Financial Services Bill

I, too, pay tribute to the Minister. He is an intellectual. I know that that can in some places be a dirty word, and I hope that his Whips will not hold that against him for the remaining time that he is a Member. However, it is always a great pleasure to sit on a Committee with a Minister who has the intellectual capabilities to understand and to run arguments, so I thank him very much for that. During the course of the Bill's proceedings, I, too, have found it fascinating and a great privilege to serve with distinguished members of the Treasury Committee and distinguished Members of this House. I cannot help feeling a little disappointed by the Bill's eccentricities, but only one or two items of principle divide us. The item of major principle which has divided us is the Bill's reaffirmation of the tripartite arrangement. I am absolutely devastated that we lost the vote on the amendment that would have removed clause 1, because that would have been a fitting end to the endless speeches on the subject from me and my colleagues. The Bill takes an ostrich-like approach, in which the tripartite arrangement is still seen to be resilient and a good thing; and it is a Bill in which the creation of a body that is almost identical to its predecessor is still seen as a major step forward. There is symmetry in the new system, however. The biggest criticism of the old system was a lack of leadership, and the biggest criticism of the new system is a lack of leadership. Even that, however, provided Government Members with a golden opportunity to practise in Committee the skills that they will undoubtedly need in opposition of calling for us to explain our policies. I hope that those skills stand them in good stead. We have created some confusion by marginalising and blurring the responsibilities of the Bank of England while allowing the Financial Services Authority to stray from simple regulation into politics. The Bill is high on PR but low on change, and I still struggle to see the real additionality to it. The other issue about which I felt frustrated was the enormous lack of detail, particularly on costings. It came out in relation to living wills, for which the impact assessment provides no costings, and in relation to short selling. That aspect of the Bill was pulled back remarkably today into a sensible state, but the ranges of available costings are too wide to be useful. Other Members have spoken of the good work that the Bill promises on improving public education in finance, but there was still some confusion about its relationship with what the private sector already does. The relevant clauses left so much open and provided such a vague framework that, in the opinion of one witness,""the wording is sufficiently wide that in all probability we will be able to come up with appropriate regulations that fit within whatever comes"––[Official Report, Financial Services Public Bill Committee, 10 December 2009; c. 110, Q48.]" We would not like that to be a regular feature of any Bill. There are backstops all over the place, such as the consumer redress measures. They are headline grabbing, we are not sure when they will be used, and there is no consistency or real understanding of the potential to introduce US-style litigation to UK courts. One witness was prompted to say that""just about everything of substance is passed to a secondary legislative process through regulations… It does not seem to be the way to proceed."––[Official Report, Financial Services Public Bill Committee, 10 December 2009; c. 78, Q14.]" I entirely agree with that. Having regulations, even in draft, alongside the Bill would have helped enormously in giving us a greater understanding and depth of discussion, which at times we have had to skirt around. Question put and agreed to. Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.