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Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Exemption) (Amendment No. 2) Order 2011

My Lords, I am afraid that this may take a little longer than expected, the order having been considered previously in Grand Committee. Unfortunately, at the time of the Grand Committee consideration, noble Lords did not have available to them the results of the consultation on the order and consequently were not then able to give the order the scrutiny it deserved. I would be grateful if the Minister could answer a couple of points raised in the consultation that the Government have not addressed. First, given the peculiar importance of credit unions in Northern Ireland, are the Government intending to address the issue raised in the consultation of whether an office of the FSA or a successor organisation should be established in Northern Ireland? This is clearly a sensitive issue in the Province, and it ill behoves the Government simply to ignore it, as they do in this document. Secondly, I am unclear about the Government’s position on question 2(a) of the consultation on whether the Northern Ireland Assembly would retain legislative control of credit unions in Northern Ireland. As the Government acknowledge, considerable concern was expressed about the loss of Northern Ireland influence over an aspect of financial life that is very important in the Province but less so in the rest of the UK. Could the Minister please clarify the Government’s position? Again, in the consultation document the question was simply ignored. As a corollary to this last point, what are the Government doing to ensure that no adverse effects are felt in Northern Ireland from the legislation on credit unions passed in this House on Thursday, 20 October? That legislation allowed businesses to assume up to 10 per cent of the share of the capital of a credit union and eliminated the role of the common bond as the basis of a credit union. How will the Government ensure that credit unions in Northern Ireland do not, in some cases, become dominated by local business members, with the potentially unfortunate impact on investment decisions, particularly when the credit union considers investment in the local community? How do the Government intend to monitor the impact of the loss of the common bond in Northern Ireland credit unions, when it is evident that the common bond has played an important role in the unique character of the credit union movement in the Province?