Compensation Bill [HL]

I thank the Minister for that response. She has said that the FSA does not wish to take this on, and a question runs through my mind: to whom is the FSA accountable and who decides what it should take on? Of course I have something of a record here; under previous administrations I did myself create several regulators. Perhaps I may take a moment to confess that in those days I may not have paid sufficient attention to the answer to the question: who regulates the regulators? This issue will absorb a lot more of our time over the coming months and years as we seek to establish a system whereby the regulator is not the final arbiter, but there is redress for the consumer, the customer or the organisation that feels it has in some way been badly treated. But my point is even more fundamental: who tells the regulator what it should or should not do? I hate to say this to the Minister, and I am sure that she does not conduct her ministerial responsibilities in this way, but without knowing her, an outside observer would think that she has just accepted the fact that the FSA has decided that it does not want to do this work and so it will not do it. Of course she was not saying that at all. She has said that she does not feel that it is appropriate for the FSA to take on this particular responsibility. If that is the case, I look forward to an opportunity to persuade her that this is a responsibility for that body, certainly so far as financial products or policies or insurance are concerned. It is an area over which the FSA ought to exercise more scrutiny, even if it does mean an extension of its powers.