Financial Services

Jonathan Reynolds Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2018 Westminster Hall

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you very much, Sir David, for calling me; it is always a pleasure to spend some time on a Thursday afternoon with you in the Chair.

I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) on securing this debate and on her very fine speech to introduce the subject that we are debating. Indeed, I have enjoyed listening not only to her speech, but to those of the hon. Members for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) and for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss).

All speeches on this subject and this sector begin by talking about how hugely important financial services are to the UK, which is absolutely correct. Such speeches always begin by talking about the role that the sector plays in employment and in the number of jobs in the UK, and it is always good to hear that about two thirds of jobs in financial services are based outside London and the south-east. We always rightly mention the huge amounts of revenue that the sector generates for the Exchequer, but the caveat I always put on both those things—we all need to recognise this danger—is that when we mention such arguments in this place, the public hears something slightly different. They hear us almost saying that we have struck a grand bargain with finance; that we somehow tolerate people doing things that the public thinks are risky or perhaps dangerous because they provide half the budget for the NHS. To me, that is not the message we want to get across to the British public.

We need to get across to the British public a much greater sense of what the sector does for them as consumers and what it does for the country. We need to explain that if we have an ageing population and we want to be able to live in retirement with good pension products, that requires an effective asset management industry. If we want our businesses to be successful, that requires an effective system of finance for business. If we want to solve the housing crisis, that requires a robust mortgage market. I have even tried to push with some Front-Bench colleagues that insurance is a socialist industry: it is about pooling the risks everyone in society faces in a way that shares the burden equitably.

To Labour, it is clear that finance plays a major role in the economy. We want to work in partnership with financial services to deliver the kind of policies we think this country needs. We held a major financial services conference in Bloomberg Europe last Thursday that was addressed by the shadow Chancellor. We went through many of the issues that the sector needs to look at and how we feel we can work with them. I put a slight caveat on that: The Daily Telegraph on 25 March reported me as saying that I believe bankers are a public good, but that is not quite what I said. I said that good financial services are a public good. It tells us something about how the sector is sometimes viewed in public that a Member of Parliament saying that good pension products, good mortgage products and good insurance products are a public good could be reported with some degree of controversy.

Many of the speeches we have heard have rightly highlighted Brexit as the major issue facing the sector, which is extremely correct. I will start with some analysis of that. There is no doubt that Brexit poses enormous challenges to financial services. As well as my concerns about the impact on manufacturing and supply chains, one reason I voted remain related to market access for financial services. The situation we see today is difficult. It is fair to say that the sector is losing hope that it will ever get the certainty it needs to avoid the contingency plans it has been forced to consider.

The hon. Member for Glasgow Central talked about the difference between passporting and equivalence. Her analysis of those two things was correct, but I have to say that neither is available to us. Passporting would only be possible through some sort of continued membership of the single market, and I do not think that is likely. She was right to say, however, that equivalence on its own will simply not give us what we need. The only model in town is one of mutual regulatory recognition. That is hard to deliver, but there is certainly a mutual interest to be found there. In the short term, there is a major threat to financial stability if it does not go ahead.

The hon. Member for North East Derbyshire talked about the difficulties in repapering contracts if we do not get mutual regulatory recognition. He is right. We have to admit that for such sectors as the insurance industry there simply is not enough time, even if we start today or had started six months ago, to move the quantum of contracts that would need to be novated. We have to recognise that the position we are in today is extremely unfavourable. Much time has been wasted by the Government when frankly they could have cut to the chase a lot faster.

To do such a deal is clearly not easy—I recognise that and the burden placed on the Treasury to try to get to that point—but it is also true to say that we have never had a trade negotiation where two countries are aligned and they are moving further apart through the process. From talking to industry, my analysis is that what the EU wants to know more than anything else is whether we seek continued alignment or whether we seek to break off and go in a different direction. It is not getting a clear message from the Government on what the future is. We have heard the Prime Minister say that we will remain aligned, but with the autonomy to move away in the future. That is not the unequivocal message we need to give. We need to spell out clearly that we want to continue, not with the political integration of the European Union, but with the economic integration that has been so successful for financial services in this country. Once we give the EU that signal, there will clearly be questions on the method of alignment we would continue with, the jurisdiction we would seek to govern that future relationship and—perhaps the most difficult of those questions—how we would manage the full freedoms and impact on immigration policy of that relationship, but it has got to be possible.

