Lord Davies of Oldham
Main Page: Lord Davies of Oldham (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Davies of Oldham's debates with the Cabinet Office
(9 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberThe noble Lord speaks with a lot of experience on these matters, which are worthy of consideration. If he will forgive me, I would like to write to him on that point as it requires a detailed answer.
My Lords, I hope that the Minister is not indulging in that degree of complacency—saying, “It’s all under control”—which the senior management of significant banks indulged in, and then found themselves taken to the cleaners by the operations of relatively lowly placed staff. One thinks particularly of UBS losing £1.7 billion from someone trading in this manner. The noble Lord must know that the technology of increased speed is widening the spread between buying and selling, and therefore gives an incentive to people operating at that level to take advantage.
My Lords, I am certainly not complacent. The noble Lord raises a good point, and I reiterate that the Government take the matter of regulating financial markets in their entirety very seriously and closely follow developments in these markets. As I said, investment firms and trading venues should ensure that robust measures are in place to prevent automated trading creating a disorderly market and being used for abusive purposes. The new rules under MiFID II will ensure that such measures are in place.