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The Hot Seat: Peter Skinner MEP

Friday 14 May 2010 - by Nicola York

 In the Hot Seat this month is Peter Skinner MEP, rapporteur for Solvency II, who talks about the frustrations of dealing with a complex system of insurance supervision and regulation across the pond

Name: Peter Skinner
Job title: MEP and rapporteur for Solvency II
Party: Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists & Democrats in the European Parliament
Elected: 1994 for the Labour Party
Qualifications: BSc (Hons) in Economics and Politics, Bradford University, Postgraduate studies at the universities of Warwick, Coventry and Greenwich,
Career: Previously a lecturer in economics and business at Greenwich University and the North West Kent College of Technology, has been a member of Econ Committee for 15 years, was the rapporteur for the reinsurance directive, transparency obligations directive and the creation of the new European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority, is a senior member on the delegation for relations with the United States, adviser on Transatlantic Economic Council, vice-Chair of European Parliamentary Financial Services Forum.

What is bothering you at the moment?


“I’m the rapporteur for Solvency II so it’s taken me to the US many times and I’m still in negotiations. There has been, from a congressional point of view, a reaction which is welcome, but it is limited so far to the creation of an insurance overseer. But it is on information primarily and it is therefore not what we need for having international agreements. Yet as far as I can see an equivalence depends on having somebody to speak to who can sign an international agreement really. So we have at the moment in the US, 54 regulators at state level with no international power.

“Now we have an international body proposed by Congress, we will see how it develops but it needs to be able to say and approve what it can on behalf of the US. Until we get that, it is difficult to see how we can get the equivalence. So you can see there is a dilemma here, one which is until you get a national regulator in America, or someone who can speak on behalf of them all and sign something and keep everybody to it, there is no real possibility of having a legal agreement.”


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