Financial Services and Markets Act: Briefings to MPs and Lords

Working in coalition with likeminded NGOs, Alexandria Reid authored and published a series of briefings for Lords and MPs deliberating nature and finance amendments to the Financial Services and Markets (FSM) Bill, a ‘once-in-a-generation’ redesign of UK financial regulation.

A briefing was produced and regularly updated at each stage of the House of Lords process to urge peers to vote in favour of deforestation due diligence for UK financial services and a new statutory obligation for financial regulators to consider climate and nature in their everyday decision making.

Sir Ian Cheshire, the former Chair of Barclays, wrote to the Minister in support of the new law.

The vote was won in the House of Lords with support from Labour and the Liberal Democrats, with 212 votes for and 203 against.

As the Bill returned to the House of Commons, a new briefing urged MPs to support Lords’ Amendment 36 to the Bill. A coalition of financial institutions representing £2.7 trillion backed Global Witness’s letter supporting the amendment.

Facing this opposition, the government tabled a compromise amendment, commissioning a new Treasury review of the effectiveness of existing regulations in preventing deforestation. The review will begin when secondary regulations to Schedule 17 of the Environment Act are laid.

The government also introduced a lesser, but still significant, regulatory principle to consider climate and nature targets.

Read about the outcome of wins in the Act in this blog.

Cover image: Dominika Gregušová, CC, via Pexels.