Speeches by Grady.

“So you see low incomes as a significant cause of child poverty and therefore the effects on children’s education, employment and health outcomes later on. How does the evidence you have referred to affect the case for Government payments to families to reduce poverty and improve those outcomes?”

“What does it tell us?”

“Thank you. Mr Kenny, thinking about it from the punter’s point of view, if we increase taxes on gambling, how will the gambling companies respond with a view to preserving their profit margins? Will they take a hit on their profits, or will they lower the odds so that the people gambling have a lower chance of winning?”

“I am not sure I would say I am a technical expert. We have heard from Mr Kenny and Mr Jung that we could significantly increase taxes on online gambling and increase revenue. Is that your position as well, Dr Bertram?”

“If I understand your position correctly—and I am not very clever, so help me with this—you do not think that there are any social harms caused by online gambling, but you do think that some people interact badly with it. I can tell you as a constituency MP that I see terrible harm, with people getting into debt. Despit…”

“Why is your industry taking measures, then?”

“Constituents have come to see me who have got themselves into very serious financial difficulty and debt over a few days of online gambling. Is it your position, Mr Kenny, that the purpose of taxation should be to reduce gambling, and that revenue raising is secondary? We don’t want to get into the detail of regulation…”

“AI has the potential to deliver huge benefits, but how concerned are you that the financial sector is deploying it without sufficient and adequate understanding on the part of regulators and firms?”

“You mentioned, in the context of our discussion about the gilt market, threats to central bank independence. That engages political risk, and the wider political risk around China, Taiwan and so on. Do you think we are under-pricing and under-examining that? Is that something that keeps you awake at night?”

“In the questionnaire, you said that stress testing for climate-related risks, improving data and modelling capabilities, and so on are all important roles. You had a focus on tools and on climate stress, but the Bank has only conducted one climate stress test to date. There has also been quite a lot of chat in the Fina…”

“The proposed changes to agricultural property relief in Scotland will ensure that, by still providing full relief for the first £1 million of assets, farmers continue to benefit from Government support far beyond that which is available to other assets. Given that 7% of claimants—117 claimants—receive two fifths of all…”

“How are you going about understanding that? Just talk me through that in simple terms.”

“Obviously, you have put a bit of work into understanding it, but are you content that all the institutions that you regulate have people who have sufficient understanding of this, given what you said about people working on understanding as they implement it?”

“Have you done any contingency planning for an AI-driven market crash?”

“This is a question for Mr Hall and Mr Mutton. Is AI-driven trading, in particular autonomous AI market trading, being used? Is it a concern? At what point would you intervene in regulating it?”

“Would you have an emergency switch you could pull if you could not keep up with it just because of the volume of demand? You have your day-to-day regulation regulating existing applications.”

“I have two follow-up questions. First, you mentioned a vast amount of demand for your sandboxes. This is pouring through your door, and that is in a way consistent with the chat we see more generally about the huge sums being invested in AI. Can the FCA keep up with this?”

“This question is for Mr Geale and Ms Rusu. One of the big things people ask about is transparency and explainability in decisions, which is an aspect of the consumer duty. How would you go about assessing whether a firm’s AI decision making had sufficient transparency and explainability?”

“That is algorithms, but moving on to AI, are any of you aware of action being taken where you have intervened with a firm and said, “Look, you do not have the right management structures in place,” or, “We have had these discussions with you—you are clearly not across the detail of how this works, and this carries too …”

“Are you confident that the people you are coming across in the industry fully understand the risks of this?”