Lord Bellingham
Main Page: Lord Bellingham (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Bellingham's debates with the HM Treasury
(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Penn (Con)
I think the noble Lord forgot to mention a global pandemic and Putin’s war in Ukraine. He also forgot to acknowledge the point that I have made throughout this Question that London continues to be either the highest or second highest-ranking financial centre in the world.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
My Lords, obviously we cannot be complacent, but can the Minister remind the House that Paris has 795 listed companies on its exchange, whereas London has 2,484 companies. We should look not just at the most valuable companies, such as LVMH, which is quoted in Paris and has a market capital of over €300 billion, but at all those small companies that are raising capital on the London market.
Baroness Penn (Con)
I think my noble friend has reminded the House on my behalf of those figures. I take the opportunity to say that we are not complacent about London’s position, and we are doing a lot of work beyond the Financial Services and Markets Bill to ensure that it remains competitive—the listings review from the noble Lord, Lord Hill, the second capital raising review and the wholesale markets review, among other pieces of work. The FCA has already delivered a number of rule changes based on the listings review to ensure that we remain competitive.