Financial Services Bill

I think I detect a tactic at work here. Notwithstanding the fact that the Opposition Benches talk about the need to ensure proper parliamentary scrutiny, we will proceed very slowly if we have this number of amendments while Members of the Conservative Benches provide more opportunity for the noble Baroness to assemble her responses. The world experienced financial system structural failure. We have to learn the lessons, but we also have to ask how we can make the system work better. We published our reflections on the crisis and concluded that the structure that is embodied in the tripartite approach is fundamentally sound. Based on my experience of working for an organisation that was regulated by the FSA, of being on the board of one of the predecessor bodies of the FSA and of being a member of the Court of the Bank of England, the idea of giving the Bank of England responsibility for micro-regulation—as the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, would describe it—for 15,000 or so regulatory bodies, from the Tolpuddle building society or an independent financial adviser to the largest bank or insurance company, is a preposterous proposal. It is born out of the youthful enthusiasm of a shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer who has zero business experience. We need to get on with considering this legislation. I look forward to hearing the noble Baroness’s response to my comments and those of the Committee on her amendments.