Post-Brexit financial reforms a dud, says parliamentary committee
The UK Treasury promised to boost the competitiveness of the country’s financial sector post-Brexit. One year on, MPs say these “big promises” are undelivered.
The ‘Edinburgh Reforms’, introduced by UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt in late 2022, have so far failed to make the nation’s financial centre more attractive to global investors.
That’s according to a report released on Friday by the Treasury Select Committee.
In introducing the reforms, Hunt claimed he would maintain the UK’s high regulatory standards, but promised he would capitalise on pro-Brexit freedom, as it’s no longer the European Union who determines the UK’s banking rules.
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“From what has been completed so far, the Sub-Committee is of the view that none of the achievements to date will make a substantial difference to the UK economy,” the committee’s members said.
Separately, City minister Bim Afolami argued that the government had delivered 22 of the 31 proposed Edinburgh Reforms, something that the committee contests.
“We do not consider reviews alone to be reforms,” states the report. “Many of the strands of work included in the Edinburgh Reforms are not reforms, but are more preparatory work for potential reforms in the future and should be treated as such.”Well, those brexit freedoms do include the freedom to do nothing of any substance.
All of the pro-Brexit crowd who talked about this question at all before the referendum wanted to use the departure from the EU to eliminate some or all regulations on the financial sector, and even the Remain Tories were anti-regulation. How could anyone have expected things to have possibly turned out otherwise?