City Minister promotes UK financial leadership at CII President’s Breakfast

The session was the first of three breakfast events being held by Mr Higginbotham during his year as CII President designed to bring senior leaders together from across the insurance and financial services professions to cultivate discussion and thought leadership, a key theme in the CII’s five-year Strategic Plan.

Mr Griffith spoke about how the insurance sector had shaped the City of London over time and discussed the work the government is undertaking to “compete in this new world with speed and agility”, including through the Financial Services and Markets Bill that is currently moving through Parliament. He said: “Financial services is our single biggest core. As we look at the opportunities in tech and AI, life sciences and advanced manufacturing, those are powered by capital that takes place within the financial services sector.”

Mr Griffith added that: “…the Bill allows us to reframe some of the culture of regulation – putting a new duty on regulators to promote growth and international competitiveness.” “If you look at the interlocking web of international relations, the UK is unique. We want to allow people to compete on the very greatest footprint, to fulfil our ambitions for prosperity. The UK can be the world’s market.”

During a subsequent Q&A session, Mr Griffith encouraged attendees to contribute to a recently published consultation on the metrics the FCA and the PRA should publish in relation to the new secondary growth and competitiveness objectives contained in the Bill. Asked what action would be taken if regulators didn’t meet the metrics, the Minister said, “that if we get the metrics right, they will be held to account.”

Helen Phillips, Chair of the CII Group Board, asked the Minister about the government’s ambition for the economy, the role of financial services and the risks and opportunities to bring about the desired outcome. Mr Griffith responded: “Our vision is to be the most open and innovative financial services centre in the world.” “We can market ourselves for the two billion people of Africa, Asia and the Gulf, and our friends in the rest of Europe. We can absolutely manufacture the world’s financial services, but we can only do that if we remain agile, innovative and continue to pioneer things like sustainable finance. There has been a market for different competing standards, and the world is crying out to jump on a bandwagon. We have attributes – trust, regulation, integrity and the depth of markets – for the UK to be the ‘Goldilocks’ financial centre.”

Russell Higginbotham will be hosting his next CII Presidential Breakfast in September, when he will be joined by Bruce Carnegie-Brown, Chairman of Lloyd's.

ENDS