08 November 2016

Financial Times: City of London lobby group wants ‘no change’ Brexit deal

In his first interview as co-head of the Brexit committee of the TheCityUK lobby group, Paul Manduca, who also chairs insurance group Prudential and the TheCityUK’s advisory council, said he paid little attention to the political noise around “hard” and “soft” Brexit. But he was clear that a deal to preserve the City’s role as a bridgehead to the rest of Europe was crucial.

“We want a deal post-Brexit as close [as possible] to what we have today for financial services — open and free markets where we can trade without barriers — and we want a partnership with government as we work through that process,” Mr Manduca said in an interview. [...]

But Mr Manduca insisted that City negotiators would continue to fight for such a system, stressing that it was in both the UK’s and the EU’s interest to preserve London’s status as Europe’s financial centre. “The deep markets that have been created over more than 100 years in London are not replicable elsewhere easily,” he said. “[That is] an asset for the UK and Europe.”

He admitted that preserving single market access was likely to come down to a question of money, and how much Britain was prepared to contribute to the EU budget.

But Mr Manduca said he was confident of a hearing from ministers because of the sector’s value to the nation. As much as £67bn of UK tax is generated by the financial services industry, according to research carried out for TheCityUK by consultants Oliver Wyman. This, Mr Manduca noted, was “somewhere near the education budget and about twice the transport budget”. [...]

On immigration, Mr Manduca professed faith that cross-border hiring would not be crimped, pointing to recent comments from the chancellor, Philip Hammond, who said there was “no likelihood” that post-Brexit immigration controls would apply to EU workers who were highly skilled and highly paid.

The City veteran, who praised Mark Carney, Bank of England governor, for doing a “wonderful job calming things down” in the wake of the Brexit vote, insisted he was not asking for special treatment but wanted “close collaboration between government and our industry throughout the exit process”. That, he predicted, could take five to 10 years but would be manageable “if people feel the government are pointed in the right direction”.

“If the government works closely with us, there is good dialogue and we understand the direction of travel,” he added, “that will give the confidence to enable people to make these long-term decisions.”

Full article on Financial Times (subscription required)

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