Financial Services and Markets Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 4:15 pm on 21 March 2000.

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Photo of Lord Kingsland Lord Kingsland Conservative 4:15, 21 March 2000

In moving this amendment, I should like to speak also to Amendments Nos. 158 and 185A.

Clause 52 allows the authority to cancel or vary an authorised person's permission to carry on a particular investment activity. Under the market abuse parts of the Bill, individuals against whom the offence of market abuse is alleged are entitled to a particular form of protected procedure involving warning orders, warning notices, decision notices, and ultimately access to a tribunal. Those protected procedures are denied to authorised bodies when they themselves are pursued for one or another reason by the authority.

Amendments Nos. 157 and 158 both seek the same objective; that is, to give the protection of a warning notice to authorised parties. Amendment No. 185A seeks, on the same principle, to provide similar protection under Clause 88. Clause 88 brings in the warning notice procedures if the authority, as the competent authority, wants to impose a penalty on a listed company, or indeed other persons, for breach of listing rules. In our view, here also the decision notice protections ought to be imported into these procedures.

The Minister will be aware that there was a substantial debate on this matter in the Joint Committee. Much of it revolved around the scope of Article 6.1 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The legal arguments in support of what I seek to do in the Bill have been well rehearsed. The noble Lord will be relieved to hear that I do not intend to embark on yet another exegesis of those matters. Nevertheless, the Opposition consider this to be a vital matter and hope that the Minister has had time for reflection since his colleagues in another place dealt with these issues. I am hopeful that I may receive a better reply from him than Members of the Opposition received in another place. I beg to move.