Financial Services and Markets Bill

Lord Ashcombe Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 10th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashcombe (Con) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, it is a great honour to speak to you today for the first time, concerning the Financial Services and Markets Bill being introduced by the Minister, my noble friend Lady Penn. Before continuing I must declare my interest as an employee of Marsh Limited, the insurance broker.

I would like to take a moment to thank the many who have shown me huge kindness on my arrival in the House feeling like the new schoolboy all over again. I thank the doorkeepers, clerks, special advisers, librarians and Black Rod for their generous advice on so many issues. In particular, I would like to thank my noble friends Lord Glenarthur, Lord Ashton, Lord Borwick and Lady Sanderson, who have encouraged me and given me great help and guidance. Finally, without the help of the Opposition Chief Whip, I think I would still be wandering the passages of this labyrinthine building even now, two months later, yet to be discovered, totally lost. I hope he does not regret it.

The Cubitt dynasty was founded by Thomas Cubitt, who was the first to establish the building contracting business as we know it today. In the process, he became one of the great developers of early 19th century London, including in the development of the Grosvenor estate from Belgravia to the Thames. Two of his best-known buildings are the east front of Buckingham Palace and Osborne on the Isle of Wight. It was not he who was awarded the Ashcombe peerage but his son, my great-great-grandfather, in 1892. George Cubitt served in the House of Commons for over 30 years followed by 25 years in this House. His son Henry followed in his footsteps but was very unfortunate in that he lost his first three sons in the Great War. They are remembered on the Royal Gallery memorial. In 1920, the family building company built the Lutyens-designed Cenotaph in Whitehall.

I inherited not from my father but from his first cousin. I was brought up in the Republic of Ireland and took a civil engineering degree here, then entered the world of insurance where I have spent 35 years working in the energy sector. It is the insurance aspect that brings me here today. Many of us have experience dealing with personal insurance but there is a great deal more to the subject than that. Insurance is one of the country’s greatest economic strengths and a source of vital capital to an increasingly fractious global risk landscape.

Indeed, without the abilities of the London insurance market, grain and other vital foodstuffs trapped in Ukraine would not have been exported last year to those countries desperately in need of food; as the sanctions start to bite there have been many restrictions put in place, but the market has responded by continuing to provide insurance on a humanitarian basis. Also, development and investment in new technologies would be significantly reduced. An example of the London market innovation is the provision of insurance for the surge in green and blue hydrogen prototypical initiatives to reduce carbon footprints and combat climate change.

Insurance has often been portrayed as the poor relation of the City of London. However, this financial sector today employs almost 50,000 people. We have the highest concentration of insurance-related intellectual capital, experience, insurers, brokers and affiliated professional services. This is what makes London a world-leading global insurance market. Using 2020 data, the London market share of the worldwide premium is in excess of $120 billion, although the market share of 7.6% has been static over the last five years. It is larger than its next three competitor markets—Bermuda, Singapore and Zurich—combined but is continually being challenged. The sector generated 24% of the City’s GDP and just under 1.8% of the United Kingdom’s GDP.

One of the secondary objectives of this Bill is for the regulators to promote the growth and competitiveness of the UK economy. An area where the London market has no participation is captive insurance companies. This would certainly be an opportunity for growth as it is a $54 billion industry. Even UK companies such as Network Rail and Transport for London have their captives in foreign jurisdictions. These captive insurance companies are designed to provide insurance to their parent company or its entity. It is no longer the tax legislation, an oft-cited reason for this being the case, but the regulatory hurdles, as the regulators treat them as commercial insurance companies.

Regulators will always remain an important part of the checks and balances of financial business, but they need to be proportionate in recognising that personal consumers need a greater level of protection than the more sophisticated companies, which have significant experience and take professional advice on how to manage their risk protection. It should not be one size fits all.

Secondly, the Bill currently allows the regulators to determine how they believe they have met the requirements of the competitiveness objective. This suggests that they can mark their own homework. Would it not be preferable to have a set of key performance indicators laid down in the Bill, by which they can be measured when reporting back to the Government and Parliament?

With these thoughts in mind, I thank noble Lords for this opportunity and look forward to supporting this Bill, promoting growth and competitiveness for our financial services industry and, ultimately, growing this vital sector of the economy.

