Financial Services and Markets Bill [HL]

Lord Ranger of Northwood Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 9th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak also to the other amendments in this group, which I support. There are two critical threads running through the Bill. I say “running through the Bill”—in reality, they do not appear at all in the Bill. Those are all things digital finance and artificial intelligence, be it embedded finance, open finance, digital assets, stablecoins, CBDCs or the whole subject of AI and how it is currently transforming all things across consumer, retail, wholesale and financial markets right around the world. You could be forgiven for not appreciating this if you just looked at the contents of the Bill to see the impact these forces are already having.

When it comes to digital assets or indeed AI, there are many clear and present elements requiring primary legislation. We have this Bill in front of us, yet it is silent on all these issues. We have the excellent report of the Digital Markets Taskforce, the great work so far of Chris Woolard and indeed the report of Mark Austin. All have elements within them requiring primary legislation, yet the Bill has nothing to say on those subjects.

The UK has an extraordinary, unique opportunity when it comes to digital assets, stablecoins, tokenisation, market DEMAT and artificial intelligence. But we require the primary legislation and the attendant regulatory framework not just to give effect to that and to enable the innovation and economic growth that would come, but to give a signal from the Government as to the direction they want the UK to go in with all these extraordinary, transformational, growth-creating economic opportunities. I look forward to the Minister’s response. I beg to move.

[Lord Ranger of Northwood (Con)]

My Lords, I support this group of amendments, particularly Amendment 88. I welcome and echo my noble friend’s comments about the challenges faced in financial services from the forces of technology and technological evolution, and I welcome the direction of travel from the Government, the FCA and the Bank of England. There has been real progress on crypto assets, stablecoins and tokenisation and I am particularly encouraged by the work of the Government’s Wholesale Digital Markets Champion, Chris Woolard—his published report and the work towards his forthcoming reports. I thank the Government, the Minister, the Economic Secretary and the champion for their engagement so far.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Pitt-Watson (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Neville-Rolfe and Lady Kramer, and the noble Lords, Lord Altrincham and Lord Holmes, for their amendments relating to the adoption of technology in the financial services sector and for their contributions to this debate. Technological change is already having a significant impact on the sector and there are huge opportunities for the UK alongside risks to be managed.

Amendment 71 seeks to require the FCA to create and maintain a framework for open finance. However, the Government already have powers to create a framework for open finance under the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025. Parliament has therefore already legislated here, and that legislation includes the power to require the FCA to regulate for open finance and includes appropriate safeguards and scrutiny. The Treasury also confirmed at Mansion House in July 2026 its commitment to open finance and said it will consult on open finance next year.

Amendments 88 and 89 are both focused on digitalisation. Amendment 88 seeks to support the UK’s approach to digital assets by requiring the Government to publish a digital assets strategy. It sets out a number of important issues that such a strategy should consider. Amendment 89 similarly seeks to support digitalisation by requiring the Government to make regulations establishing an issuer digitalisation council, composed of representatives from issuers, intermediaries, the FCA, the PRA, the Bank of England and the Treasury.

As noted in the debate in Committee, the Government strongly support digital assets and see them as a key strategic priority. As such, the Government have been very active on this agenda and have a comprehensive strategy to drive forward the digitalisation of wholesale markets through the wholesale financial markets digital strategy published in July 2025. The Government have been taking forward the actions of the strategy at speed. There has been progress even since this issue was debated in Committee.

Chris Woolard CBE published his first report as the Government’s Wholesale Digital Markets Champion in July, setting out a comprehensive cross-sector approach to digital assets. The Economic Secretary to the Treasury and I hosted a drop-in session with Mr Woolard here in Parliament just yesterday so that Members of your Lordships’ House could hear more about his agenda. I think those noble Lords who were there would agree that we should be impressed by the scope and comprehensiveness of the work he is doing.

