Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014 (Amendments to Audit Requirements) Order 2017

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2018 Lords Chamber

The final issue is about the change that makes the FCA the registrar as well as the regulator for credit unions in Northern Ireland. I can find no comments that would suggest anything negative about that. Have any issues been raised that I simply have not been able to find that we should be aware of around this, or is there a wide consensus that this is a logical fitting in place of the final piece of a jigsaw that has already been assembled and is functioning properly?

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, for finding so much to say about these three orders. On the first order about equality with private limited companies, I have no comment. On the order relating to Northern Ireland mutuals moving under the control of the FCA, I was curious about why it took so long. The consultation started in 2010 and is only now coming into action. Were there some complications that were not brought out in the Explanatory Memorandum or was it just slowness of pens?

Finally, on derivatives trading, we have the same general concern as the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, that we do not want to make building societies any less safe through the application of this order. Membership of a clearing house, at least at a theoretical level, has some risks—but, as I understand it, the building societies see this as a very positive thing, so I am hoping that the consensus that this makes sense is right. I would like an assurance that the extension of a building society’s right to trade in derivatives in order to be a member of the clearing house is so worded that it applies solely to that and does not in any way allow further extension of the building society’s right to trade in derivatives beyond that which is already exercised.