Lord Bishop of St Albans
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(2 years ago)
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The Lord Bishop of St Albans
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of Paris overtaking London as Europe’s most valuable stock market.
The Parliamentary Secretary, HM Treasury (Baroness Penn) (Con)
My Lords, according to the Global Financial Centres Index, London is the second highest-ranked financial centre in the world after New York, while Paris is 10th. The UK continues to be the pre-eminent financial centre for derivatives and foreign exchange trading. In all equities instruments, the UK almost doubles France’s total market capitalisation at $6.2 trillion. To support the UK’s competitiveness, the Government are undertaking ambitious reforms to keep pace with innovation.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
My Lords, I totally accept that there are various people trying to analyse the levels of trading—although it was a wake-up call last year when on some grounds Amsterdam was seen to overtake London as the premier financial trading centre, and last week some of those organisations claimed that Paris had overtaken London as the premier stock exchange. In the light of us trying to build an economy which properly rewards our workers and protects our environment, what are His Majesty’s Government doing to increase confidence in London’s reputation in financial trading and as the premier stock market?
Baroness Penn (Con)
I am so glad that the right reverend Prelate has given me a chance to set out what the Government are doing. The Financial Services and Markets Bill has just completed its work in Commons Committee, setting forward a whole range of reforms to inherited EU law to make us more competitive. He also mentioned the environment. The Government’s ambition is to make London the premier place for green finance, to ensure that our financial markets take into account the challenge of climate change, so that we then can ensure that we are pursuing green growth across the whole of our economy.