Financial Services and Markets Bill
1.This Bill came to the House of Lords on 8 December 2022. It makes provision about the regulation of financial services and markets following the withdrawal of the UK from the EU. We commend the Treasury for providing us with a thorough and helpful delegated powers memorandum.1
2.We draw the House’s attention to one provision of the Bill: clause 76(6). This states that, where any statutory instrument made under the Bill as enacted would otherwise be treated as a hybrid instrument for the purposes of the standing orders of either House of Parliament, it is to proceed in that House as if it were not a hybrid instrument.
3.Hybrid instruments are instruments considered to affect specific private or local interests in a manner different from the private or local interests of other persons or bodies of the same class. Under House of Lords Private Business Standing Orders,2 a special procedure allows anyone whose private interests are directly and specially affected by the instrument to petition against it. The petition may in due course be considered by a select committee of the House of Lords.
4.Clause 76(6) prevents this special procedure applying to any instrument under the Act that would otherwise be hybrid. We routinely draw the attention of the House to such “de-hybridising” clauses so that the House can satisfy itself that any interests that would normally be afforded protection by the hybrid instruments procedure are afforded protection by other means, for example, statutory consultation.3
5.Accordingly, we draw the de-hybridisation provision in clause 76(6) to the attention of the House. The House may wish to ask the Minister:
(a)to give examples of instruments that might have benefited from the hybrid instrument procedure and against which clause 76(6) is aimed; and
(b)to explain how any interests, which might otherwise have been afforded protection by the hybrid instrument procedure, may be protected by other means.
1 HM Treasury, Delegated Powers Memorandum, 8 December 2022.
2 PrBSO 216. There is no equivalent procedure in the House of Commons.
3 21st Report, Session 2015–16 (HL Paper 98), para 35 and appendix 1. 27th Report, Session 2015–16 (HL Paper 132), paras 28–31.