Financial Markets and Insolvency (Transitional Provision) (EU Exit) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for introducing this SI and to other colleagues who have spoken. As she outlined, the instrument essentially extends protections under the temporary designation regime to give UK firms more time to find alternative providers. This is deemed necessary to ensure continuity of service in cases where domestic firms rely on EEA systems that miss the 30 June deadline for applying to the Bank of England for designation under the UK settlement finality regulations.

While we certainly do not oppose giving UK firms time to

“put proper contingency plans in place”,

as the Explanatory Memorandum puts it, the need for this measure once again calls into question the Government’s approach to Brexit and the practical impacts of their lack of preparedness for our new relationship with Europe. For example, having been desperate to implement their own customs regime, we have debated statutory instruments which immediately disapplied certain rules and procedures, and Ministers had to extend grace periods due to lack of readiness on the ground.

In today’s newspapers, we have read about the continued difficulties around the operation of the Northern Ireland protocol, with talks led by the noble Lord, Lord Frost, supposedly close to breaking down. This would be concerning enough without the reports of unprecedented diplomatic steps taken by the Biden Administration due to their fears for the peace process.

I return to the broad topic of the statutory instrument. Could the Minister provide an update on negotiations with the EU in the field of financial services? Measures such as these are designed to keep the show on the road in the absence of the comprehensive financial services agreement that the Government have promised. While they may afford firms more time to plan, does the Minister acknowledge that it is hard for different parts of the sector to do so when facing so much uncertainty?