Future of Financial Services

Nigel Mills Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

Sovereign gilt issues will remain a reserved competency, but one of our hopes is that creating a sovereign green bond market will catalyse a domestic green bond market, as we have seen elsewhere, which would provide a benchmark for private companies to issue private green credit. I hope that will provide more capital for more companies in every part of the UK.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con) [V]]

I thank the Chancellor for his statement. Does he agree that our financial system should also be the cleanest in the world and free from dirty criminal and corrupt money? Would he look further at the failure to prevent economic crime across our financial sector?

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend has focused on that issue for as long as I have been in this House—and rightly so. He will know that we passed the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 the year before last, and in the Budget we said we would consult on introducing an economic crime levy that would provide additional funds to combat the scourge of crime in our financial system. My hon. Friend the Economic Secretary will be outlining further measures on market abuse in the debate on the Financial Services Bill.