Mr Woolard outlined not one workstream but nine taskforce action groups that are taking forward the industry road map, including an action group focused on the primary issuance of digital securities, and with an initial focus on delivering an end-to-end use case. These groups and the overarching orchestration group represent a huge amount of work, expertise and industry input that Chris is leading. They include the industry, a strategy and 50 companies, to be joined by the head of Europe from BlackRock and the London Stock Exchange. It is absolutely great work, as the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, said.

At that meeting, Chris Woolard was asked whether there was any need for further primary legislation. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Ranger, was at the meeting and can confirm that he said that right now, he did not think there was. He could also confirm that I said that, should there be that need, I and the Economic Secretary to the Treasury would be listening to that. There will be a real threat to UK competitiveness if we fail to act in this area, and a considerable opportunity if we get it right. I hope that the opportunity to engage Mr Woolard prior to this debate gave insight into the vast amount of constructive work that is already taking place to make sure that this happens.

There are many other actions being taken to support this work, such as the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority’s call for input on tokenisation, which closed in July. They intend to publish a further road map in the autumn. In noble Lords’ speeches, I heard that they want momentum and a strategy involving industry. That is what is happening right now. The Government also highlighted progress on the digital securities sandbox, the digital gilt instrument, in Committee.

The Government strongly believe in the need to digitalise financial markets, and I hope that the measures the Government are taking forward and the further updates that noble Lords received from Chris Woolard, as wholesale digital markets champion, show that the Government are working with the sector and the regulators to deliver a strategic approach to digitalisation—

[Lord Ranger of Northwood (Con)]

My Lords, forgive me for interjecting, but the Minister is quite right. We had a very progressive session with Mr Woolard yesterday. The question I raised with him was about the future strategy and where we were heading, because his focus is clearly on tokenisation. We noticed that there was a further discussion on standard-setting internationally, agentic finance and various other elements that are in development and need strategic thought. I think that the champion took on board that there was a broader vision that needed to be identified, which is what we would be looking for in a strategy.

[Lord Pitt-Watson (Lab)]

He did indeed take that on board, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ranger, for making that point. He was also asked whether at this point further primary legislation was needed. He said that it was not but was invited, should that situation change, to talk to the Ministers in the Treasury. Therefore, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, to withdraw his amendment.

Online Challenger Banks

Lord Ranger of Northwood Excerpts

Monday 27th April 2026 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Ranger of Northwood]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of how online challenger banks assess and process new applications for accounts.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Livermore) (Lab)]

My Lords, the decision to provide banking services is largely a commercial one. Banks have strict obligations to ensure the legitimacy of a new customer and to protect against financial crime, and all new customers opening an account must be subject to due diligence under the money laundering regulations. The regulations are not prescriptive about how this should be done. The FCA expects banks to treat customers fairly and to take a proportionate approach commensurate with their assessment of the risk.

[Lord Ranger of Northwood (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. I welcome the support and the need for regulation of new challenger banks—and all banks—but, in my career of delivering public services with innovation, I have noticed the need to balance innovation with fairness. From personal experience, and more from what I have heard from a great many members of the public, this balance does not seem to be right at the moment in a sector that I really feel we want to champion: fintechs and challenger banks. So does the Minister feel that the balance between the innovation and the growth we are looking to see is right, when we see services providing no explanation or opportunity for engagement when making decisions such as offering banking services, especially as we are now looking at an era of digital assets and agentic banking, where we would like to see fairer digital services for all?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his question and for our brief conversation last week about some of the issues he has experienced. He will be aware that many of the issues he raises are ultimately commercial decisions for individual financial institutions, and how they choose to communicate with their customers and potential customers are largely decisions for themselves. He will know that, where a bank decides not to allow an account, it can disclose why it has made that decision, but it is not generally required to do so or to provide detailed reasons. In some cases, banks are legally constrained in what they can or are able to say. I think the noble Lord is interested in the use of AI in some of these decisions. The FCA is clear that automation does not remove a firm’s responsibility; it must retain effective oversight of automated decisions and ensure that decisions are fair and made in accordance with regulatory requirements. But, as I say, the decision about how and whether to communicate that is largely a commercial one for the individual financial institution.

