Draft Resolution of Central Counterparties (Modified Application of Corporate Law and Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2023 Draft Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 (Resolution of Central Counterparties: Partial Property Transfers and Safeguarding of Protected Arrangements) Regulations 2023 Draft Payment and Electronic Money Institution Insolvency (Amendment) Regulations 2023

James Murray Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2023 General Committees

[James Murray (Ealing North) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve on this Committee with you as Chair, Mr Paisley, and to make brief remarks in relation to these three statutory instruments on behalf of the Opposition.

I begin by thanking the Minister for outlining the detail of the regulations. Throughout the debates on the Bill that became the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023, it was my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq), as shadow Economic Secretary to the Treasury, who set out the Opposition’s support for reforms designed to minimise the financial stability risks that central clearing parties, or CCPs, pose to individuals and businesses in the UK, which will be achieved through the introduction of a new CCP resolution regime, as the Minister has set out.

I am glad to confirm that we in the Opposition support the three statutory instruments that we are considering today, which relate to the delivery of legislative reforms that we supported in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023. We support the regulations put forward today in their attempt to make sure that contractual arrangements crucial to a CCP’s operation are adequately protected when the Bank of England exercises resolution powers, as well as making sure that necessary company law modifications and amendments are made.

The Opposition also support the regulations put forward to expand the supervisory powers of the FCA over payment firms and electronic money institutions following the UK’s departure from the EU. Although our support is clear, I have a few questions for the Minister about how the FCA’s significantly expanded remit will be delivered in practice.

When the Minister responds, I would be grateful if he could set out what the Government are doing to make sure that the FCA’s greater powers are accompanied by greater accountability. Could he also explain what steps the Government are taking to make sure that additional FCA requirements on payment firms and EMIs are proportionate and that they do not hamper innovation in the UK’s world-leading payments sector?

Thank you, Mr Paisley.