Securitisation Regulations 2018 — House of Commons, 2019-02-13
Topic: International Affairs
Kirsty Ann Blackman (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): This debate is so well subscribed that I was not sure whether I would be called, so I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak. It is excellent to have the opportunity to talk about a statutory instrument on the Floor of the House, given that we tend to be relegated to the Committee Corridor. It is also delightful to see two Government Ministers on the Front Bench, as we only have the pleasure of one in Delegated Legislation Committees The case has been put excellently by the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) who spoke from the Opposition Front Bench. I want to talk about a few concerns that the Scottish National Party has about the regulations as drafted, and the reasons why the Labour party prayed against them. The hon. Member for Oxford East made the case that, although this is not an EU exit statutory instrument, its aims clash with the aims of the EU exit SI on securitisation. It is quite confusing for the House at this time to be dealing with the in-flight regulations coming from the EU, as well as the EU exit ones. The issues around Henry VIII powers are incredibly important and form the core of our concerns The Minister mentioned the consultation. I would guess that the 150 submissions were from an EU-wide basis, rather than a UK-wide one. In fact, it seems unusual for there to be that number of submissions on pretty much anything. Given the number of SIs that receive no formal submissions, 150 seems like a significant number. However, if that is the case, I am quite happy to retract those comments The Minister’s comments on the consultation and the responses to it were very useful, but it was unfortunate that this information was not included in the explanatory memorandum. The explanatory memorandums that we normally see for SIs, particularly those dealing with EU exit, generally do not say that there has been consultation—and we generally criticise the Government for that—but they do usually say that there has been consultation with the Financial Conduct Authority, the Prudential Regulation Authority, the Bank of England or whichever authorities are relevant. However, the explanatory memorandum for this SI does not even say that that has happened. It is particularly concerning that, even if there were consultation on how the legislation was written, there has not been one on the implementation of the legislation as it is written into UK law and how it will be taken forward in this place My other concern is about the authority given to the FCA and the PRA. I have raised this concern recently, particularly in relation to the Bank of England. It seems that the Government are changing the powers that these organisations have, piece by piece, without any kind of overall strategy. It would be sensible for the Government to bring forward a White Paper or some sort of document on how they envisage the powers of the FCA and the Bank of England operating in future years. It seems that the Government are making policy changes by SI when they should actually be coming forward with an overarching position regarding how they see both the policy and the powers of the Bank of England, the FCA and the PRA in the future. When they make these piecemeal changes, we end up with organisations that have to deal with powers that are not joined up in any way because there is no joined-up approach It seems to me, from conversations that I have had with the Minister, or possibly the Financial Secretary, on the amount of resource that the FCA has that this House has been giving it quite a lot of additional work and obligations in recent times. While I am not saying that that is necessarily a bad thing, the way that it has been done has not been helpful. My understanding, with regard to the FCA’s requirement for resource in terms of spend, is that it will come to this House and request additional money if it has additional duties that it needs to carry out. Given that the Government are increasing the scope of and requirements on the FCA in taking action to monitor things and to have obligations in various places, has the Minister had an overall look at what its budget and powers will look like in future years? If not, it will be very difficult for it to say to this House how much money it is going to require in order to adequately ensure that it is fulfilling all the obligations that have been given to it by this House My main concerns were around the issue of consultation, particularly the fact that, as it says in the explanatory memorandum, consultation has not been undertaken on the implementation of this EU law within UK law, as well as the piecemeal nature of the way in which the Government are coming forward with this. It would be helpful if the Minister was able to clarify, or give us some idea of, the Government’s direction of travel and say that there will be some sort of policy paper on these powers. It was particularly concerning that the Bank of England’s powers were just extended without any sort of policy alongside that. We are regularly seeing the FCA’s powers being changed It would be really helpful for this House, and we would be much less likely to raise concerns, if we had an idea of where the Government’s decision making was going. We might disagree, but we would be less likely to raise these concerns about every single SI. I am sure that the Minister is absolutely fed up with us raising exactly the same things on these occasions and having to give exactly the same answer, which generally does not help us. I have not generally taken part in SI debates on the Floor of the House, so I am not sure whether the Minister is going to wind up, as is normal. I hope that he does, so that he can answer some of these points.