Autumn Budget 2025

Lord Ranger of Northwood Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ranger of Northwood (Con)]

My Lords, I also welcome the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth and congratulate him on his maiden speech, and I thank the Minister, the whole Front-Bench team and the team at the Treasury. It is hard work delivering a Budget, and it is hard work for many out there.

This morning, while I was at my son’s nativity play, I asked a fellow parent how the Budget landed for him—an investor, an entrepreneur, a wealth creator and an employer. He said: “The damage was done last year. This year, it is just on top. But at least they did not bring in the exit tax, so the option is still open to me”. So, there is some silver lining for some people.

I will focus on the sector that I have been focused on in industry and am focused on now, which is AI—something that is driving UK businesses. I have said it before, and I will say it again: UK AI businesses are booming. I refer to my registered interest as a co-founder of the Business AI Alliance community of over 170 businesses and independent experts, and as an adviser to AI businesses. From this perspective, on the surface, this Budget offers promise, but in truth, for UK AI SMEs, it falls short.

I recognise the comments from my noble friends Lady Penn and Lord Massey on the welcome changes to the expansion of the enterprise management incentives scheme, the boosted limits in the enterprise investment scheme and the improvements to the venture capital trust framework, which will help scaling businesses attract investment. The much-needed refocusing and pledges for support through UK Research and Innovation should broadly provide more support for innovation, including in sectors such as AI. Yet these measures, while helpful, in no way amount to the comprehensive, sustained support required, as the Prime Minister has said, to make the UK one of the great AI superpowers.

How does the Budget fail UK AI start-ups and SMEs in practice? First, the scale of funding is too small, scattered too thinly. The declared support for AI, for example through new growth zones, remains modest compared to the size of the task. The AI growth zones, while laudable in ambition, do not provide sector-wide grants, infrastructure investment or access to high-end compute for thousands of AI SMEs hoping to scale. Many promising AI firms will remain outside these zones, left to scrape by without meaningful support.

Secondly, there is a lack of targeted support for AI infrastructure and data-intensive needs. AI businesses, especially those working in machine learning with large language models and data analytics, need robust infrastructure, cloud compute, hardware, data access and high-performance chips. The Budget’s nod towards an advanced market commitment for AI chips is welcome on paper, but a one-off scheme, even up to £100 million, is insufficient. It does not guarantee access to the infrastructure every AI start-up needs to train models, run inference at scale or compete globally. I appreciate the difference in scale of the US, but the US CHIPS and Science Act offers over $52 billion of subsidies. Without long-term, large-scale investment in compute infrastructure, the UK risks forcing AI firms to rely on overseas providers, undermining sovereignty and cost-efficiency and costing local job creation.

Our tax incentives are too generic. While expanding EMI, EIS and VCT rules broadly helps, it does not address the unique challenges of AI SMEs. In short, the Budget offers shallow support scattered over a few nice-to-haves, but we need more serious commitment to build a thriving global AI industry in the UK. To be the player on the world stage we need to be, to attract global capital and to create high-paid, skilled jobs, we need more than promises and incremental support. We need a vision and we must be bold. A long-term fiscal strategy, at scale and to scale, is required.

Cryptocurrencies: US Regulation

Lord Ranger of Northwood Excerpts

Wednesday 12th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am not sure I share the noble Earl’s characterisation of the distinction between the two regimes. The US will legislate for their interests, and we will legislate for ours. The US passed legislation for the regulation of stablecoin in the summer. US regulators will publish their regulatory rules in mid-2026, with a backstop date of January 2027 for the US regime to go live. In the UK, the Government published draft legislation in April, with the final legislation due before the end of the year. Alongside that, the FCA is at an advanced stage in its consultations on the details of its regime, with a view to finalise its detailed rules and requirements in 2026. As I said at the outset, we have also created a joint UK-US Transatlantic Taskforce for Markets of the Future, to enable enhanced collaboration on digital assets.

