Liz Truss departs 10 Downing Street (Stefan Rousseau/PA)
(Picture: PA Wire)The chairman of Lloyd’s of London has criticised a plan floated by Liz Truss to combine City watchdogs the PRA and FCA as a “distraction”.
Lloyd’s chairman Bruce Carnegie-Brown told the Standard: “There have been some quite strong statements… about remerging the PRA and FCA. I think that’s a very complex thing to do and would be quite a distraction, so I would not favour that happening.”
Carnegie-Brown also complained businesses were being hampered by delays to the process of approving new company directors.
“I think it is about taking more of the bureaucracy out of it,” he said. “We support good quality regulation but we’re absolutely of the view that it needs to be proportionate.”
Lloyd’s suffered a £1.8 billion loss in the first half of the year following a write-down in the value of its investments. “I think that’s accounting noise in my view and is directly attributable to a rise in interest rates,” Carnegie-Brown said.
The insurance market has set aside £1.1 billion for claims related to war in Ukraine, of which only 4% relates to claims already made.
Despite the turbulent conditions, Lloyd’s posted an underwriting profit of £1.2bn, and achieved its best combined ratio (a measure of performance) since 2015.
Last week, the firm said it would give staff earning under £75,000 a £2,500 one-off payment to help with rises in the cost of living. It follows similar moves by Barclays, Co-Operative Bank and Barclays.
In July, Carnegie-Brown faced a six-month suspension of his membership of the Marylebone Cricket Club imposed by MCC members after he joked that they were “taking an age to empty their colostomy bags” at an event in May.
