UK General election: The Manifestos and the financial services sector

The Conservative manifesto underlines that it intends to continue the implementation of the policies set out in the Edinburgh Reforms and the Smarter Regulatory Framework. In addition, the manifesto proposes to:

• Support the City of London’s position as a leading global market through the implementation of the Mansion House reforms.
• Organise a retail sale of NatWest shares.
• Maintaining high standards of consumer protection and prudential regulation.
• Ensure that the Basel III capital requirements do not inhibit lending to SMEs.
• Work with the British Business Bank and private sector fund managers to secure a £250 million Invest in Women Fund to support female entrepreneurs.
• Improve access to finance for SMEs including through expanding Open Finance and by exploring the creation of Regional Mutual Banks.
• Intensify the fight against money laundering and dirty money and ensure that all British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies adopt open registers of beneficial ownership.

The Labour manifesto provides a high level summary of its January 2024 Financing Growth Plan. The main proposals of this policy document, which covers the entire financial services industry, include the wish to:

• Support the reforms in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023.
• Improve the efficiency of regulatory and supervisory authorities and promote a joint approach focused on innovation.
• Uphold the ring-fencing regime.
• Support the ongoing work on the Future Regulatory Framework to define a regulatory framework that develops the future of the UK financial services sector outside the EU.
• Regulate the Buy Now Pay Later sector.
• Reform the advice and guidance boundary.
• Create a national financial inclusion strategy.
• Advance ongoing work to create a UK central bank digital currency.
• Make the UK a global hub for securities tokenisation.

In addition, the Labour manifesto proposes to:

• Protect the independence of the Bank of England and keep the inflation target at 2%.
• Support Open Banking and Open Finance.

Ensure a pro-innovation regulatory framework. Reform the British Business Bank by giving it a stronger mandate to support economic growth in the regions and nations and making it easier for small and medium sized enterprises to access capital.

The LibDem manifesto proposes to:

• Expand the British Business Bank to perform a more central role in the economy, to ensure that small- and medium-sized enterprises have access to capital, and enable it support ‘crowd-in’ private investment, in particular in zero-carbon products and technologies.
• Introduce a national financial inclusion strategy and require both the FCA and the PRA to consider financial inclusion, including access to cash, especially in remote areas, supporting banking hubs, expanding access to bank accounts, delivering Sharia-compliant student finance and supporting vulnerable consumers.
• Work with major banks to fund the creation of a local banking sector dedicated to meeting the needs of local small and medium-sized businesses.
• Require banks to reimburse victims of automated push payment scams unless there is clear evidence that the victims are at fault.
• Regulate financial services to encourage climate-friendly investments.
• Require pension funds and managers to show that their portfolio investments are consistent with the Paris Agreement.
• Create new powers for regulators to act if banks and other investors are not managing climate risks properly.
• Protect the independence of the Bank of England and keep the inflation target at 2%.

The Conservative manifesto proposes to:

• Build on the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) while not committing to new fields of cooperation.
• Ensure that the EU is meeting its commitments under the TCA and not discriminating against the UK’s exporters.

The Labour manifesto proposes to:

• Reset the UK-EU relationship and seek to deepen ties to decrease trade barriers and increase cross-border investment.
• Not return to the EU Single Market, Customs Union or Freedom of Movement.
• Seek to build on the UK-EU Financial Services Memorandum of Understanding to deepen cooperation in emerging areas of financial services, such as green finance, and identify opportunities to make the UK’s and EU’s approaches compatible.

The LibDem manifesto proposes to:

• Reset the UK-EU relations.
• Take unilateral steps to rebuild the UK-EU relationship and increase the trading relationship, in addition to increased cooperation on a large number of other issues.
• Seek to join the EU Single Market in the medium term.

EU membership remains a longer-term objective of the LibDems.

Over the past years, the Conservative government has been active in the development and implementation of a UK sustainable finance framework. The Sustainability Disclosure Requirements and labelling package is one of the results of this. It is expected that the Conservative Party will keep its support for the finalisation of the 2023 updated Green Finance Strategy, including the introduction of a UK Green Taxonomy and climate-related disclosures for listed issuers and large private companies.

That said, the manifesto includes a proposal to lift the employee threshold to allow more companies to be considered medium-sized. This will take more companies out of the scope of reporting requirements.

The Labour manifesto provides a high-level summary of its January 2024 Financing Growth Plan. The main proposals of this policy document, which covers the proposed approach to sustainable finance, include the wish to:

• Reinforce the UK’s global leadership in sustainable finance.
• Require financial institutions and FTSE 100 companies to publish their carbon footprint and adopt credible 15.-C aligned transition plans.
• Advance the plans for the UK Green Taxonomy, ensuring it is science-based and interoperable with international standards, and user-friendly for business.
• Fulfil the UK’s commitment to the Sustainability Disclosure Requirements aligned with International Sustainability Standards Board standards and the Transition Plan Taskforce disclosure framework.
• Work with the sector and data providers to evaluate a potential model for tracking green finance flows to enhance the availability, consistency and reliability of sustainability related data.
• Explore the potential for nature-related finance through building on the work in the voluntary carbon markets and natural capital public-private partnerships.
• Ask the FCA, PRA, and HM Treasury to consult on allowing banks and insurers to issue covered bonds secured against green infrastructure.

The LibDem manifesto proposes to:

• Introduce a duty of care for the environment and human rights in business operations and supply chains.
• Require large businesses to publish transition plans to become nature-positive across their activities and supply chains.
• Require large businesses to make nature-related financial disclosures.
• Reform fiduciary duty and company purpose rules to ensure that all large companies have a formal statement of corporate purpose, including considerations such as employee welfare, environmental standards, community benefit and ethical practice, alongside benefit to shareholders, and that they report formally on the wider impact of the business on society and the environment.
• Require all large companies listed on UK stock exchanges to set targets consistent with achieving the net zero goal, and to introduce a reporting requirement to track progress.
• Encourage employers to promote employee ownership by giving staff in listed companies with more than 250 employees a right to request shares, to be held in trust for the benefit of employees.