Benchmarks (Amendment and Transitional Provision) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-18
Topic: Mixed Topics
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): I again thank the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, for his responsible approach to these regulations. It is quite right that there should be scrutiny, but the amendment which we are now debating would effectively be fatal. It would prevent these regulations appearing on the statute book when their purpose is, as the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and my noble and learned friend said, to avoid the type of abuse of market power and benchmarks that was sadly the case in the past. To avoid all the progress we have made in that in the event of no deal would be regretted However a number of points were made, including by the noble Lord, which should be responded to as part of the scrutiny, so I shall launch into them, if I may. The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, asked why it is important to have this SI in place. If it were not it would cause significant legal uncertainty and disruption for firms about how they were able to provide benchmarks for use in the UK and for other users about which benchmarks they could legally use. Many of them have already submitted applications or created business models on the basis of market compliance with the regime. That is why the noble Earl was right to cite paragraph 2.6 of the Explanatory Memorandum and my noble and learned friend was right to raise the importance of these regulations The noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, questioned the ability of the FCA to enforce these regulations given the previous situation with the LIBOR scandal. We do not accept that EU regulators are better regulators than ESMA. The EU regulation was created after the LIBOR scandal and introduced a comprehensive framework to ensure that the business integrity of benchmarks is maintained. We are confident that the FCA will enforce these regulations. She also asked about how EU and UK regulators will co-operate going forward. The FCA will use the information to ensure that on exit day any administrators or benchmarks which are on the ESMA register at 5 pm on the day exit occurs are copied over to the FCA register. FCA-approved benchmarks or administrators will be copied over permanently and those approved by other EU national competent authorities will be copied over for a temporary period of 24 months. This SI removes obligations in retained EU law for the FCA to co-operate and share information with regulators. The FCA will still be able to co-operate with EU regulators through the existing framework in the Financial Services and Markets Act The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, asked how we arrived at the number of firms affected by this SI. The number is the current number of approved benchmark administrators. The regulators that we are working with are seeking to understand the full range of administrators that will seek approval, but it is difficult to provide a final figure for the number located in the UK and the EU I think that that covers most of the points raised. Again, I thank noble Lords for their contributions on this SI. On behalf of the Government and the Opposition—and I am sure that on this occasion I speak for the Liberal Democrat Benches and perhaps the Cross Benches too—I express the hope that, despite the scrutiny that, rightly, is called for in the amendment, the noble Lord will not press it and will accept the regulations. It is necessary to put them in place in order to protect investors in this country.