Business Rishi Sunak today insisted Keir Starmer was the “biggest risk” to the City as he defended the Government’s record on keeping London’s financial markets competitive on the global stage. In an exclusive interview with the Standard, the Prime Minister said City firms had “warmly welcomed” the Conservatives’ efforts to reform and modernise the Square Mile and its huge financial services industries. His comments came amid growing concern that London is in danger of losing its status as a world leading financial centre after a number of high profile companies moved their listings to other exchanges such as New York and only a trickle of businesses decided to float on the London stock market.
But in his interview today at the start of the last full week of the general election campaign Sunak said the Government was working to shore up London’s reputation. He said: “One thing we have done in the last few years, and we started when I was Chancellor, is make sure that London takes advantage of the opportunities it has on regulation to maintain its position as one of the leading financial centres of the world, that is what we are doing. The Chancellor set out the Edinburgh Reforms which builds on the vision that I set out for financial services in 2021, it’s for an open, technologically advanced financial services sector that is globally competitive and our approach to reforming the FS (financial services) regulatory landscape recognises and protects the fou.
