Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Carrying on Regulated Activities by Way of Business) (Amendment) Order 2011

My Lords, in view of the statement by the Chairman at the start of our proceedings about about the photographer, I am now tempted to give a 45-minute speech just to make sure that I get my picture taken in action to prove that I do things in your Lordships’ House other than turn up. However, I probably will not. I am extremely grateful to the Minister for his introduction to the order, because it filled out the information in the Explanatory Memorandum. The phrase ““sale and rent-back”” is new to me; I am used to the phrase ““sale and lease-back””. My first question relates to that terminology: is there a difference in law between sale and rent-back and sale and lease-back? When I think of sale and lease-back, I have commercial activity in mind. I remember that Tesco was notoriously involved in sale and lease-back of properties via the Cayman Islands a few years ago. I wondered whether this regulation meant that commercial companies involved in those kinds of deals on commercial properties are now brought into the legislative net, or whether the phrase ““sale and lease-back”” is already recognised in law. If I decided that I wanted to buy a Tesco store and lease it back to them, would I be covered by something that already exists or would this newly apply to me? My other questions relates to Article 6 about the sunset clause. Within a year, more or less, of this provision coming into force a report has to be produced on how effective it has been. Presumably, the intention is that between then and 2015, if the report suggests that it has been effective, a subsequent order will be made, which no doubt will cover lots of other things as well but would continue this provision. I cannot remember, from when the Financial Services and Markets Act was going through, how this sunset provisions worked. If, as I suspect, we would expect a successor order to this one to be introduced before 1 January 2015, how long would that last for? Is this a rolling series of orders that have to be renewed every five or 10 years? Subject to that, this seems to be a sensible additional component in the consumer protection framework.