Seventh Informal Brexit Liaison Group held

The Group discussed with Sir Jon Cunliffe, Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, the issue of transferring the European Union acquis and ensuring good regulation of financial services in the UK. The established framework for financial services in the UK, where the regulators already have a legislative function, was a possible template. Sir Jon was also invited to discuss with the group ways in which the House of Lords and its Committees could most usefully scrutinise the Brexit legislation. Amongst the issues highlighted by Sir Jon was the fact that the organisation of EU rules was not always coherent so its translation into domestic legislation would need to be undertaken with care to avoid an unnecessarily inflexible system.  It would be important to scrutinise which areas merited the greater parliamentary scrutiny afforded by primary legislation, and which were more suitable to the various scrutiny levels of secondary legislation and possibly regulatory authority rules. Another particular area where Lords Committees could add value would be to seek evidence from sectors with numerous smaller operators, perhaps through their trade associations, to ascertain the key issues for them.

The Group is expected to next meet in October 2017.

Further information

• About Parliament: Select committees
• Visiting Parliament: Watch committees

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