Financial Services and Markets Bill [HL]

Lord Ranger of Northwood Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 22nd June 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Ranger of Northwood (Con)]

My Lords, I will make my first contribution to this Bill. This is also one of my first in Committee, so I beg noble Lords’ forgiveness for any errors I will make. I do not have vast experience in the banking sector, but I have spent almost 25 years in technology, during which I worked with a number of firms in the banking sector.

I support the comments from my Front-Bench colleague, my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe, and from the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, on the impact of this broad-ranging Bill. Later, I will comment more on the technology aspect, but at this point I highlight that, as we move forward, a degree of regulatory burden is continuing to build, especially for the future of banking around fintech, innovators, start-ups and scale-ups, a world I have worked in significantly. I look at this Bill through that lens, seeking to understand what we are doing around the posture we are requesting from these new future banking institutions, as they see different requirements from different regulators based on a loose—or, sometimes, as in the case of this Bill, unclear—focus. I say that because we are hearing that from the industry.

The past couple of years have required significant consultation on start-ups and scale-ups, particularly in the area of digital assets. Regulators have undertaken extensive questioning of the industry, but there seems to be some gap between parliamentary oversight and regulatory direction. That has been fed back and has resulted in ad hoc approaches to intervention with regulators from parliamentarians, industry bodies and even parliamentary groups—I co-chair the APPG on Digital Markets and Digital Money—in order to provide a certain level of input about what the industry, particularly the digital asset industry and digital start-up banks, may be considering. There is a huge opportunity in this Bill to understand how we would like to set out frameworks and risk management for the future, but there is also considerable risk—as was mentioned by my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe—around where we lose oversight and potential control at this critical time.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

I will speak just briefly. I find myself in the unusual situation of agreeing with the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, on the role and functioning of the Financial Services Regulation Committee, of which I am a member. The committee was created to undertake a particular task, and what is in the Bill makes that task virtually impossible. We very much hope that the Minister will listen to what the committee has said on this subject.

Sovereign AI Fund

Lord Ranger of Northwood Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

Public procurement through G-Cloud must deliver value for money, security, and effective public services. Suppliers are not selected or excluded purely on the basis of nationality where they meet operational security and value for money obligations. The commercialisation of the sovereign AI fund to make the Government an early customer for strategically important UK start-ups is ongoing across technical, commercial and government leads to ensure that a robust, flexible, and scalable option is available.

[Lord Ranger of Northwood (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I could highlight that the biggest challenge I see is not just initial funding. We welcome what the sovereign AI fund will do to provide compute and help commercialisation at a start-up moment for British AI companies, but the tragedy that we are seeing right now is losing those companies to international funders and overseas platforms. Once they reach a point for scaling, what will the fund or the Government do to help retain them, so they remain headquartered in the UK and continue to succeed commercially here?

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right. Our ambition is to make the UK the best place to start, to scale and to stay. That is not just for the AI sovereign fund, important though that is, but for the ecosystem. That is why we are investing in public compute, so that firms here will be able to access it, why we have our ambition for UK procurement and why we are looking at measures such as AI growth zones: to make this country one of the most attractive, as we can see from the amount of foreign direct investment that is already coming into the UK.

British Business Bank

Lord Ranger of Northwood Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

My noble friend is right to mention consistency with the industrial strategy. It was only in October last year that the Government gave the British Business Bank a new mandate, including to align with the industrial strategy’s priority sectors and making available £4 billion to support those areas. In setting out the priority sectors, the Government have outlined ways in which they expect the British Business Bank to meet that—for example, using specialist fund managers or tailored approaches for the specific financing and other requirements of those subsectors. Creative UK has committed to providing a single gateway to help those creative industries that need access to finance to navigate between the various sources of finance available from the Government.

[Lord Ranger of Northwood (Con)]

My Lords, I am a member of the Science and Technology Select Committee. We recently produced a report, Bleeding to Death, which I hope the Minister has seen, looking at the scale-up ecosystem of the UK and particularly the role of the British Business Bank. It concluded that we are in a doom loop. We do not have the scale or competitiveness, despite the extra investment in the British Business Bank. One of our recommendations was to bring different funds together, such as Innovate Finance, the National Wealth Fund and the British Business Bank. Have the Government looked at that recommendation?

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

As I said, we are helping businesses navigate the way—for example, through the business growth service, which enables businesses to access all the types of finance and support that they need, including UK export finance and other facilities with the Government. For the creative industries, Creative UK has committed to taking that role to help those businesses navigate the way through. On supporting businesses and the VC ecosystem, there is a lot of activity with the new investor pathways programme to provide £400 million of cornerstone investments into VC funds.

Artificial Intelligence Legislation

Lord Ranger of Northwood Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

My noble friend highlights one of the important points made during the passage of the Bill. The whole swathe of those discussions, both at technical level and with parliamentary colleagues, is intended to have the views of rights holders and other actors on the table, so that we can work through these at the same time as the AI developments are happening in real time.

[Lord Ranger of Northwood (Con)]

My Lords, I note my register of interests, specifically as an adviser to SMEs in AI—VED 3, Automated Analytics and Scrumconnect—and as part of the AI APPG. Let me bring some good news to the House: the UK AI sector is booming. Nearly half of UK businesses’ resilience budgets are now going on AI, agentic AI and technology. This investment been supported by the UK Government’s sector-led, principles-based approach to AI regulation, designed to foster innovation and ensure safety. As the Minister confirms, I hope this flexible model will continue and be central to our strategy. Is the Minister aware that recent analysis shows that the EU’s AI Act has contributed to a 20% decline in AI formations in the region, and up to a €500,000 annual compliance cost for high-risk systems, disproportionately affecting SMEs and deterring investment—outcomes the UK has wisely avoided?

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes an extremely good point about the way in which we regulate. The UK has a bespoke approach. It is obviously important that we continue to work with other countries, as AI development is not something that happens only in the UK. Therefore, there is an element of needing to talk to the US and the EU, for example, about the developments. The noble Lord is absolutely right that our approach here is designed to safeguard security, build trust and get the economic benefits for the people of the UK.