Financial Services and Markets Bill

Baroness Lawlor Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 10th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lawlor (Con) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, it is an honour to address this House for the first time. I thank all who have so kindly helped in my introduction—Black Rod and her team, the Clerk of the Parliaments, the Doorkeepers and your Lordships, as well as my two supporters, my noble friends Lord Balfe and Lord Black of Brentwood, and my mentor, my noble friend Lady Eaton.

I am grateful to the former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, for nominating me, and pay tribute to his remarkable achievement in opening a new chapter in Britain’s constitutional and political history. One consequence, this Bill to revoke retained EU law and provide for a homegrown alternative, has won the broad support of the Opposition. It was anticipated in 2018 by the then Chancellor, Philip Hammond, now my noble friend Lord Hammond of Runnymede, who explained that the laws for such an important sector of our economy should be made in this country and under the jurisdiction of our courts.

The Bill reflects the continuity of recent political history and therefore links to my own working life, which began as a historian in Cambridge, where I had moved from my native Dublin. I later switched to contemporary policy, initially education, and then founded and established a think tank in London, Politeia, to bring academic and other specialist attention to broad matters of social, economic and constitutional policy, working with different parties and politicians. More recently, we have published material on the financial sector as part of our work on the future legal framework for trade in goods and services. I therefore declare a special interest in this subject and have written on it, although not at great length.

The Bill aims to revoke retained EU law for the sector and replace it with legislation that builds on the UK’s approach. Under it, UK regulators will have certain powers but also obligations to promote competition and medium to long-term growth. It envisages that the regulators will be accountable to Parliament via the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee and will report on their policy, consult, and engage with statutory bodies.

The Bill, therefore, is concerned in a practical way with a more abstract problem: the role played by officials operating the system under the laws made by Parliament. It aims for regulator accountability, something that will be music to the ears of many, often small businesses which are reluctant to act competitively because they fear they may fall foul of the regulator, although observing the law, and do not understand the mysterious application of the rules.

I hope we shall consider how the Bill’s approach to these two central regulator aims, accountability and competition, can be further strengthened, to avoid the erosion of one of the most dynamic sectors the world has ever known. Competition, the rule of good, clear law and a free economy encouraged businesses to start up and flourish in the City of London, a port and commercial centre to which merchants, shipowners, insurance underwriters and other entrepreneurs flocked, establishing banks and businesses. In this country, small entrepreneurs who staked their future on a start-up could enter the market knowing where they stood in law, and that the laws of this country would act as fairly for them as for established businesses. The Bill opens a new era in the story of this dynamic sector. Providing competition and regulator accountability can be achieved, it will help the sector to be a world leader. I welcome this measure and its aims, with one caveat: that Parliament, in giving the regulators greater powers, does not give them a blank cheque.