Financial Services: Regulation

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. Virtually every adult in the United Kingdom is a consumer of financial services, be it for mortgages, credit cards, loans, insurance products or pensions. It is essential that consumers continue to have confidence in the institutions that provide those services so that they continue to do those things, which are very much a social and economic good for this country.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that, at a time when many of our major financial institutions are embroiled in scandals over how they have treated their customers, this is not the time for deregulation but for more effective regulation and, in particular, the use of more personal accountability for malefactors?

[Lord Bates]

It is certainly a time for better regulation; I very much agree with that. There has been a suggestion that the way in which the FCA has conducted these matters has not focused on the areas of greatest risk. One area it has looked at is the small businesses, in particular, that have been affected by the regulation, whereas perhaps, historically, they are at lower risk. That was why the Enterprise Act 2015 required the FCA to look at the proportionality and the cost of regulation, particularly on those small businesses, which I think was the right step forward.