[Lord Ranger of Northwood (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the comments from the Minister on this topic and note my interest as co-chair of Digital Markets and Digital Money APPG. Two weeks ago, I was in Washington and met members of the US Securities and Exchange Commission—its chair, Paul Atkins, and its commissioner, Hester Peirce—to discuss “Project Crypto”, the road map it announced in August to modernise regulations for the digital asset economy. Its goal is to enable American financial markets to move on-chain and to position the US as a global leader in blockchain and crypto by creating a clearer, more innovative-friendly regulatory framework. While recognising the need to manage risks in financial stability, does the Minister agree that the greater danger to the UK is falling behind jurisdictions such as the US, if they move faster to enable innovation in crypto and digital assets?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his question and pay tribute, too, to his expertise in this matter. There is a lot of truth in what he said, which is partly why HM Treasury has jointly established the transatlantic task force with the US Treasury. The purpose of the task force is threefold: first, to identify and explore options for short to medium-term collaboration on digital assets, while legislation and regulatory regimes are still developing; secondly, to identify options to improve links between our capital markets, to enhance the growth and competitiveness of both UK and US markets; and, thirdly, to report, ideally, within 180 days. It is chaired by officials of HM Treasury and the US Treasury, including representatives from the UK and US regulators responsible for capital markets, so that we can share lessons between the two authorities.

Stablecoin Ownership

Lord Ranger of Northwood Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Ranger of Northwood]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of proposals for limiting stablecoin ownership.

[Lord Ranger of Northwood (Con)]

My Lords, in light of the Lord Speaker’s Statement, let me be the first to thank him for his outstanding service. I look forward to the following months of working with him. I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and I refer to my registered interests as a NED for the ALICE Group and co-chair of the Digital Markets and Digital Money APPG.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Livermore) (Lab)]

My Lords, stablecoins stand to play an important role in driving innovation in digital assets. It is important for the UK to position itself as a competitive global destination for digital assets, including stablecoins, while also addressing relevant consumer protection and financial stability risks. The Bank of England is engaging closely with the digital assets sector on its proposals for the regulation of systemic retail stablecoin.

[Lord Ranger of Northwood (Con)]

I thank the Minister for that response, but I want to press him a little. Stablecoins and their usage are growing across the world. At the beginning of this year, $200 billion-worth had been issued—by September this year, it was $280 billion—pushed by the emergence of the GENIUS Act in the US and MiCA in Europe. These regulatory frameworks have enabled corporates to take advantage of being able to move money with agility and confidence, and real-time liquidity. How are we looking to keep up with the pace of the rest of the world as the use of stablecoins looks to reach $1.9 trillion by 2030, providing a distinct competitive advantage to businesses and industry in other geographies?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his question. Before I answer him directly, perhaps I may also pay tribute to the Lord Speaker. He has been a friend to me since I first joined this House when he was an MP. I pay tribute to his outstanding service as Speaker of this House.

The noble Lord is correct to say that stablecoins have huge potential to play a significant role in both retail and wholesale payments. We are already seeing the benefits that stablecoin can provide in cross-border payments; for example, by reducing costs and improving efficiencies. He is absolutely right that it is important for the UK to harness these opportunities for the ongoing competitiveness of the UK financial services sector.

However, I do not think it is fair to say that the US is going any faster than the UK. Reading media coverage, we may conclude that, but the reality is that the US passed legislation for the regulation of stablecoin in the summer. US regulators will publish their regulatory rules in mid-2026, with a backstop date of January 2027 for the US regime to go live. In the UK, the Government published draft legislation in April, with final legislation due before the end of the year. Alongside this, the FCA is at an advanced stage in its consultation on the details of its regime, with a view to finalising its detailed rules and requirements in 2026. This will allow firms to be authorised and running in the UK regime by 2027.