Financial Services Bill

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. I want to touch on the impacts, however. Smaller firms dominate the advisory and investment sector, and they clearly do not have the capital available to make the sizeable pay-outs that are an integral part of the scheme on behalf of other companies. The larger banks are present in most major financial centres, but it is the success of innovative smaller companies that marks out Britain's financial services industry, or at least has done hitherto. I am aware, as I have spoken to this company in recent days, of a FTSE 250 firm whose costs have risen by 270% under the compensation scheme, year on year, from 2009 to 2010. That includes some £4.7 million of interim levy costs for Keydata, a current cost of £470,000 for MF Global—again, I fear that that is an interim cost—and some £700,000 for Arch Cru. The company had predicted that its total cost for MF Global could end up being as high as £9.5 million. This situation is an enormous concern. Firms are facing increased liabilities through the compensation scheme and the future structure of the supervisory regime does not suggest that prudential regulation of these firms is likely to be improved. This matter should be addressed in this Bill, as the FCA will not be a specialist prudential regulator. As I say, the experts are located elsewhere, so it is crucial that the Bill contains adequate safeguards and assurances that robust information-sharing schemes are to be put in place between the two regulators. I briefly wish to discuss my new clauses 2 and 3, which seek to amend section 166 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. Section 166 sets out arrangements for a report by a skilled person, and the whole section urgently requires changing. The FSA has the power to insist on an investigation without determining who does it and without paying for it. The result has been that too many recent section 166 reports have cost the players in the financial services market huge sums, without producing anything of great value. Under the current regime, firms are guilty until proven innocent, and they have to pay for their own prosecution, regardless of whether guilt is proved or not. The number of section 166 reports has, perhaps understandably, risen dramatically since the 2008 financial crisis. Nevertheless, such reports are increasingly used as a standard regulatory method, rather than being reserved, as they should be, for the most serious cases. They are becoming a phenomenally big burden on hard-pressed small firms. The costs can run into hundreds of thousands of pounds in each and every case, and companies often cannot recoup the costs, even if there is no evidence of wrongdoing. I know that others wish to speak, but I just wish to put on the record the breakdown of the cost of section 166 reports. As I say, this is now an issue of major concern. In 2006-07, there were just 18 such cases, at a cost of £3.8 million. That number increased to 29, 56, 88 and 95 cases respectively for each of the four succeeding years, with the costs increasing from £3.8 million to £32.2 million for the year 2010-11. It is essential now that the FSA, which has not previously selected skilled persons to have a direct line of accountability, changes its whole approach on this matter. There is much more that I would like to say and I am sorry that time is so limited this evening. I hope that this matter will come back for further scrutiny, although I am afraid that that will be in another place.