Brexit: The Future of Financial Regulation and Supervision (European Union Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2018-06-06
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Susan Kramer (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): Equivalence. I do have this problem The other issue that I have heard discussed here and which bothers me hugely is the discussion about how, after we leave, we can reframe our rules to allow more risk-taking. To pick up exactly the point that the noble Lord, Lord Davies, picked up, if you were sitting in the European Union and looking at the UK in 2008, you saw a financial crisis to some significant degree attributable to light-touch regulation—and how we touted light-touch regulation and told everyone that it was the way to go. It is exactly a return to that language of light-touch regulation. We have mistrust within our own country—people mistrust the industry and the regulators, so it is wrong to suggest that in the European Union they are going to say, "No, no, no—these people have changed completely. When they talk about reducing regulation it will be in the context of being absolutely safe". It is not—it is in order to create competitive advantage As noble Lords know, Barney Reynolds is a great promoter of that particular approach. I took some quotes from the report that he submitted, where he talks about a "market-friendly" financial services framework. That sounds very good, if you believe that market forces are the answer, but not if you believe that market forces ran rampant and out of control in 2008. International competitiveness should be a "statutory objective" for all our UK financial service regulators—that is the kind of language. That is a race to the bottom. This is precisely the accusation that is being levied: international competitiveness means that you always have the least-regulated structure. We are seeing in the United States, again, that a lot of the regulation that was put in place following the 2008 crisis is now being pulled back. That creates an added level of discomfort with this kind of Anglo-Saxon approach and framework. I do not think that we should underestimate how much we are caught in that particular view I also have to say that, when I ask those at any financial services entity, "Where are you looking for a change in regulation?"—the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, hit on it exactly—they say that it is on remuneration: lifting the cap on bankers’ bonuses. If ever there were an example that inspires mistrust and a sense that we are returning to the bad old days, it is that. It is always represented as the key and most important regulation that the financial service industry would like to see lifted I am desperate to keep the financial services industry here to the extent that we can, but I think we have to be realistic. A lot of it has already left. As my noble friend Lord Bruce said, this is not done with press releases and open discussion; no company wants to create concern among its customers, suppliers or regulators by saying, "We are at risk if we stay within the UK", but these companies are very quietly moving and we are beginning to see a series of announcements. It was also an iconic moment when Lloyd’s of London dropped "London" from its title. It is now established in Brussels. It has 600 staff in London; 100 of them are moving to the Brussels office—it is just the beginning. Insurance companies, because of the reasons of contractual continuance that have been raised here, have all been moving over the last 24 months. I just say to the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, that the fintechs are moving as well. I have talked to so many of them that are applying or have applied for a licence in Dublin—but the real risk is Paris. She spoke about the innovative approach that we have to regulation of the fintech industry, and I agree, but it has spread rapidly and she perhaps does not know that the Paris equivalent has an MoU with the FCA to make sure that it takes an equivalent approach to regulation and sandbox to Paris. It is to Paris that a lot of the fintechs are moving; it is an attractive lifestyle and many of them are fans of Macron. They see a future there and there is real competition for that particular industry What do we do under these circumstances? I, like others, think that the only route we can take that leaves us with something other than this unsatisfactory third-country equivalence is, frankly, to stay within the single market one way or another. Without that, it seems to me that we will be on the outside. If we are going to be on the outside and trapped within just equivalence, our whole negotiation has to be focused on trying to make sure we have a voice at the table. I do not see the Government doing that; I see them going down the mutual recognition route, basically with pages of demands that require the European Union to restructure the way that it works, to change everything that it does, to shift its principles and to have 27 countries operate under a rules-based system and the 28th without that. If we can get the Government to pull back from that and to pursue an opportunity—I would prefer it to be in the single market but it has to be an equivalent to try to get us a voice at the table through some mechanism or other—we might have some possibility and some hope. The complexity around this industry more than illustrates the fact that there are only downsides to Brexit. One can find a few upsides but, my goodness, weigh them on the scale and they are very small.