Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of UK participation in a Trade in Services Agreement treaty on the Government's ability to regulate the financial services sector.
The UK Government is a strong supporter of the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA), which provides an opportunity to address barriers to trade in services through seeking to deepen services trade rules and regulatory disciplines and to address market access objectives. Given the crucial role of financial stability to overall economic stability, governments and regulators need to have the ability to closely monitor and regulate banks, insurance companies and other financial services providers. The TiSA text will contain a prudential carve-out which will fully protect the ability of UK and international financial regulators to regulate and take any prudential actions for the sake of financial stability or to protect investors, depositors, policy holders or persons to whom a fiduciary duty is owed by a financial service supplier.