Clause 7 - Orders under section 22 of FSMA 2000

Part of Financial Services Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 5:45 pm on 6 March 2012.

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Photo of Chris Leslie Chris Leslie Shadow Minister (Treasury) 5:45, 6 March 2012

Schedule 2 to FSMA 2000 relates to regulated activities. The two changes involve order-making powers and parliamentary control. There are two parts to the clause. One part changes the language in the FSMA provision to relate to the new regulators being put in place. The other relates to parliamentary control. There are new arrangements, particularly relating to the affirmative order-making process. Although the affirmative process makes sense, the Minister will know that we would prefer the Government to table draft orders. We would prefer an enhanced affirmative order process, which would give the House and its Committees a proper opportunity to scrutinise the serious issues involved.

We are talking about provisions that will transfer areas of business and activity that are outside regulatory parameters to the auspices of the FCA or the PRA. As such, it is quite a serious matter that probably merits more than the typical hour and a half rubber-stamping discussion and vote that we tend to get in an affirmative process. It is the sort of thing that, naturally, the Treasury Committee might want to talk about. I think we should establish a financial policy scrutiny committee in the House for proper and rigorous scrutiny.

To get a sense of what we are talking about here, it would be helpful if the Minster could tell us what areas of financial activity will remain outside the scope of the FCA and the PRA. We need to get a sense of what that is to understand what might have to be suddenly transferred to the regulatory ambit, especially under the reasons of urgency elements in the clause. It is understandable that, from time to time, if there are urgent crisis scenarios,  the Treasury can take powers to make an extension and go into new terrain. However, at the very least, we should have a proper overview, a proper map, of what might be outside currently, and what could come within that.

There is a separate issue of co-ordination. How can the Minister be assured that the two regulators will co-ordinate adequately to prevent any confusion in such circumstances? What exact additional powers will be associated with that extra regulatory activity? I want to have a sense of what those issues are. For example, the lead story on the front page of today’s Financial Times is about the LIBOR process; a very interesting story about billions and billions of pounds of trades that are subject to the LIBOR rating. The Financial Times,when considering the regulatory perimeter of particular organisations, raised a question mark about whether the LIBOR process might need to be subject to regulatory activity. I appreciate that there is a process—the British Bankers Association currently oversees the LIBOR arrangements—but it is interesting that that subject has been raised. The Treasury made a prosaic comment on the story. It is a classic example of an area that currently does not fall within the regulatory perimeter, but might need to do so.

I would be grateful if the Minister gave us a sense of what is happening with that particular example, which in many ways typifies where we are on some of these clause 6, 7 and 8 issues about regulated activities—they are very important. Many people who currently do not have to deal with the regulators might suddenly find that they need to deal with them. That might be a perfectly good and reasonable thing, but I would like to have a sense of how frequently the Minister envisages this sort of thing happening, and whether we might be in the midst of a similar issue in relation to LIBOR.