Financial Services and Markets Bill

Debate between Lord Tunnicliffe and Lord Sharkey

Committee stage
Tuesday 21st March 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Sharkey (LD)]

I rise briefly to support this amendment. It was with some surprise that we also discovered that this sector is unregulated, but we entirely understand how important it is to the small business community. In that respect, it is hard to see why it is not regulated and why it should not be regulated. It is hard to see how any Government could resist the force of the noble Lord’s amendment—but we may see a demonstration of that in a moment or two.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I first welcome my noble friend Lord Leong to this very special club, the Financial Services and Markets Bill club. I am sorry that it is a little thin on the ground. I will say no more than that the case, as presented and supported, seems strong.

One of the sad things about occupying this position is that, every time credit comes up, you get abusers. The large companies are frequently the abusers, and payday loans are a classic example of that. Anywhere there is credit, you end up with pockets of abuse. I unashamedly believe in regulation. I do not believe in bad regulation; I believe in good regulation and I think it should enter this field. But that is not a formal position, so we will listen to the Minister before concluding our point of view.

Financial Services and Markets Bill

Debate between Lord Tunnicliffe and Lord Sharkey

Committee stage
Monday 20th February 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Sharkey (LD)]

My Lords, I strongly support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and observe that the Government have said, more or less consistently, that it is for Parliament to decide what form of scrutiny it requires. This acknowledges the importance of the issue. This is Parliament, and the amendment sets out a clear way ahead to establish parliamentary oversight. If the Government mean what they say, they will not oppose these amendments. They might join in a constructive discussion of how to make them better, but they will not oppose these amendments if they are to be at all consistent.

It is worth noting, though, that accountability and scrutiny are not quite the same. Even if we were to pass the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, we would need to take a closer look at the delegated powers mechanisms that the Bill contains. As things stand, Parliament will have no meaningful say in whatever the new rules may be. Unless I have misunderstood, the proposed financial services regulators review committee will not be able to intervene as the new rules become law. We will need to think about that carefully as we make progress with the Bill.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

Can I say a couple of words about regulation and regulators? This is usually a political divide and I am proud to be on my side of it. I believe that society is the richer for good regulation; I am against bad regulation but in favour of good regulation. When one has good regulation, the problem is often that it is poorly executed. These financial regulators do the execution, so processes to hold them better to account have to be a good thing. That may include the distasteful fact—it may or may not emerge—that they are underresourced. Certainly, this sort of debate will bring out those sorts of issues.

I have to be careful here, but my general view is that this is really a rather good group. I shall consider it carefully and discuss it with colleagues across the House between now and Report to decide on the extent to which we will support it. I strongly recommend that the Minister does as asked and enters discussions with us, to see how much of this can be agreed and included in the Bill. We had a similar tussle two years ago when we did a big chunk of this and tried to draw in the regulators more. The regulators put down on paper that they were willing to talk to us more. The problem was that we did not have mechanisms in the House to take advantage of that. This would be a game-changer, by breaking through into that area and creating processes to have proper accountability and scrutiny—supervision is the wrong term—of these enormously powerful regulators, which are vital to the success of our financial markets, in terms of both opportunities and appropriate restraint to avoid catastrophes.

UK Infrastructure Bank Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Tunnicliffe and Lord Sharkey

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Tuesday 14th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharkey (LD)]

My Lords, I will ask a brief question about regulation in the sense raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. Chapter 11 of the framework published by the Treasury says:

“Notwithstanding any exemptions that may apply to the Company, the Shareholder acknowledges that the provision of certain aspects of the Company’s activities may be subject to … the ‘FCA Rules’ or guidance or principles … the ‘PRA Rules’ or guidance or principles and … other applicable laws or regulations.”


Could the Minister help the Committee by saying what these “certain aspects” might be?

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to these amendments, but I will make a general point about my approach to today’s debate. I find myself agreeing with a very high proportion of the amendments. We obviously want to hear from the Minister the extent to which the Government agree with them, but it seems that the issues we will face on Report will be about which of these amendments need to go into the Bill, rather than whether they are intrinsically sensible, which I think most of them are. I even venture into uneasy territory in this group by finding myself almost agreeing with the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, again. I put it in slightly guarded terms—