Financial Services Bill

It is a pleasure to follow the eloquent contribution of the hon. Member for Leeds East (Mr Mudie). He declared to the House that he had dropped his speech, but I do not think that anyone noticed. I intend, for all our sakes, to hold on to my own speech. I want to raise three issues. First, I want to speak about the enhancement of consumer protection that the Bill provides, and I hope that my comments about that will be echoed by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy). Secondly, I want to discuss the relationship between the FCA and the PRA. Thirdly, I want to develop a theme introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley): the representation of British interests overseas. Let me say in passing, however, that I share the concerns of other hon. Members about the oversight of the new macro-prudential powers which may be need to be handed to the Bank of England, and which I believe could fundamentally alter vast swathes of the UK economy. It has already been mentioned that the ratio of mortgage lending may be one of the macro-prudential powers that the Bank of England wants to take on. It may be necessary to regulate an individual's debt levels, and to regulate the debt exposure of small and medium-sized enterprises. All that needs proper parliamentary scrutiny, and I was pleased with the Chancellor's response to my intervention on that point. Let me begin with consumer protection. As we know, the Bill will establish a new code of conduct business regulator, the financial conduct authority, which aims to protect consumers, promote, competition, and ensure that there is integrity in markets. Many consumer groups, including Citizens Advice and Shelter, have welcomed the FCA's proposed objective of promoting competition in the interests of consumers. It is welcome that the FCA will have additional tools to deal with business conduct that is causing, or is likely to cause, consumer harm, to take action on products, to promote greater regulatory transparency, to tackle misleading financial promotions and to enforce the requirement to satisfy the regulator that a business model is suitable.