"We had meetings with regulators and treasury officials. I tried to organise a big, roundtable meeting with all the relevant industry [bodies] and parliamentarians and the FCA and the Treasury.
"This was all arranged but then the FCA pulled out and said they would only meet industry and parliamentarians separately.
"I am extremely concerned about the lack of transparency in having these fragmented meetings, where nobody will know who said what, and I do not think this is good for transparency of regulation."
These claims were put to the FCA.
A spokesperson responded: “We have regularly met with parliamentarians and industry representatives to discuss issues relating to retail cost disclosure and we continue to engage closely with them on this issue.
“We recognise the challenges posed by existing cost disclosure requirements and we took action last year to give investment trusts greater flexibility to explain their costs and charges, however further change requires legislation."
Backing Britain
According to the Baronesses, this falsely high total cost figure creates a price barrier that dismantles attempts to improve Britain's market competitiveness.
For example, such an artificially high price barrier makes it harder for trustees or DFMs to justify putting client money into those investment trusts that are doing the very thing the chancellor wants Britain to - namely back British business.
Altmann explained: "Pension funds want to invest more into things like British infrastructure or real assets, and the government wants them to invest more.
"Damaging UK listed investment companies is bad for Britain. These are a way for people to invest in a diversified, managed portfolio of real assets."
According to Altmann, this type of investment is important to the economy, and by depriving these companies of new funding, billions was being lost to the country as investors were heading overseas.
Bowles added: "We need a legally correct interpretation of the wording in the Mifid rules.
"This could be done by the FCA if they chose to do it by changing their interpretation, or the government could force a change by an amendment or statutory instruments to make that clarification.
"Certainly we need a fix to cover the current situation and to make sure, in the forthcoming regulation, that this error is not replicated."
Debates
Attendees asked whether government, not the regulator, should be responsible for changing the interpretation of the legislation.
The Baronesses reminded listeners of how, in June 2023, debates were held on how to improve market competitiveness, as part of the financial services and markets bill.
At the time, Bowles put forward an amendment (115) in to fix the issue.
