Future of Financial Services

Lord Sikka Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. In relation to the equivalence announcement, we are taking on board 17 equivalence rules. In the interests of brevity, I shall not go through all of them, but I shall ask that they are entered into Hansard. The point the noble Baroness makes about the early or perfunctory removal of equivalence is something we have taken on board. Indeed, other countries have expressed this as one of the EU’s problems, and it will be our intention to have a more transparent process that gives those countries the ability to respond to issues and have a more iterative dialogue.

In relation to the noble Baroness’s points on pension fund assets allocation, I touched on this yesterday in the Statement in relation to local government pension funds, and it is certainly a priority for us to try and steer some of these assets, on a low-risk basis, into infrastructure development.

[Lord Sikka (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the finance industry has been engaged in bribery, corruption, money laundering, tax avoidance and mis-selling of numerous products. The victims of RBS and HBOS frauds are still awaiting compensation. In July this year, the Intelligence and Security Committee said some aspects of the finance industry were also a threat to national security. I ask the Minister and urge the Government to appoint an independent inquiry into the finance industry, as that would be a good way of promoting public confidence in the industry.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

I do not accept the noble Lord’s harsh criticisms of the sector. As in any sector, one gets miscreants, but is important to remind the noble Lord that this industry employs over 1 million people in this country and contributes £130 billion to our national economy and some £75 billion in tax receipts.