Global Britain

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I have made clear, we have extremely high standards in environmental protection, food safety, hygiene standards and labour laws. We intend to continue with those high standards. We are world-leading and we want, where we feel it is appropriate and necessary—as we have done for instance in our offer of maternity, paternity and annual leave and a number of actions we have taken in relation to the environment—to lead the world in standards. We have a proud history of doing that and will continue to do so. We will not lower our standards.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the financial services industry makes a vital contribution to the economy of this country. I note that in the Written Ministerial Statement the Prime Minister says that there should be enhanced provision for regulatory and supervisory co-operation arrangements with the EU for the financial services industry. For decades, Frankfurt and Paris have tried to take business away from the City of London. Will the Minister explain why she thinks that the EU will now want to make it easy for the City of London to continue to take business from Frankfurt and Paris?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

We seek to provide a predictable, transparent and business-friendly environment for firms to undertake cross-border financial services business. We propose that this can be done by agreeing comprehensive obligations on market access and fair competition. We are also willing to look at regulatory and supervisory co-operation arrangements that reflect the level of access between our markets and seek to establish processes for dialogue on equivalence.