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Investment Exchanges and Clearing Houses Bill

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time. Let me start by thanking you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and hon. Members on both sides of the House for the detailed and substantive debate that we have had on all stages of the Bill this afternoon. We have addressed many of the concerns understandably expressed by some parts of the City on the detail, and have shown that we have thought through the clauses. Our wide-ranging debate has established—I said at the beginning that I hoped we would—that there is a consensus about how the national interest should apply in this case. First, the national interest is to preserve the global and open approach to ownership in the City of London, which has been the hallmark of the City not just for the past 10 years but since the big bang and before. We have all agreed that the right position for Britain, from the point of view of investment, jobs and the long-term future of the City, is to welcome foreign ownership and investment from around the world, including into our exchanges, and not to try to establish protectionist barriers. Secondly, the principle has been established that it is right and legitimate for Government to intervene to protect our principles-based and proportionate regulatory regime. We are intervening not to regulate but to ensure that we prevent excessive regulation being imported into the UK, and not to make sure that we have a protectionist or narrow view of the City’s future but to make sure that the global, outward-looking City can continue to prosper in future.