Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what lessons they have learned from the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations between the EU and the United States with regard to the United States Treasury's difficulties over freeing up barriers in the financial services sector.

The European Commission has exclusive competence for common commercial policy and negotiates external trade policy, including on financial services, on behalf of Member States. While the European Commission and the United States discussed financial services in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations, the experience of those negotiations is specific to the trading partners concerned and the position of the United States at that time.

The EU proposed to use TTIP to establish greater regulatory cooperation and support a clearer basis for market access for financial services. In the context of the UK-EU negotiations, the Chancellor of the Exchequer set out in his speech at Canary Wharf that the UK is willing to negotiate with the EU on financial services and the parameters of a future relationship building on a range of precedents including the EU’s ambition in TTIP talks.