Financial Services (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Lord Duncan of Springbank Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

My Lords, on this occasion I will not read out the usual preamble but will go straight to the point. Motion in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, to approve the Financial Services (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020. The time limit is one hour.

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[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I am pleased to speak to these regulations. In doing so, I thank all those across financial services, in the City of London and beyond, who helped to get the regulations into the condition they are in. We have one of the finest financial services centres on the planet, and potentially the best is yet to come—but that is “potentially” rather than “inevitably”. Does my noble friend agree that a large part of the success to date of financial services, not least in London, is due to the fact that London is one of the most diverse cities on the planet? Like cities, financial services organisations benefit from such diversity, and we have seen that benefit throughout the UK and across the world.

Echoing the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, will my noble friend the Minister set out the position of Gibraltar as regards the regulations? Secondly, will she clarify whether equivalence is still the target and, if not, why not? Come our exit, does she believe from her perspective that financial services in the UK will be in a better position going forward than they are today?

[The Deputy Speaker]

Lord Wood of Anfield. No? I think that we will come back to him, so we move on to our next speaker, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb.