Future of Financial Services

Peter Kyle Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

I join the shadow Chancellor in celebrating the success and importance of the financial services sector in our country. The Chancellor said he was making a unilateral announcement about equivalence, so can he confirm that the British financial services sector now has to wait for the EU to make its unilateral announcement on equivalence and other measures that will dictate what is possible in terms of access for British businesses? The Government signed the political declaration that committed them to finding the agreement by June last year. If British business was as good as this Government at doing deals, there would be no financial sector in this country.

[Rishi Sunak]

Maybe I can help clear this up for the hon. Gentleman. There are a set of decisions that we can make unilaterally. There are others that we cannot, because the nature of the decision requires mutual collaboration between us and the other partner. We have obviously refrained from making those decisions. We have also refrained from making decisions where it would not be in our economic self-interest to do so. But we remain ready, and we stand ready, to talk constructively and co-operatively with our European partners and reach agreement on the remaining outstanding decisions.