On November 25 we held an event to interrogate the objective at the heart of the UK government’s strategy for the future of finance – ‘competitiveness’.
This is a pivotal moment for the future of the UK finance sector. The rules governing financial policy and regulation are undergoing a fundamental review. At the heart of the Government’s strategy is ‘competitiveness’, which aims to grow the UK’s finance sector as part of a global race to be the biggest and most ‘innovative’ in the world.
So far, this strategy has gone unquestioned – but it’s time for that to change. Do we understand the risks that the pursuit of competitiveness places on the wider economy, society, and the environment?
We hosted a conversation with Sir Vince Cable (former leader of the Liberal Democrats and Business Minister), the Lab’s Head of Policy and Advocacy Marloes Nicholls, David Pitt-Watson (Cambridge University, formerly Hermes), Baroness Minouche Shafik (Director of the LSE, and former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England), and journalist Nicholas Shaxson to find out more. Questions explored included:
- What are the risks of growing the UK’s finance and fintech sectors, and do they outweigh the potential benefits?
- What tensions exist between the objective of competitiveness and other public policy goals, including net zero and levelling up?
- Should regulators play a role in promoting the competitiveness of the finance industry? Why was competitiveness removed from the objectives of the financial regulators in 2012, and what should we learn from that?
More information is available in our blog: ‘Competitiveness’ and the battle for financial regulation. A recording of this event is available here.