Financial Services and Markets Bill

Lord Ashcombe Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 1st February 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Bridges of Headley (Con)]

My Lords, I will make a brief intervention. I declare my interests as an adviser to and shareholder in Banco Santander in Madrid. I have a lot of sympathy with some of the amendments in this group, especially those in the name of my noble friends Lord Holmes of Richmond and the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull.

I will take a quick step back. The Bill needs to be improved in three key ways. First, we need to improve the reporting by the regulators. Secondly, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, said, we need to make sure that the regulators are not marking their own homework, which is why it is important that we create a form of independent analysis. Thirdly, we need to improve parliamentary accountability. The amendments clearly address the first point on reporting. I will not repeat the number of points made very eloquently by the noble Earl and others, especially my noble friend Lady Noakes. However, I strongly believe that, as has been said, this will help regulators define their actions and, in so doing, help address confidence in the regulators that they are meeting those objectives.

I listened to the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer—I was about to call her my noble friend; she is a good friend—and she is absolutely right. We absolutely have to get right the balance between competitiveness and stability here. I do not think anyone here is arguing for a race to the bottom; that would be a disaster for our financial services sector. A strong financial services sector is based on robust, proportionate and simple regulation, so I completely heed that concern. However, I look at some of the amendments, especially some of the metrics being quoted here, and the data that they would provide would be exceptionally valuable to us as Parliament when we come to assess the performance of our regulators in a critical sector for our economy, and we can then judge them on those actions. I look at the consultation that the PRA set out, which states that it will include its performance in meeting this new objective but it does not say how. It is important that we send a signal, and at least have a very thorough debate as to what that might be.

I end on this point: does the Minister seriously think that the current reports we get from our regulators are satisfactory and adequate, especially in the light of the new powers and the new objective that the Bill confers on them and the concern that I think many on both sides of the Committee have about what that means for their powers and their accountability? That is a simple question.

[Lord Ashcombe (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as an employee of Marsh & Co, the insurance broker. I too support Amendments 66, 115 and 196 in the names of my noble friends Lord Holmes of Richmond, Lord Naseby, Lord Trenchard and Lady Noakes. Since Second Reading the Bermuda authority has reported that it saw the highest number of new insurance-broking companies registered in more than a decade as 84 new companies were set up in 2022, but not one has been set up in the UK for 15 years. This is the reality of international competition that the UK is facing as it competes with jurisdictions around the world for investment, capital and jobs, but we note that we depend on high standards of regulation. It seems that a number of key changes are needed to address this to improve the accountability of UK regulators, making them more consistent in their approach and more responsive in ultimately ensuring that they act more proportionately, as mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull.

Amendment 66 requires that the FCA and the PRA each publish an annual report setting out how they have facilitated international competitiveness and growth against a range of data and analysis requirements. Clause 26 currently allows regulators to decide for themselves how they believe they have met the requirements of their new competitiveness, as already mentioned. For example, the clause states that the FCA can decide “in its opinion” how to report on the objective and therefore decide solely for itself how it has met the objective’s requirements. The objective must therefore have alongside it a clear reporting criterion so that the Government and Parliament can properly hold the regulators to account. It is unclear whether the regulators will consider metrics specific to international competitiveness, not simply domestic competition. The criteria set out in the amendment can be measured and targets created to ensure that the regulators are operating effectively.

The Bermuda Monetary Authority takes a different approach and has different classes of insurers and reinsurers, together with authorisation criteria and KPIs that match the level of risk that the entity poses to the system. This allows it to undertake an authorisation of an international reinsurer with clients that are solely other insurance companies in less than one week—can you imagine?—thereby freeing resources to focus on entities serving individual retail customers.

Clause 37 gives Ministers a power over the regulators’ reporting requirements by providing them with a mechanism through which to direct information to be published. The danger is that this clause becomes more of a backstop measure, rather than something embedded in our new regulatory framework. While the clause is welcome in demonstrating the Government’s recognition of issues around needing to improve regulatory culture, it asks more questions than it necessarily answers. It is unclear how the Government will decide the criteria for requesting a report and whether they will seek input from industry and Parliament or the new bodies that the Bill creates, such as the cost-benefit analysis panels, in understanding where there is a demand for information. It is unclear whether, as part of its report, the regulator will undertake comparative analysis of its performance against the UK’s competitor jurisdictions as well as analysis of product and service innovations taking place in key markets. This is how Parliament will best understand whether the UK is performing well globally.

