UK Parliament / Open data

Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities) (Amendment) Order 2018

My Lords, I shall comment briefly as a member of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. The committee’s recent 26th report drew the attention of the House to this instrument, on the grounds that it appears to make an unusual use of enabling powers conferred by the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. It is a long-established principle of the joint committee that, where an affirmative instrument imposes new duties significantly more onerous than those that existed before, and where it requires those affected to adopt different patterns of behaviour, there should be a period of at least 21 days between the making of the instrument and its commencement, to give those affected a reasonable chance to adapt to the changes required. This instrument allows only one day.

My noble friend explained that very few firms—possibly only one—would be affected by this change. He also made clear that the Government were responding to a grave concern expressed by the London Stock Exchange that the continued failure to amend the permitted arrangements for alternative investment finance bonds is damaging the competitiveness of UK markets. The committee was unpersuaded that the changes to the law made by the proposed order are so urgent that they must have immediate effect. If the need for amendments was really so pressing, the draft order should have been laid before Parliament much earlier, with a commencement date of 1 April 2018 to coincide with the tax changes referred to in the Treasury’s memorandum

Because of frequent and recurrent poor practice, the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments has recently published a special report, Transparency and Accountability in Subordinate Legislation, to remind the Government of the need for new law to be published promptly, so that those affected by the changes it makes are protected from being subjected to them before they have had a reasonable opportunity to understand and prepare for them. That is a general principle to which the Government should always adhere. I commend the committee’s important recent report on the major issues of transparency and accountability to my noble friend and all his colleagues in this House and the other place. I hope the House will have a brief opportunity to consider it in due course.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
792 c49 
Session
2017-19
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
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