Global Britain

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

We seek to provide a predictable, transparent and business-friendly environment for firms to undertake cross-border financial services business. We propose that this can be done by agreeing comprehensive obligations on market access and fair competition. We are also willing to look at regulatory and supervisory co-operation arrangements that reflect the level of access between our markets and seek to establish processes for dialogue on equivalence.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, the Written Statement defines a huge number of areas for negotiation. Can the Minister confirm that the Government have sufficient civil servants across all departments to deliver agreements within a few months, which is what their intention seems to be?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I can confirm that civil servants are being moved within the unit. David Frost, No. 10’s Europe adviser, will be the UK’s chief negotiator, reporting directly to the Prime Minister. He will lead the future negotiations with a team based out of No. 10, and will work with departments across Whitehall. As I hope was shown by my comments about the Department for International Trade, the Government are focusing on these priority areas. We are of course making sure that we are properly resourced to ensure that we can deliver the outcome that we all want, which is a good deal between the EU and the UK by the end of the year.