Lords Reject Government on Digital Assets Strategy

The UK government suffered a significant defeat in the House of Lords on Wednesday as peers backed an amendment to create a national strategy for regulating digital assets.

The upper chamber approved the measure by 194 votes to 138, with Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers combining against a near-solid bloc of Labour votes. Baroness Neville-Rolfe, a Conservative former Treasury minister, moved the amendment to the Financial Services and Markets Bill.

The new clause would require the Treasury to prepare, publish, and consult on a strategy for regulating and developing digital assets, including 'cryptoassets, qualifying stablecoins, Central Bank Digital Currencies, tokenised securities and other digital and tokenised financial assets,' according to the draft.