What we need are mechanisms in the Bill that help ensure that accountability becomes part of the day-to-day operation of the regulators, not something used ad hoc. That is the only way that we will get culture change and deliver the kind of culture change that we in Parliament and industry want, as addressed by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral at Second Reading. That is why measures set out in these amendments are so important. I hope we can look at further changes along these lines.

Financial Services and Markets Bill

Lord Ashcombe Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 20th February 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Ashcombe (Con)]

My Lords, before I start, I declare my interest an employee of Marsh Ltd, the insurance broker.

I again find myself supporting my noble friend Lord Holmes. These amendments would ensure that the cost-benefit analysis panels are better equipped to undertake the necessary scrutiny of the regulators’ work by ensuring their independence from the regulators. As the Bill stands, all the powers are given to the regulators in controlling the membership, agendas and outputs of these panels, thus allowing the regulators to set and mark their own homework, as people have said.

These amendments would ensure that the CBA panels have the necessary independence from the regulators by giving them powers to set their own agendas and work programmes. Where appropriate, the work of the panels should be made public. The amendments would ensure that the panels have the powers and authority to gain access to the data and impact assessments on which the regulators propose to make their decisions, including a cumulative cost-benefit analysis to understand the cumulative impact of regulation. The panels would have powers to have two existing representatives—or a number that noble Lords so suggest—in order for the views of the prevailing market to be heard. Importantly, the CBA panels would be given the freedom to offer a view on the overall economic impact and effect on UK competitiveness of regulatory changes, including scrutiny over the regulators’ reporting on the competitiveness objective. Finally, the panels should have the ability to undertake pre-regulatory scrutiny of rules, with the ability to challenge the regulators and seek a response to new regulations coming into force.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I think I want to commend the Government on actually bringing in the concept of cost-benefit analysis panels. Generally speaking, the amendments in this group elaborate on that and probably make them better balanced. I will certainly be interested to hear the Government’s reaction to them.

We have Amendments 131 and 140 here, which would require the FCA and the PRA respectively to put on their CBA panels

“at least three individuals with experience and expertise in the field of economic crime, with one drawn from the public, private and third sectors”

and to consider

“any economic crime risks posed”

by any new rules they propose. These amendments have come from thinking at the other end and from the organisation Spotlight on Corruption. I thank it for contributing its expertise, and Emma Hardy MP for pursuing the amendments in the Commons.

These amendments are part of our overarching push to highlight the Government’s weaknesses on economic crime, mainly fraud. There are serious concerns from consumers and stakeholders across the board about the slowness of regulators in preventing and tackling the vast amount of economic crime in the system. The size of the prize is vast. Money laundering is estimated to cost the UK £100 billion a year and fraud costs us £137 billion a year. The regulators need to do much more. I hope the Minister will agree that having panel members with specific expertise in economic crime is one way to ensure this, given the perverse ingenuity of the criminals they are up against.

Financial Services and Markets Bill

Lord Ashcombe Excerpts

Report stage
Thursday 8th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not want to run the risk of repeating myself, but I have made plain in previous debates my concern about the inclusion of the competitiveness objective in this legislation. Just to be clear, I think it has no place, but I welcome these provisions that there should be a report on the competitiveness objective. My concern is that the wording does not get to the heart of the problem that I believe exists, which is the interaction between the competitiveness objective and the other objectives. My reading of the way this is worded is that the report just has to talk about the competitiveness objective and does not have to say how it affected the other objectives. Maybe the Minister in her reply could allay my concerns and make it clear that the regulatory bodies are required to look across the whole gamut of their obligations when reporting on the competitiveness objective.

[Lord Ashcombe (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my interest as an employee of Marsh Ltd, the insurance broker. I offer my support to the amendments in this group, so thoughtfully proposed by my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond. My noble friend the Minister has indeed made improvements since Grand Committee, and for that I thank her, but I wonder whether the Government have gone quite far enough. I particularly thank the Minister for the generous amount of time she spent with me the other evening.

My noble friend the Minister’s amendment proposes two reports, 12 months apart, as has been mentioned, but I believe that it is important that reports from the regulators should become an annual occurrence concerning the competitiveness and growth objectives. The financial sector of the United Kingdom is a major driver of revenue for the country and we must ensure consistency over time, not just the immediate future. In turn, this suggests the need for consistent metrics on which to report, allowing for the proper comparisons.

