster for our financial services sector. A strong financial services sector is based on robust, proportionate and simple regulation, so I completely heed that concern. However, I look at some of the amendments, especially some of the metrics being quoted here, and the data that they would provide would be exceptionally valuable to us as Parliament when we come to assess the performance of our regulators in a critical sector for our economy, and we can then judge them on those actions. I look at the consultation that the PRA set out, which states that it will include its performance in meeting this new objective but it does not say how. It is important that we send a signal, and at least have a very thorough debate as to what that might be.

I end on this point: does the Minister seriously think that the current reports we get from our regulators are satisfactory and adequate, especially in the light of the new powers and the new objective that the Bill confers on them and the concern that I think many on both sides of the Committee have about what that means for their powers and their accountability? That is a simple question.

[Lord Ashcombe (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as an employee of Marsh & Co, the insurance broker. I too support Amendments 66, 115 and 196 in the names of my noble friends Lord Holmes of Richmond, Lord Naseby, Lord Trenchard and Lady Noakes. Since Second Reading the Bermuda authority has reported that it saw the highest number of new insurance-broking companies registered in more than a decade as 84 new companies were set up in 2022, but not one has been set up in the UK for 15 years. This is the reality of international competition that the UK is facing as it competes with jurisdictions around the world for investment, capital and jobs, but we note that we depend on high standards of regulation. It seems that a number of key changes are needed to address this to improve the accountability of UK regulators, making them more consistent in their approach and more responsive in ultimately ensuring that they act more proportionately, as mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull.

Amendment 66 requires that the FCA and the PRA each publish an annual report setting out how they have facilitated international competitiveness and growth against a range of data and analysis requirements. Clause 26 currently allows regulators to decide for themselves how they believe they have met the requirements of their new competitiveness, as already mentioned. For example, the clause states that the FCA can decide “in its opinion” how to report on the objective and therefore decide solely for itself how it has met the objective’s requirements. The objective must therefore have alongside it a clear reporting criterion so that the Government and Parliament can properly hold the regulators to account. It is unclear whether the regulators will consider metrics specific to international competitiveness, not simply domestic competition. The criteria set out in the amendment can be measured and targets created to ensure that the regulators are operating effectively.

The Bermuda Monetary Authority takes a different approach and has different classes of insurers and reinsurers, together with authorisation criteria and KPIs that match the level of risk that the entity poses to the system. This allows it to undertake an authorisation of an international reinsurer with clients that are solely other insurance companies in less than one week—can you imagine?—thereby freeing resources to focus on entities serving individual retail customers.

Clause 37 gives Ministers a power over the regulators’ reporting requirements by providing them with a mechanism through which to direct information to be published. The danger is that this clause becomes more of a backstop measure, rather than something embedded in our new regulatory framework. While the clause is welcome in demonstrating the Government’s recognition of issues around needing to improve regulatory culture, it asks more questions than it necessarily answers. It is unclear how the Government will decide the criteria for requesting a report and whether they will seek input from industry and Parliament or the new bodies that the Bill creates, such as the cost-benefit analysis panels, in understanding where there is a demand for information. It is unclear whether, as part of its report, the regulator will undertake comparative analysis of its performance against the UK’s competitor jurisdictions as well as analysis of product and service innovations taking place in key markets. This is how Parliament will best understand whether the UK is performing well globally.

What we need are mechanisms in the Bill that help ensure that accountability becomes part of the day-to-day operation of the regulators, not something used ad hoc. That is the only way that we will get culture change and deliver the kind of culture change that we in Parliament and industry want, as addressed by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral at Second Reading. That is why measures set out in these amendments are so important. I hope we can look at further changes along these lines.