We also have to understand—I think the hon. Member for Glasgow Central said this—that it is not the EU playing politics if it puts a negotiating position to us. It is clear that there is a threat to jobs and revenue in this country from the Brexit process. We cannot be surprised if other countries enviously eye up parts of our successful sector that they would like to move to their countries. The big threat to jobs in London and the rest of the country is not other parts of the EU, but Singapore and New York. If we are being honest, if the German economy had made a decision akin to the one we are making with Brexit, would we look at parts of their car industry and wonder whether we could take some of that business for ourselves? I think quite reasonably we would. We see that most of all in questions around delegated portfolio management and asset management—essentially the right to manage in this country assets and wealth held overseas. That should not necessarily in itself be an issue of leaving the European Union, but it clearly underpins a large ecosystem in financial services. Some countries will look at that and say, “If we can pull that thread, ultimately that will lead to a relocation of jobs and higher value sectors to our economy.” It is difficult.

People say all the time—certainly the more Brexiteer MPs—that financial services in the City will adjust to Brexit. Of course they will. We are the world-leading financial sector; it will not disappear overnight. The key issue has to be the cost of that adjustment. If it is 10% of the economic activity of financial services in the UK, that is an extremely painful place for us to get to. We would not want to be in that position.

A key point that needs making in establishing what that future relationship will be is that there is absolutely no appetite from financial services in this country for some sort of regulatory bonfire. There is a desire for stability, but there is nothing that I receive regularly that says people want to unpin the post-financial crisis settlement or that says they see a future for the UK undercutting the rest of the EU regulation. The opposite is true. Good regulation attracts business activity to the UK, among other things. We should always seek to cherish and continue our reputation as a first-rate regulator.

The issue of trust in financial services comes up a lot, and many speeches have referenced it. A quote I like to give when I am in the City doing roundtables or making speeches comes from a fellow Member of this House, and it is indicative of where the debate is. It is not a famous quote, but I like to use it. The Member said that

“in our country, far too often the rewards have gone not to risk-takers and job creators but to insiders in our financial system and big businesses who have rigged the market in their interests”.

I read that out, and people think that must be a comment from the Leader of the Opposition or the shadow Chancellor. It is actually a quote from the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. He said that on the day he launched his campaign to be leader of the Conservative party. It reflects how many people feel about the financial sector. We have to recognise that an event such as the financial crisis has a huge impact on trust and how people feel when they talk about financial services.

Some of that is a reflection on how the past 10 years have been for many people. They have been very tough years for many in my constituency. The relative positions of capital and labour have fared differently. We have had quantitative easing, which even the Prime Minister has said has clearly had an impact on those already with assets. Labour has faced a flatlining of wages for 10 years and a public sector pay cap. It will be difficult. The hon. Member for North East Derbyshire asked when we will move on from that. We will start to move on from it, although I have a constituent who refuses to vote for me because he is still angry about Howard Wilson’s devaluation of the pound in 1967, so these things can have a considerable shelf life. We will begin to move away to a more positive feeling in the country about financial services, but only if we give people a greater understanding of what the sector is doing for them.

I do not like and have never liked the sense in this debate that we have the real economy over here and financial services doing something different over there. That in no way reflects the complexity of the British economy or what is going on, but I can understand that sentiment among the public. For many, investment banking looks akin to something not that far from gambling. When I talk to constituents about the financial crisis and explain a collateralised debt obligation, they cannot believe that that was the basis on which the global financial system essentially fell apart.

As the hon. Member for Chelmsford said, what happened with the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Global Restructuring Group was not defensible economically, politically or morally. Not only were businesses fundamentally let down, but in some cases people’s financiers and bankers personally benefited from buying the assets that they had put into distress. We must understand that that will generate legitimate anger, and how we politicians respond to that will be crucial to people’s ability to move on. A call for a full public inquiry into events such as those that happened with GRG is the right way forward.

