Brexit: Financial Services Sector

Lord Tugendhat Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke (Lab)]

My Lords, I should not need to remind the noble Baroness that financial services in this country go further than the City of—

[Lord Tugendhat (Con)]

My Lords—

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)]

My Lords, we have time for both speakers who have been on their feet. We shall start with the Conservative Benches and then go over to the Labour Benches.

[Lord Tugendhat]

My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that the range and diversity of markets and services in the City of London, and the extent to which overseas institutions participate in them, means that it would be very difficult to produce a paper of the sort that the noble Baroness opposite has demanded without going into a gross oversimplification, and that it would be much better—as my noble friend Lord Lamont said—to allow these negotiations to progress?

[Baroness Goldie]

Yes. I thank my noble friend for that intervention. As I have already said, this will involve detailed technical talks—there is nothing straightforward or simple about this. I entirely agree with him that that it would be exceedingly dangerous to yield to the temptation, to which some seem to be in danger of yielding, that we can reduce this to simplistic terms. These are challenging and complex issues and they should be addressed appropriately.