Labour will support Lord Phillips' social investment amendment to finance bill

Finance | Tania Mason | 22 Jun 2012

Labour has signalled that it will support Lord Phillips’ proposed social investment amendment to the Financial Services Bill.

During a Lords debate yesterday on the role of the voluntary sector and social enterprise, Labour and Co-operative peer Baroness Thornton said she hoped that Lord Phillips of Sudbury, will “explain to the House and give us a pre-run of the amendments” that he has indicated he will propose to the Financial Services Bill.

He reportedly intends to propose an amendment that will require the two new financial regulators created by the Bill to remove barriers to social investment. But the wording of the amendment has not yet been disclosed.

Baroness Thornton added: “We will be interested in supporting them, because they are the heart of how we get social investment into the Financial Services Bill.”

Labour has already failed once to get social investment mentioned in the Bill. During its passage through the Commons, Chris Leslie MP, shadow financial secretary to the Treasury, proposed an amendment which would require the Financial Conduct Authority, one of the coming regulators, to actively promote social investment.

However, the proposals were narrowly defeated when eight Labour MPs who voted in support were defeated by 10 Tory and Liberal Democrat MPs.

Lord Phillips did not have an opportunity to speak again in yesterday’s debate to respond to Baroness Thonrton’s remark.

He is meeting with a number of stakeholders and interested parties today with a view to finalising the form of the amendment.

The amendment must be put down before the Committee Stage of the Bill, which starts on Tuesday 26 June 2012.

Comments

[Cancel] | Reply to:

Name *

Email *

Organisation

Job Title

Comments *

Verification *

* Please read our Community Standards

Close »

Community Standards

The civilsociety.co.uk community and comments board is intended as a platform for informed and civilised debate.

We hope to encourage a broad range of views, however, there are standards that we expect commentators to uphold. We reserve the right to delete or amend any comments that do not adhere to these standards.

We welcome:

Robust but respectful debate
Strongly held opinions
Intelligent relevant discussion
The sharing of relevant experiences
New participants

We will not publish:

Rude, threatening, offensive, obscene or abusive language, or links to such material
Links to commercial organisations or spam postings. The comments board is not an advertising platform
The posting of contact details for yourself or others
Comments intended for malicious purpose or mindless abuse
Comments purporting to be from another person or organisation under false pretences
Gratuitous criticism, commentary or self-promotion
Any material which breaches copyright or privacy laws, or could be considered libellous
The use of the comments board for the pursuit or extension of personal disputes

Be aware:

Views expressed on the comments board are left at users’ discretion and are in no way views held or supported by Civil Society Media
Comments left by others may not be accurate, do not rely on them as fact
You may be misunderstood - sarcasm and humour can easily be taken out of context, try to be clear

Please:

Enjoy the opportunity to express your opinion and respect the right of others to express theirs
Confine your remarks to issues rather than personalities

Together we can keep our community a polite, respectful and intelligent platform for discussion.