Financial Services Act 2021 (Overseas Funds Regime and Recognition of Parts of Schemes) (Amendment and Modification) Regulations 2024

Debate between Lord Livermore and Lord Jones

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Jones (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister is clearly up to speed on these detailed matters, as I know my noble friend Lord Livermore is—but I am not. I recollect that, when I was in another place, the late Lord Cecil Parkinson, a very able Minister, introduced his great City finance reforms—what we knew then in the other place as the “big bang”. Lord Parkinson was a clever and adept Minister; he rose to even higher rank in government, and was a party chair for the late Lady Thatcher. But it seems to me that, in his reforms, simplicity was not one of the ingredients. With reference to the Explanatory Memorandum, at paragraph 7.1, what are sub-funds? Might the Minister throw some light on that detail?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for introducing this statutory instrument. We support these regulations, as they will provide smoother market access for overseas funds that have been determined to be equivalent to the UK’s in relation to consumer protection. This SI is part of a wider set of measures to bring the overseas funds regime, or OFR, online. The regime will apply to funds from jurisdictions that the Treasury has deemed “equivalent”, so the OFR will become operational only once those decisions by the Treasury have been made.

When this SI was debated in the Commons, my honourable friend the shadow Economics Secretary asked the Minister when the Secretary expected to take the equivalence decisions that would enable overseas funds to utilise the streamlined approach envisaged under the new overseas funds regime. In his answer, the Minister was able only to say, “very soon, I hope”. Given this, is the Minister able to go any further in providing greater clarity on the timing of these equivalence decisions? Is she able to provide any indication of how many equivalence decisions the Treasury expects to make in the first instance?