Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Clause 29 makes two small technical changes to the market abuse regulation. The first concerns insider lists, which are lists of all persons who have access to inside information and are working for firms that issue financial instruments or those acting on their behalf. They are a crucial tool for regulators and for firms themselves in controlling the flow of inside information. Currently, the market abuse regulation requires issuers or any person acting on their behalf or on their account to maintain an insider list. This has created uncertainty as to whether third parties acting on behalf of an issuer should be holding their own list or sending it to the issuer to hold, leading to a risk that some of the parties are not maintaining insider lists. These lists are vital. In this clause, we are acting to remove this uncertainty by making it clear that both issuers and any person acting on their behalf or on their account are required to maintain an insider list.

The second part of the clause concerns the timetable within which issuers are required to disclose transactions by their senior managers in the issuers’ own financial instruments to the public. Under the market abuse regulation, senior managers—referred to as persons discharging managerial responsibilities, or PDMRs—need to notify the issuer and the FCA of any transaction undertaking in financial instruments related to the issuer. This notification must be made within three working days of the transaction and the issuer must also notify the public within the same three working days of the transaction. This means it is possible that an issuer may only receive the notification from the PDMR on the day that they are required to publish the transaction. We are changing this to require notification to the public within two working days after the issuer receives notification of a transaction. This introduces a more practical and sensible timetable for observing timely and transparent disclosure of PDMR transactions to the market. I therefore recommend that the clause stand part of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 29 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.