It is fair to say that the next Labour Government will be more interventionist in financial services, and that this Conservative Government have been more interventionist than previous ones. We have to learn the lessons of the past. We have to tell the public, and make them understand, that we are not complacent about the risks, and we are not beholden to finance in the sense that we are unable to properly regulate it because we do not appreciate the full scale of those risks.

We cannot be complacent about regional inequality or productivity, and the finance sector can provide some of the answers. The Opposition have talked about a strategic investment board to look at where finance is investing in the economy. We have talked about a national investment bank, akin to the German model, working with private lenders to secure access to businesses. There is an exciting agenda on transparency, greater stewardship of assets, and incentivising long-term investment over short-term decision making, for which there is a lot of support on both sides of the House.

It was particularly good to hear some talk about financial inclusion. I think I have said to the Minister before that I find it fascinating how we have both a world-leading financial sector and so many people who are victims of significant financial exclusion. Our financial resilience in this country is insufficient; many people have effectively less than £100 to fall back on when times are tough. No matter what we think of the Government’s economic policies over the last eight years, the big change for us all as constituency MPs has been seeing debt become much more an issue of people managing their monthly living costs, and less about the purchase of a car, or a “white good”, as they were called.

How we respond to that in the policies that we pursue is crucial. The Opposition have talked about extending the Financial Conduct Authority’s credit card market report to deal with those people who are in the most difficult circumstances, effectively living off their credit cards every month with no hope of paying the money back. That requires an intervention. We support, as I know the Minister does, the breathing space scheme. We believe that public sector debts such as council tax have to be included in that to make it effective.

The hon. Member for North East Derbyshire rightly mentioned bank branch closures. Clearly, there is a big transition through technology to things such as online banking, but the scale at which that happens has to be of interest to us. I think RBS is to close 50% of all its branches in the south-west of England. That seems an enormous change overnight—I would be very concerned if I was an MP for that region.

The impact of technology will undoubtedly lead to a period of radical change in financial services over the next few years, but it could also be one of tremendous benefit. I agree that things such as open banking, where people might be able to separate out their overdrafts from their current accounts, could lead to much better deals for consumers.

Big data, and access to big data, could change the access to finance that many people enjoy, because risk is fundamentally about information. If we can get better information on people and offer them better financial products, that could benefit us all. The danger is that financial services for consumers end up being akin to what we have in the energy market: a small set of consumers getting good deals because they are savvy and use technology to their benefit, while a large group of people get poor deals, used to subsidise the people who are savvy. That leads to resentment and, frankly, to the kinds of interventions that both sides of the House have proposed in the energy market. We have to avoid that.

My final point is on dirty money and transparency—again, an issue where there is huge agreement on both sides of the House. I think the motivation is there in the Government—perhaps the Minister could reference that in his remarks—as well as among the Opposition, but two policies are key. First, we must finally introduce a public register showing where beneficial ownership of UK property lies. That policy was very much associated with the former Prime Minister, and appears to have been lost somewhat since he left.

Secondly—this is more contentious—we need a public register of beneficial ownership in the Crown dependencies and overseas territories, by Order in Council if necessary. It is no good having the finest and most robust money laundering policies in place in the UK if people can register a company in a Crown dependency, and access all the things that they associate with this country, without the same level of transparency. That will simply lead to the migration of company and property registrations to other parts of the world within the British umbrella.

We should be proud of our financial services sector, not just for its economic contribution but for the benefits it brings in helping us to manage our day-to-day lives. It is incumbent on us all to ensure that the sector is fit for every type of consumer, and that vulnerable people do not fall through the gaps. We need a sector that is at the cutting edge of technological change, but using that change to meet the diverse needs of its customer base. Most of all, we need to offer some certainty, and continued market access, through the final Brexit negotiations. The more clarity the Minister can give us on that, the better for us all.

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) on securing the debate, and my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) and the hon. Members for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) and for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) on their contributions.

We have had a very well-informed discussion of a wide range of financial services issues. It felt as if every discussion I have had over the last three and a half months as a Minister has been put under scrutiny. I will try to respond to all the points raised. I acknowledge the deep knowledge and experience of my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford, in both her work in financial services, infrastructure and project financing and, more recently, her work as a Member of the European Parliament, particularly on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.

