I listened with interest to a journalist being interviewed about the new government. They raised the interesting point that they felt, after 14 years of the Conservative government, that they had landed back at square one with the need to rebuild their contacts and sources from scratch.
And I felt a high degree of sympathy – having myself now written nearly 75 letters since the July election to new MPs, ministers, special advisers and civil servants to introduce them to the London insurance market!!
So, what you may ask, are we talking about and why are we doing it?
Between MPs deciding not to stand again in this election and other losing their seats, the London Market has lost a number of its stalwart supporters in the last year. This combined with new MPs – many with a background or interest in financial services, means the LMG is looking to rebuild our parliamentary base as we look forward to areas where the market will need help in the future. In addition, while we have strong relationships with many of the Ministers and civil servants in Treasury and the Department for Business and Trade, from their time in the Shadow Cabinet, we need to ensure that, having taken office, the new Ministers really understand the importance of the London Market to the UK economy and will support what it needs to thrive in the future.
While much of Labour government policy is being slowly revealed, in financial services we have greater detail, most notably through “Financing Growth: Labour’s plan for financial services”. This paper has provided a level of certainty not only that the new government won’t depart radically from the financial services regulatory trends of recent years, but also that it is equally eager to stimulate these markets, secure growth and position UK financial services in an internationally competitive position.
This is great news for the London Market. However, while the mood music from a Labour Government is reassuring, it is their actions which will define whether this government is successful in its stated mission.
Key issues that will affect the success of the London Market in the coming years revolve around the mutually supportive areas of competitiveness, innovation and adaptability. Some of the campaigns that we are running are well-established and saw strong progress under the previous administration – making growth and competitiveness a more integral part of the operations of our regulators for example, or being able to offer clients the full range of risk transfer products by introducing a captive regime here in the UK. These are areas where we will continue to build support and advocacy.
We will be watching closely as the regulators produce their first annual reports on how they are building their secondary growth and competitiveness objective into what they do, as well as checking in with our own stakeholders about the “lived experience” of those changes. With nearly three quarters of both London’s capital and business coming from overseas, the actions of our regulators are vital to our future success. We will also work with the various Parliamentary committees who oversee the regulators. I will be giving evidence to the House of Lords Financial Services Regulators Committee in early September for their investigation into the secondary growth and competitiveness objective.
Others topics are new and a key area is working to make improvements to the Apprenticeship Levy. The attraction and retention of young talent is a key pillar of our work for the London Market – given we still have as many people over 50 as under 30… Labour has long held that the levy is not working as it should – and the declining numbers of apprentices across many industries would support that hypothesis.
We have been working with HR professionals across the market to understand some of their key asks so that we can contribute productively to this debate. We will be launching this report just before the Labour Party Conference and will be looking to talk to MPs who have schools in their constituencies which t take part in our Futures Academy programme – introducing sixth formers from areas of high socio economic challenge to the specialty insurance market.
I think I can confidently that between Committee, Conferences and coffee meetings it is going to be an exciting autumn building new relationships for the London Market across Westminster and Whitehall to make sure the voice of the London Market is heard loud and clear.