Amendment 19 concerns the principle of proportionality, recognising that not all financial services are the same. Again, I will look at the insurance market in particular, but I suspect there are similarities in other financial lines. I am all for keeping individual retail and small business customers safe when working with insurance companies, but there are significant differences to be found between them, users of the London wholesale insurance market—which is used by knowledgeable buyers, using one of many potential advisers—and captive insurance entities. Smaller customers need a level of protection not required by either of these other two groups.

In the debate on this amendment, I wish to refer particularly to captive insurance companies. Captives are wholly owned subsidiaries set up to provide risk mitigation services—insurance—for their parent company and/or related entities. The parent is inevitably a sophisticated entity, almost certainly hiring advisers. They should require a very different approach from the retail customer.

There currently seems to be a one-size-fits-all approach by the regulators when reviewing insurance companies that does not take into account the nature of the purchaser. This is not only time consuming but costly in comparison with other overseas regimes. Captives provide low risk to the financial system and the buyer of their services requires a significantly different level of regulation from an insurance company trading with individuals. They are fundamentally different.

There is no captive company authorised in the UK and even those of our major companies, including UK public bodies, are located in overseas jurisdictions. The captive insurance business generates in excess of $50 billion annually, and here lies a significant opportunity for growth in the insurance sector which, should the regulator alter its stance and act with proportionality, could, as an example, add significant additional capital into the country.

Amendments 40 and 41 refer to the requirements to publish regulatory performance on authorised firms and new authorisations. The Government certainly recognise in Clause 37 the need to improve the regulatory culture, but we need more teeth in terms of reporting metrics so it becomes standard practice within the regulators. This culture needs to become ingrained.

The metrics being proposed in Amendment 40 are granular concerning timing and would bring some needed haste to the system. In business, time is often of the essence and being held up disproportionately by a UK regulator, as opposed those in other jurisdictions, acts as a deterrent to trade in this country. The metrics being proposed in Amendment 41 link together to give a consistent window into the activities of the regulators. With quarterly reporting it will be possible to gain some comparative statistics that will tell a story.

Lastly, Amendment 92 concerns determination of application. London remains one of the world centres of insurance and we must do all we can to preserve its status, but there are for sure a number of other locations that can attract capital more easily and so challenge it. Unfortunately, regulatory burden is regularly raised as an issue damaging London’s ability to attract additional capital and support the market.

Concerns have been raised about the overall performance of the regulators in terms of timing, with authorisations and approvals taking longer they should. It is recognised that they are falling behind their KPIs. Insurance companies here have experienced delays in case handler assignment, which is the beginning of a domino effect. In addition, concerns have been expressed over some of the questions asked and the appropriateness of the data being requested, leading to additional time and expense. The regulators need to streamline their activities by being relevant.

These amendments refer to a great extent to measures designed to bring some more accountability to the reporting by the regulators. I realise there is a consultation with the financial markets, but I believe that the measures being proposed are the bare minimum that should be required and included in the Bill. These sets of metrics will prevent the regulators deciding which of their own sets of data to publish. Certainly, from an insurance perspective, this will allow life to proceed way more freely. This will ensure transparency from the regulators, which is surely what is being strived for.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group fall essentially into two categories. Those that improve communication and representation to statutory panels are small but positive improvements and, although I remain of the view that these panels should be given proper independence, I am glad to see that at least there is some improvement in the regime.

The other amendments I view very differently, and I will pick up the issues raised by the noble Lords, Lord Vaux and Lord Davies of Brixton, that if the reporting requirements included a proper consideration of how the competitiveness and growth objectives as they became operational were also impacting on financial stability, systemic risk and consumer protection, I would find myself very much in favour of them. But actually I regard them as a sort of slightly disguised mechanism to enhance the status of the secondary objectives to something which I think the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, described on Monday as “secondary plus”, or even “secondary plus plus”. I think that is exactly what these various amendments are intended to do.

This House knows well that I join Sir Paul Tucker, Sir John Vickers, pretty much every former Governor of the Bank of England and many others in regretting the introduction of these objectives because, for exactly the reason that others have said, they will incentivise and drive risky behaviour and we will come to rue that. So this further enhancement of these secondary objectives, very much driven by the industry—we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Ashcombe, how strong the feeling was that we try and get towards making these objectives either primary or close to primary—should be a warning to all of us. So I cannot give these amendments my support, although we are obviously not going to vote on them today. However, it is necessary that the House takes note of some degree of warning.