Before I get into the substance of the issues, it would be useful to acknowledge that today’s debate is occurring not in a vacuum, but in the context of a strong and resilient economy. GDP growth has remained solid at 1.8% in 2017, extending the period of continuous growth to five years. That is higher than the 1.5% forecast at the autumn Budget. The UK economy has beaten expectations, and the Treasury and the Government will continue to set ourselves the mission to beat the forecasts. As Economic Secretary to the Treasury, I am committed, along with my Treasury officials, to ensuring that the financial services industry retains its place on the mantel as a beacon of prosperity for this country.

As I continue to tell industry and my colleagues in Government, financial services constitute the plumbing of this country’s economy. We do not want to be reticent about describing and applauding that. Financial services, as others have mentioned, represent 12% of total UK economic output, and the industry contributed £72.1 billion to the Exchequer in 2016-17—11% of total Government tax receipts. It is a critical industry for our nation.

As others have also mentioned, more than 1 million people are employed in the financial and insurance sector in the UK. Some 63% of those jobs are outside London, with 52% outside London and the south-east. That includes 98,000 in the north-west, and 87,000 in Scotland—including, I understand, that of the spouse of the hon. Member for Glasgow Central. Those figures represent the livelihoods of people up and down this country and, as the hon. Lady pointed out, they represent a multitude of jobs beyond the square mile. As I often point out, there is a whole ecosystem of support services and economic activity related to financial services. Bank tellers, mortgage brokers, salespeople, and IT staff form the backbone of this industry in the UK.

The Government’s approach to financial services is based on ensuring that the sector does what it should: effectively channelling savings and capital flows into productive investment to allow the real economy to manage financial risk, take advantage of commercial opportunities, and boost economic prosperity up, down and across the country.

Our historical success has been based on being the most open and dynamic financial hub in the world and having the deftness to continuously innovate and adapt, but there is no room for complacency. We cannot and will not rest on our laurels. The success of financial services has helped elevate the UK to the status of a post-industrial economy. My hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford made reference to the industrial strategy, which was launched in November 2017 to prepare the whole UK economy for the future. We are taking action across a range of sectors. We published an investment management strategy. I look forward to responding to the recommendations of the green finance taskforce, which reported in March. We are poised to continue to be leaders in innovating in these sectors, to capture the value of innovation, capitalise on all opportunities and speed prosperity to all regions of the United Kingdom.

Close alignment between our financial sector and other parts of the economy is therefore crucial to the success of our industrial strategy. Financial services is a high-growth, high-tech driver of the UK economy and we are working to ensure that, in the face of rapid change, the UK remains the No. 1 place in the world to conduct financial services business. We are fully committed to that mandate, as demonstrated in the announcement of our FinTech sector strategy last month, which is intentionally aligned with and complementary to our industrial strategy.

I want to run through current Government thinking on the regulation of financial services, which is key to how the sector will thrive in a post-Brexit Britain. I also want to reassure hon. Members that the changes required to the financial services regulatory framework following our exit from the EU are an integral part of the Treasury’s exit planning. The Government are listening to the views of industry—the International Regulatory Strategy Group was mentioned—and of course to those across Parliament. I look forward to further work with my Treasury colleagues on financial services regulation as we prepare for our departure from the European Union.

Following the financial crisis 10 years ago, the Government introduced necessary changes to seek to restore public trust in financial services. I recognise that that has been a long and difficult process, but we continue to attract international commendation for the robustness of our regulatory and prudential systems. In the last round of the Financial Sector Assessment Program, the International Monetary Fund found that the UK was fully compliant on the 19 Basel core principles for effective banking supervision. Only France and Switzerland are able to match that. A decade on from the crisis, we should never lose sight of the principal purpose of the regulatory and supervisory regimes: to ensure financial stability and protect taxpayers from having to step in to deal with failure. The key lesson from the financial crisis has been cross-border co-operation, not a global race to the bottom or destabilising protectionism.

That thinking extends to our approach to Brexit. It is crucial that our exit from the EU is smooth and orderly. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford said, we made a big step forward in agreeing the legal text on an implementation period, which will keep market access on existing terms for firms and consumers. In December, the Government said that, if necessary, we will legislate to ensure that the contractual obligations she mentioned continue to be met, which will benefit millions of UK consumers who have insurance policies from EU firms. It is in the interests of the EU to take similar measures for UK firms serving EU customers, and we continue to encourage co-operation between regulators. We are working on that active dialogue all the time.

