Financial Services and Markets Bill [Lords]

Debate between Robin Swann and Claire Hanna

2nd reading
Tuesday 10th November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)]

I want to pick up on the Chancellor’s comments in opening the debate, when he said that he wanted to continue moving the Bill in “the right direction” with a collegiate approach across the House. I intend to table an amendment to the Bill on one specific issue, which builds on the work of Baroness Hoey of Lylehill and the British Insurance Brokers’ Association. It relates to an ongoing campaign of mine to tackle the rising and disproportionate cause of car insurance costs across Northern Ireland.

The amendment will seek to include claims management companies in Northern Ireland under the FCA regulations. As it stands, Northern Ireland remains the only part of the United Kingdom where claims management companies are not regulated by the FCA, due to the fact that the Northern Ireland Assembly was not sitting when the legislation was introduced in England, Scotland and Wales. With no room to legislate under the current timetable and an Assembly election coming in May—who knows what happens after May—I believe that the Bill provides the perfect vehicle for bringing forward the solution to what is a technicality on the support of claims management companies and car insurance users in Northern Ireland.

Motorists across Northern Ireland continue to face disproportionately high premiums, placing severe financial pressure on our households and particularly on young drivers. Unregulated claims management companies actively pursue customers after collisions and can take anywhere between 15% and 30% of compensation payouts, which significantly inflates overall claims expenses. Those excessive costs then act as a major driver pushing up the cost of car cover for our drivers.

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South and Mid Down) (SDLP)]

I know that the hon. Member has been working extensively on this matter. He rightly highlights Northern Ireland’s higher premiums; there are also fewer providers, as well as the matter of the unregulated claims management companies. He will know that public transport and cycle infrastructure is failing as well, driving more people into their cars. Does he agree that it is a symptom of Stormont’s failure that another collapse meant that this gap was not plugged, and does he share my concern about the sluggish response of Stormont on providing data and agreeing to co-operate on this matter, and the belief of many drivers that nobody is really at the wheel?

[Robin Swann]

The hon. Lady is correct in some of her assertions on this matter, because correcting this legislative anomaly has not been on the Executive’s agenda. I do not think it will be on their agenda even after the election coming in May.

This vehicle—this piece of legislation—does provide the solution for those who need affordable car insurance in Northern Ireland more so than in other parts of the United Kingdom. Extending the FCA’s regulatory remit to Northern Ireland is a vital, practical step to properly govern those firms. It will prevent exploitative practices and bring much-needed fairness to our local insurance market.

While various factors contribute to higher insurance costs in Northern Ireland, closing that regulatory gap, which the Bill will be able to do, will actually make a tangible difference. As the Economic Secretary will see, there is support for such a measure across the Northern Ireland parties. It has also been brought in the other House, too. I hope she will listen, and meet me to explore this anomaly and bring about the solution.

Northern Ireland Political Institutions: Reform

Debate between Robin Swann and Claire Hanna

Tuesday 13th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South and Mid Down) (SDLP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I confess that I have not been in Westminster Hall for a while; I was watching the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) to see exactly when I should stand up. I thank the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) for securing the debate, which is an important part of the conversation as the case for modest Assembly reform builds.

The Social Democratic and Labour party has been working quite intensively to find common ground and take this conversation beyond campaigning and graphics and into the realm of the possible. I welcome the indications from the Prime Minister last week, when I asked him at Prime Minister’s questions, that the UK Government are freshly open to engagement. There had been a fairly hands-off approach.

I restate the SDLP’s frustration that the Executive parties have made not a single step towards reform. In spite of election campaigning, there is nothing in the programme for government. I welcome the Assembly’s acceptance of an SDLP proposal to take some of this issue on through the Assembly and Executive Review Committee, but if anybody wants to see an example of an issue being slow-walked, it is that committee’s discussion and inquiry over the past year.

As with the agreement that created the institutions, we accept that parties are approaching this issue from different places and at different paces. As with that agreement, it is also clear that we will not come to a conclusion without some sort of facilitation. I will not spend much time on the need for reform: the periodic collapses, the quagmire and stalemate on public policy, the daily draining away of public confidence, this week’s failure to agree a multi-year budget and the feedback from Baroness Hallett in the covid inquiry last week all ably make the case, as did the hon. Member for Lagan Valley.

The flaws are by culture and by design. There is much recrimination about some of what is in the agreement, but hon. Members need to be reminded that we were trying to end a hot war and resolve a centuries-old conflict, which the agreement very largely did, in spite of what my colleague Mark Durkan memorably called the “ugly scaffolding”.

[Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)]

Does the hon. Lady acknowledge that much of the work that was achieved in the Belfast agreement was undermined in St Andrews in 2007, when there was a change to how the First and Deputy First Ministers were elected? Rather than being a co-post, it became a divided office.

[Claire Hanna]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. Those subsequent changes, particularly at St Andrews, have distorted the institutions away from a place of consensus and towards veto, brinkmanship and power struggle. There is a lot in the agreement that the SDLP would like to revisit—not least strand 2, which has shockingly underperformed—but the immediacy and urgency of this issue means that we have to focus on where common ground can be found.

I agree with a lot of what the Alliance party has suggested but, bluntly, I do not think it is achievable. I do not think that it is possible to get there from where we are now, although we were very open to a lot of those conversations, not least on mandatory coalition and designation. As a party that is anti-sectarian, centre-left and for a new Ireland, we have never fitted neatly into any binary, but it is important to recognise both where we are as a society and where we want to get to.