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Investment Exchanges and Clearing Houses Bill

Let me give the hon. Gentleman an example that might help him. There was a concern in some parts of the world outside the UK that the alternative investment market—a lighter-touch market with lighter-touch rules set by the London stock exchange—is too ““light-touch””. One can imagine a regulator in another part of the world saying to a company regulated in that part of the world, ““If you are going to own a foreign exchange like the LSE, which is listing through the AIM, you must make sure that the AIM listings are equivalent to our rules in our territoriality, in order to pass our domestic regulatory regime test.”” That example shows exactly how an external regulator could attempt to undermine our competitive strength by exporting rules on to the AIM. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that such concerns are very real in the City of London, and that this Bill addresses them?