HISTORIC PRESS RELEASE : Helen Liddell calls on companies to send their super people to SIB´s successor [June 1997]

The press release issued by HM Treasury on 5 June 1997.

A call to city business to second their brightest staff to the proposed new Securities and Investment Board was issued today by Helen Liddell, Economic Secretary.

Speaking at the Institute of Economic Affairs seminar, Mrs Liddell said that secondments of this sort were routine in the US and they must start to happen here.

Mrs Liddell said:

“Who can you second to this new purposeful regulator? It will need people who are knowledgable and streetwise. This will be no soft option. SIB can use your smartest and strongest.

“Men and women of this calibre face a challenging environment with a unique opportunity to help shape the nature of regulation in the future. And when they return to you, … what a powerful resource you will have to help build your own business.”

The Minister went on to set out the broad framework for reform of financial services regulation and how she wanted to see the City of London being a centre of excellence in this area. She said:

“The UK financial services industry needs a regulator which is a world leader. We must seize the opportunity now to develop a modern regulatory structure to see us through well into the next century.

“The enhanced SIB … will be a pace setting, world leading regulator, overseeing and helping generate an environment where business prospers and is able to compete at home and overseas, meeting the challenges ahead is essential for a world beating industry.”

Mrs Liddell emphasised the Government’s commitment to openness and called on businesses to put forward their views in the future structure of regulation.

The Minister said:

“We recognise that we need to take the advice of those who do know how the industry works. If the industry ignores this opportunity to help shape the new regulatory regime, then they will have no one else to blame but themselves.

“Together we have the opportunity to put in place the sort of regulation that will meet the industry and consumers’ needs. We have flagged up our intention now in order to take people with us. We are not in the business of developing an overbearing bureaucracy. What we want is a regulator that is appropriate, responsive and flexible, a regulator that recognises the varying levels of sophistication of the investing community”