Financial Services and Markets Bill [HL]

Lord Hunt of Wirral Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 29th June 2026 Grand Committee

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for telling me about my noble friend’s disqualification from speaking; I will now speak to his Amendment 101. I find that it would be a useful addition to Clause 20, by imposing some modest requirements such as making the reports comparable with previous reports and covering things such as the cumulative cost of regulation and an explanation of how proportionality has been applied, including for SMEs. I do not think that any part of this amendment should be controversial, and I hope that the Minister will be able to accept it.

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

I thank my noble friend.

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My last amendment in this group, Amendment 102, is also about the secondary competitiveness and growth objective, but, this time, for the Financial Market Infrastructure Committee of the Bank of England. The FMIC was set up with a secondary innovation objective, and there is clearly a link between innovation and growth and competitiveness—but they are not synonymous. I am not sure why the FMIC was set up with innovation objectives rather than full competitiveness and growth objectives, and I do not recall a substantive debate on that during the passage of the 2023 Act.