Financial Services and Markets Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Ranger of Northwood and Baroness Kramer

Committee stage
Wednesday 8th July 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Ranger of Northwood (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Holmes’s amendments across the alphabet, particularly because he is right about the detail and the need for us to look at the ambition and see whether we are really targeting changes that will help us fulfil the ambition. When it comes to the point about regulation and whether or not it has worked, in terms of KYC, AML and even PEP, we know that these fundamental versions of regulatory burdens do not succeed. We hear constantly of their failings, so how are we going to adopt and adapt as we move into the digital assets universe, as I have been calling it, rather than naming each different type?

Fundamentally, one of the elements here is the use cases. These amendments speak to specific points and changes that could be brought through, but we must look at the use cases in which these will apply. We talk about tokenisation or how stablecoins will be used. We must talk about how property and assets might be traded differently. We must look at how services will be adapted and the wholesale settlement that international markets are looking at. We must talk about and consider the use cases around retail e-commerce. With that, I support my noble friend’s amendments.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I am going to be brief again: these are very interesting amendments. The breadth of the amendments put before us by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, gives us a sense of the extensive work that must be done, right across the plumbing of the entire financial services sector, to move and take advantage of the opportunities of the digital world. There is no discussion here of some of the risks, namely about the levers of power shifting to different hands and whether we should be concerned about that or whether there are monetary sovereignty issues. Those are crucial issues, and we cannot walk away from them. Plumbing seems boring, but it is crucial. It seems that every aspect of that plumbing has been raised here, something that I hoped we might hear about in greater detail from the Government. I am particularly focused on the first of the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, which is Amendment 164C. I apologise, I have the wrong one.