Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)

My Lords, I shall speak also to the other amendments in this group, which I support. There are two critical threads running through the Bill. I say “running through the Bill”—in reality, they do not appear at all in the Bill. Those are all things digital finance and artificial intelligence, be it embedded finance, open finance, digital assets, stablecoins, CBDCs or the whole subject of AI and how it is currently transforming all things across consumer, retail, wholesale and financial markets right around the world. You could be forgiven for not appreciating this if you just looked at the contents of the Bill to see the impact these forces are already having. When it comes to digital assets or indeed AI, there are many clear and present elements requiring primary legislation. We have this Bill in front of us, yet it is silent on all these issues. We have the excellent report of the Digital Markets Taskforce, the great work so far of Chris Woolard and indeed the report of Mark Austin. All have elements within them requiring primary legislation, yet the Bill has nothing to say on those subjects. The UK has an extraordinary, unique opportunity when it comes to digital assets, stablecoins, tokenisation, market DEMAT and artificial intelligence. But we require the primary legislation and the attendant regulatory framework not just to give effect to that and to enable the innovation and economic growth that would come, but to give a signal from the Government as to the direction they want the UK to go in with all these extraordinary, transformational, growth-creating economic opportunities. I look forward to the Minister’s response. I beg to move.