Part of Financial Services and Markets Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 3:00 pm on 27 October 2022.
Tulip Siddiq
Shadow Minister (Treasury)
3:00,
27 October 2022
The Minister has already said that he is open to discussion about this, but I specifically want to turn to the role of the Treasury Committee. The Opposition are pleased to see a strengthened role for the Treasury Committee in scrutinising financial services regulation. However, TheCityUK, in its written submission to the Committee, set out that, while the Treasury Committee has the power to send for persons, papers and records, it does not have the power to mandate the regulators to report on specific performance metrics over time.
TheCityUK argues that the efficiency and effectiveness of regulators, and the impact of their operational performance on UK competitiveness, would be improved by greater accuracy, transparency and accountability in operational performance metrics. It has proposed an Amendment to give the Treasury powers to require regulators to report specified operational performance metrics, with the Treasury Select Committee consulted on the metrics to be reported. Those could include the regulator’s performance against its secondary objective or its “have regard” for net zero targets, for example. I wanted to hear what the Minister thinks about those proposals.
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