It defies logic that a loose relationship with the UK would give the EU the depth of co-operation necessary for a market as close as the UK, and vice versa. That means—I want to be crystal clear—that we do not intend to rip up the rule book after exit. When I hear echoes that there should be a bonfire of financial services regulation post-exit, or a race to the bottom, nothing could be further from the truth.

On 7 March, the Chancellor set out a vision for our future relationship in financial services in what has been called his HSBC speech. The hon. Member for Glasgow Central asked about that vision. It was a thorough analysis of the challenge and the opportunity and the need to prioritise financial stability, and argued for a deal that preserves the mutual benefits of the sector. Neither the UK or EU should be under any illusion about the significant additional costs that would be borne by Europe’s businesses and consumers if this highly efficient market were to fragment. It is a complex ecosystem that serves the UK and the EU. Oliver Wyman calculates that the wholesale banking industry would need to find $30 billion to $50 billion of extra capital if new regulatory barriers forced fragmentation of firms’ balance sheets.

To echo the Chancellor, the major winners from fragmentation would not—despite what President Macron suggests—be Paris or Frankfurt, Dublin or Luxembourg, but New York, Singapore or Hong Kong. That point was made by the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I agree entirely with the Minister’s analysis but he would surely recognise that the transition period can come into play only if the Northern Irish issue is solved. The only way to solve the Northern Ireland issue is with a customs union, and the only way to solve where the country is on that is to let the House of Commons vote on it. Does the Minister know whether the Trade Bill will come back to the House at any point in the near future to give the it the chance to resolve the issue and get the benefits he is describing?

[John Glen]

The hon. Gentleman has made a valiant attempt to try to draw out from me something over which, as he is probably very aware, I have little control. I do share with him an appreciation of the centrality of financial services in the City of London and we have a shared understanding that, if the EU does not come to a place of understanding about City of London financial services, it would leave Europe a lot less competitive.

To address that, the Chancellor set out what our future regulatory framework should look like, underpinned by three things: a binding dialogue for regulatory requirements, supervisory co-operation arrangements that are reciprocal and reliable, and an independent arbitration mechanism to provide durable dispute resolution. That is clear. It is complex, but necessarily so, given what we are dealing with.

Reaching such an agreement with the EU need not be a challenging objective because the status quo is an unbeatable precedent to work from. Our markets are already deeply interconnected; our rule books are identical; and our mutual commitment to world-leading standards is unbeatable. The EU itself has challenged the notion that financial services cannot be addressed in trade negotiations, as evidenced in its approach to creating a deep bilateral framework with the US in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations. In those negotiations, the EU pitched a relationship based on mutual recognition of regulations and a unique dialogue on aligning future rule-making. TTIP is a precedent for the approach that we wish to take with the EU. It is in neither the UK’s nor the EU’s interest to exclude financial services from the future relationship.

The UK is clear that there are limitations to how much either of us can achieve unilaterally. The reality is that the European Council and European Parliament have now formally recognised the need to address the terms of market access in financial services between the UK and the EU, so we need to come to the table and discuss it further.

Myriad financial services on which businesses rely to reduce their costs are derived from or pass through, or are linked to, the UK market. Businesses also reap the benefits of the savings and capital flows to consumers across the continent. Those flows untap greater financial prospects for a broad range of people and allow them to access new products and services, such as innovative investment opportunities, tailored and appropriate debt products, and technology-driven solutions such as open banking.

My hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire talked about shared services in the context of the challenges relating to bank closures. The only inhibitor to that is the banks themselves—there is no restriction on finding a shared venue. I know from my conversations with banks in my constituency that phenomenal changes are going on in the age profile of bank users. Just before the Easter recess, I took the opportunity to visit different banking environments and a mobile banking facility in Derbyshire. I was very impressed with what I saw. It happened to be a Lloyds mobile bank, and it came to the village twice a week at the same time. It had disabled facilities. Of course, we all want to retain that certainty about the bank network, but that is not possible because it is a commercial decision. I am in active dialogue with a range of banks, as we all are as constituency MPs, and I know that these are difficult decisions. I commend my hon. Friend’s suggestion, and I raise it actively when I meet representatives of banks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vicky Ford]

The hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) said she is extremely concerned about how soon we can give certainty in the EU negotiations. There are two sides to giving certainty. The Government’s statements—especially the detailed HSBC Canary Wharf speech—contain a huge amount of detail about the need for ongoing co-operation. The EU negotiators have also talked about wanting to have super-equivalence, and that is helpful, but we have not seen the same level of detail. It needs to come from both sides.

