Official Listing of Securities, Prospectus and Transparency (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Baroness Altmann and Lord Tunnicliffe

Monday 18th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to express my concern from these Benches that we may set some dangerous precedents in the processes that we are adopting in discussing and passing these SIs. I understand the difference between consultation and engagement on these issues but I have significant concerns. If the SI was indeed ready on 21 November, there has been time for a proper consultation, which does not seem to have occurred. It would be helpful to the House if we had more information on what engagement has taken place.

I fully accept that, as my noble friend Lord Leigh has said, industry is in favour of adopting these regulations, should we enter a no-deal scenario. However, there are reasons for us to be concerned across the House at the procedures taking place. We are being asked to approve legislation based on evidence that we perhaps feel is incomplete. I will not vote against the Government but I would like to express my concerns.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My Lords, in trying to take my role seriously, I staggered my way through the Explanatory Memorandum to try to understand this SI. It all seemed pretty straightforward. Basically, at the moment if you have a prospectus approved by an EEA regulator, it can be used in the UK. We are foolishly—no, that is not the party line, is it?—considering crashing out of the EU and we need some substitute regulation. It seems that the bulk of this statutory instrument is saying that whereas before you would have it approved anywhere in Europe, now if you want to market it in the UK it has to be approved in the UK. That seems to be a consequence of leaving the club. I regret that we have not had the level of consultation that Members would have liked but I find it extraordinarily difficult to believe that the alternative—not approving this SI—is anything like as consequential as the intrinsic costs. No matter how much consulting we did, we would still have come to the conclusion that we should approve the SI.

As ever, I tried to look at the Explanatory Memorandum in the context of the basic assumption of the withdrawal Act: everything is transferred and no new concepts are introduced. The one area where I have some questions is on a very narrow point, which is the exemption for certain government and local authority securities. The memorandum says:

“Under the current Prospectus Directive rules, certain public bodies are exempt from the requirement to produce a prospectus when they undertake to offer securities to the public or request the admission of securities to trading on a regulated market. This includes EEA States, EEA local authorities, EEA central banks, and public international bodies of which one or more EEA States are a member”.


The dilemma is whether we continue that exemption. There is an argument that we should but, in order not to recognise EEA states, there then comes the decision to extend that exemption.

There are two ways that that exemption is described. The third bullet point of paragraph 2.5 of the Explanatory Memorandum states:

“Extending the existing exemption from the requirement to produce a prospectus and certain exemptions under the Transparency Directive that currently apply to certain EEA public bodies, to certain third country public bodies”.


That would seem to be a controlled extension of the exemption, which took account of the countries to which the exemption was applied, whereas paragraph 7.22 says:

“To address this deficiency, the government will extend these types of public bodies exemptions to the same types of public sector bodies of all third countries”.


I think Venezuela is a third country, and the idea that the public offers of securities in Venezuela should be treated the same as those in other EEA states would seem somewhat anomalous.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Altmann and Lord Tunnicliffe

Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 12th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall be brief. I spent 22 years in the airline industry from the mid-1960s onwards as everything from co-pilot to number two in the marketing department. I learned two things from that. One was that aeroplanes are very dangerous. When I first joined the industry, we would crash a jet aircraft about every two years in the United Kingdom, and it has been a long, hard slog. That slog has not been all UK—it was the UK, the US, Canada and France, working together through international co-operation, producing the safety we take for granted today. It is crucial that those mechanisms stay in place to achieve that.

The other thing I remember is what air services agreements are. They are treaties, and if you are not part of one of these more modern situations, such as the European one, there are country-by-country treaties between pairs of countries—all of which would have to be renegotiated. Falling out of the present situation would create enormous problems. I am very sorry that the Minister did not like my suggestion of contact between interested Peers and senior transport people on these three groups. I hope that perhaps that could be reconsidered—I am glad they are nodding now on the Front Bench, but the Minister said nothing in either of his two speeches to suggest that. Obviously in all parts of the House there is a genuine concern that progress is not being made in these very important areas. I do not want to have that concern; I want to share the Government’s optimism. At the moment, given the responses we have had, I do not.

[Baroness Altmann]

I rise briefly to explain why I have added my name to these important amendments. One thing that has not been mentioned in Committee so far is the idea that the arrangements we have with Europe also protect the safety, maintenance and repair facilities around our country for our aviation and aerospace industries. We must maintain alignment of regulation. We have 100 airports and 172 maintenance and repair facilities, and if we jeopardise the standards of safety, if we are not in the open skies agreement and not in EASA, then the US apparently is already planning to send its own inspectors to make sure that our standards are up to scratch. If we cannot reassure people that we will maintain those standards, we will not have a functioning aerospace and aviation industry.

Another important element that must not be forgotten is that if we do not maintain our membership of the open skies agreement and EASA, the flights taken by ordinary citizens will increase in price. One estimate from the consultancy Oxera is that if all flights operated by third country airlines were removed, air fares for UK passengers would rise by between 15% and 30%—a Brexit surcharge which people were never told to expect to pay when they voted to leave the EU. These restrictions cannot be overcome simply by airlines setting up subsidiaries in Europe, because ownership restrictions do not allow non-EU investors to own a controlling interest in EU airlines.

I urge my noble friend the Minister to make a commitment to the Committee that we intend to maintain membership of EASA and the open skies agreement, notwithstanding the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.