Stock Markets

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I am so glad that the right reverend Prelate has given me a chance to set out what the Government are doing. The Financial Services and Markets Bill has just completed its work in Commons Committee, setting forward a whole range of reforms to inherited EU law to make us more competitive. He also mentioned the environment. The Government’s ambition is to make London the premier place for green finance, to ensure that our financial markets take into account the challenge of climate change, so that we then can ensure that we are pursuing green growth across the whole of our economy.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, having lived and worshipped for nearly 40 years in the diocese of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, I have benefited greatly over the years from the spiritual advice that I have received from his predecessors and my local clergy. But is my noble friend aware that this is the first time I have ever heard a bishop of the Church of England complain that the stock market is not high enough? Is that because the bishops have ceased to worry about spreading Christianity and now propose the worship of Mammon, or is it simply a delayed anti-Brexit point, which is not the role of the bishops?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I cannot speak for the right reverend Prelate but he mentioned two things. One was ensuring green growth, which I have addressed, and the other was workers and jobs. Maybe he knows that there are 2.3 million jobs supported by the financial services sector, with two-thirds of these outside London in finance hubs including Birmingham.