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

Debate between Earl of Kinnoull and Baroness Kramer

Monday 18th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

Distinguished lawyers.

[The Earl of Kinnoull]

Yes, I am sorry, we have now decided that they are distinguished lawyers—and others of the huge number of advisory people in London who help people get access to capital. There were a lot of notes in November and more in December, and what is interesting is that they have all been positive on this SI. So I am not sure what a full consultation would have produced in excess of the current SI. Anyway, that is what we have, and I very much hope that it too will sail through shortly.

Benchmarks (Amendment and Transitional Provision) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Earl of Kinnoull and Baroness Kramer

Monday 18th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

It is a pleasure to follow that stream of logic, with which I agree entirely.

I wish to say two things. The Explanatory Memorandum was published initially on 23 November, so we are now in the 87th day after that. It generated a great deal of comment, which was widely circulated to people who were interested. Again I rang round various people in the course of the past few days and no one has raised any objection to this. In fact, everyone has said how important it is.

In answer partly to what the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, said, I notice that paragraph 2.6 of the Explanatory Memorandum states:

“Without these provisions, the FCA would not have an effective framework designed to prevent benchmark manipulation in the UK, affecting the integrity and attractiveness of the UK’s financial markets”.


The Explanatory Memorandum is right behind the noble Baroness in her point about the necessity of having the benchmarks properly looked after.

I have looked at a list of all the benchmarks and it is worth saying that many of them have been invented here in London—they are British—and so it is unsurprising that the naughty behaviour took place here and that the skills lie with our own regulators to prevent misbehaviour.

[Baroness Kramer]

Part of the problem is that it was not our regulators that identified years of benchmark manipulation but the US regulator and the US media. We need to be clear about that. Our regulators came in late in the day and only after a huge amount of pressure and exposure.

Secondly, while banks were manipulating Libor and some of the foreign currency exchange rates in order to increase their profits to suit certain circumstances, they were doing it, they thought, quite openly. People were shouting at each other across various trading floors that X would like the benchmark set here and Y bank would prefer it to be set there and whether they could do them a favour. The Bank of England was then implicated in instructing various banks to manipulate the rate at the time of the financial crisis in order to disguise from the wider market how difficult banks were finding it to raise financing. So, rather than reporting the actual rate they were being offered in the market, they were reporting a lower rate to suggest that they were being looked at more favourably; and because the Bank of England saw this as necessary for financial stability, it is itself implicated in some of the manipulation.

One of the concerns that I have that underlies this is that the FCA will be in a position with this SI to be the administrator, but it now becomes the sole administrator rather than one working in partnership with other EU administrators. That could lead to a vulnerability, with the challenge coming not from the EU but from the United States.

[The Earl of Kinnoull]

Thank you for that. I do not want to be the defence attorney for the regulators but the FCA would argue that it did not have the relevant powers beforehand. However, I shall not go there.

Again, this will be the effective framework to enable the FCA to do that work. Without this SI there is no framework.

At the end of the paragraph in the Explanatory Memorandum headed “Why is it being changed?” it states:

“If this instrument were not made, there would be significant market uncertainty among UK and third country providers over whether they would still need to be compliant by 2020, and among users over which benchmark they could lawfully use”.


In other words, it is a complete mess. The size of the markets that are affected by these benchmarks is vast. I am not sure that I quite understand the reasoning behind the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, to decline these regulations. It seems he is trying to take aim at a government process and is actually clobbering the City. I feel that is wrong and I very much hope he will not press his amendment.

Financial Guidance and Claims Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Kinnoull and Baroness Kramer

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 13th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, this is not an area that I knew about before the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, got to his feet, but he has thoroughly persuaded me and I hope that he has thoroughly persuaded the Government.

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, as usual, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is right on the money and I do not disagree with a word that he said. I would add one tiny little thing: the net effect of the MROs and the CHCs is that they add to the cost of motor insurance in this country so that poorer people who struggle to pay their motor insurance will find it further away from them. For that solid reason, I strongly support the noble Lord’s two amendments.