In my experience of many years of EU negotiations, having a seat at the table was sometimes helpful—that will be missed—but there were other times when it was a challenge. The financial services industry is much more important to our economy than it is to that of many other countries, although it does support them, but that left us with different exposures. That is why we did not want to have an identical approach to solve certain issues; the approach of maximum harmonisation—one size fits all—that we increasingly see across the single market is very challenging.

The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Johnathan Reynolds) spoke about needing to confirm whether we are going to align. To me, that sometimes means having a completely identical approach, which can be a challenge. One thing I learned from my time in European politics is that there are times when the EU recognises equivalence, but without that being identical. I particularly look at the way in which we treated the bank sector. When we introduced our bank levy, the rest of Europe, particularly within the eurozone, had the funded deposit guarantee system. There were two different ways to solve the same issue to make sure that funds were set aside in case there was failure, but they are both built into the legislation.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

My point was not around the specifics of regulations; it is a question of economic models and the partnership we seek with the European Union. We have to try to move the negotiations forward. We have to give them an unequivocal sign of what our future intentions are, or we simply will not get the progress that we need. We are already way behind where we need to be. The point around equivalence is simply this: yes, that model will work, but it must have legal certainty. Without that certainty we will have the migration of business.

[Vicky Ford]

On legal certainty, I completely agree. It is only five or six stops on the Jubilee line to get to Canary Wharf, so I took the bother to go and listen to every single word that was said in that speech. I wish more Members from this House had bothered to go and listen to it and to speak to the industry players who were there afterwards, because it went into detail and addressed very important things—especially how one was going to co-operate with the colleges of supervisors that have been set up on a bank-by-bank basis. Speaking to the individuals who are responsible for the regulatory functions within their own institutions and getting that level of detail was welcome. It is not fair to criticise only the British side of the negotiations for not giving enough detail—the British side has given significant detail.

Maintaining ongoing co-operation, dialogue and exchange of information is key in building regulatory trust. Let us not forget that £45 billion of taxpayers’ money had to be spent bailing out RBS; we had to bail out branches of not just the British bank but the Dutch and Irish bank because there was no legal mechanism for a cross-border reorganisation of a bank in crisis. That has been resolved, and part of the way it has been resolved is by having that ongoing dialogue that brings together the British regulators with the Dutch and the Irish. The very clear message from the Chancellor that he wanted to continue to be part of that should be welcomed. It is not as simple as saying we need alignment to give legal certainty. From the contributions that I had from organisations prior to this debate, the calls are for more legal certainty to be given from the other side of the negotiation table.

I thank Members for the many suggestions on how to deal with the issue of branch closures. There are clearly different problems in different parts of the country. As I said, my part of the country is an urban area—a city—and because we are seeing a change towards digital banking, there is less demand for physical banking, so we need to manage that transition.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), who made fantastic points so eloquently about the future of financial services, reminding us that we need to look forward to what sorts of services we want come 2028 and beyond. The actions that we take are absolutely key. Unlocking some of the benefits of the digital age, but also making sure there is perhaps some friction in the system so that we can put protections in for consumers, is definitely one of the actions I want to continue focusing on after this debate. I think that will help to protect people from cyber-attacks on their bank accounts.

It is absolutely vital that we continue to champion these industries, to support the people who work in them and to work with other parts of the world. I completely welcome the comments that the Minister made about setting up the regulatory working group with the United States and other parts of the world, and I wish him great success. Let us pick up the specific issues that have been addressed by Members here to make sure that we make targeted interventions where we can to help the industry, the people who work in it and the very many of our constituents who are, at the end of the day, consumers of these services and rely on them. Thank you, Sir David, for this wonderful afternoon.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the financial services and the impact on the UK economy.