Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill

Conservatives have a tendency to try and rewrite history, but this really takes the biscuit. If the Minister is seriously saying that he would have preferred to have stayed with a non-statutory regulatory arrangement, which was the option available, he should stand up and admit it. He often asks where the apologies are, but we have accepted that we should have adopted a more prudential approach to regulation than the arrangements in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. It is now equally important, however, that Conservative Members recognise that regulation is a good thing, that we need regulation of the financial services sector and that they were wrong to prefer a self-regulatory, non-statutory environment. Until they do that, they will never really confront the demons that still exist within the Conservative party’s philosophy.