Lord Bagri: My Lords, in addressing this House for the first time, and doing so during this debate on the subjects of industrial, social and economic affairs, where the expertise of Your Lordships is so justly renowned, I am profoundly conscious of the meaning of the word "daunting". I am grateful to those noble Lords who have given me encouragement, and I warmly thank the officials of the House for...
Lord Bagri: My Lords, first I declare a direct interest in the Financial Services and Markets Bill. I am chairman of an authorised investment services firm and am also privileged to be chairman of the London Metal Exchange, which is by far the largest metals futures market in the world. The LME is highly successful and pre-eminent in the world of non-ferrous metals. Every day its markets provide prices...
Lord Bagri: The question of immunity has been examined at length by the Joint Committee under the noble Lord, Lord Burns. It made some valuable suggestions which have been incorporated into the Bill, so far as I can read it. It is important for the good of the financial services industry, as well as for good regulation, that regulators are not deterred from taking regulatory action by the mere risk of...
Lord Bagri: There is already a provision for judicial review. Perhaps Members of the Committee can imagine themselves in a regulatory body that lost two or three judicial reviews in a row: no one would have any confidence in you, no one would trade in your market and, indeed, no one would believe you. I believe that there is an automatic remedy in this respect. If we go in for subjective judgment about...
Lord Bagri: With due respect, I do not believe that that is only in the hands of the practitioners. If one over-regulates--there is little downside for regulators in over-regulating--that adds to the burden of regulation, which adds to the cost. There is nothing the practitioners can do to reduce that cost. I do not see why we are bashful about saying that we shall improve the competitiveness of UK...
Lord Bagri: As I know something about the Sumitomo case, perhaps I may congratulate the Minister on trying to deal with it. I know how difficult it was to deal with. That is why we welcome the extension of the market abuse regime to cover both non-authorised persons and off-exchange activity which has a manipulative effect on the exchange market. I listened with interest to the Minister's reference to a...
