Nicky Morgan says City could take decades to resolve regulatory relationship with EU
It could take decades for the UK to work out its financial services regulatory relationship with the EU after Brexit, treasury select committee chair Nicky Morgan said.
“The story of the next 40 years of this country, or it could be longer, in relation to that future relationship with the EU, is going to be whether we converge, stay the same or whether we choose to diverge and go our own way,” Morgan told a conference yesterday.
Britain and the EU aim to secure a “standstill” or business as usual transition deal starting after Brexit next March, but the country will need new trading terms with the bloc from the end of 2020.
EU officials have said that the EU’s financial market access system known as equivalence, where Brussels grants access to foreign banks and insurers if their home rules converge with the bloc’s, is probably Britain’s best bet.
This week the EU Commission confirmed that EU banks and companies will be able to access UK clearing houses for a limited time in the case of a no-deal Brexit, following months of lobbying by the financial sector.