Future of Financial Services

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

Let us move to the next speaker and we will come back. Apologies, Lord Flight, but you were breaking in and out.

[Lord Bilimoria (CB) [V]]

My Lords, we look forward to the Ron Kalifa report on fintech. The trade credit insurance guarantees making a real difference. Would the Government agree it should be extended until June 2021? Will the Government consider instituting a new 3i-type funding to help provide equity finance for funding, recovery and scale-up? Will the Minister clarify if the Government will consider reinstituting a Green Investment Bank—a question that has been asked before? Finally, will the Minister agree that getting an EU deal with make equivalence much easier to resolve?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

The noble Lord asks a lot of questions: I will take the last one first. Of course, getting a deal will make the whole relationship far more constructive. We remain cautiously optimistic that this can be achieved. I think the Government are broadly sceptical about creating an equity distribution fund or a fund that makes equity available. As I am sure the noble Lord will know, the private equity industry has some $1.5 trillion-worth of dry powder available for investment around the world, including this country. I believe that we should be accessing that rather than using taxpayers’ money.