Financial Services (Implementation of Legislation) Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Debate between Anneliese Dodds and Thelma Walker

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)]

I rise to speak in support of amendment 14. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward, and to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow Central. I very much agree with the sentiments she has expressed. Labour’s amendment 14 is similar in intent to the SNP’s amendment 5, albeit that it would achieve its outcome through a different route; but we will support the SNP’s amendment if it is pushed to a vote, as well as our own.

As members of this Committee will be aware, we have consistently expressed our concerns about the proliferation of Henry VIII powers created through secondary legislation during the process of preparations for no deal. Indeed, that was one of many reasons why we voted against this Bill on Second Reading. The transposition of EU regulations, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde, is not an apolitical technical process, necessarily.

During the process of debating the different no-deal SIs that have already been passed through the House, there has been contention on a wide range of issues, including the resourcing and capacity of our regulators to carry out the tasks that heretofore have been carried out by EU bodies; the regulators’ capacity and accountability when levying fines as provided via the new legislation; the ability of Government to alter criminal convictions, which has been provided by part of this process; the setting of thresholds at UK level that previously were set at EU level involving complex sets of calculations; the discretion provided to regulators to apply or disapply EU-level decisions, with reference not to onshored EU legislation but instead to the objectives of those regulators; and many more. We have talked about all of those within the Delegated Legislation Committees and they are significant. It is our contention that they should not have been dealt with through secondary legislation.

[Thelma Walker (Colne Valley) (Lab)]

I wanted to speak to the amendments and new clauses in the names of my hon. Friends the Members for Oxford East and for Stalybridge and Hyde. The global financial crisis has shown us all—