No. With hindsight it is clear that we need a tough leverage ratio, and I think the hon. Gentleman’s question implies that he accepts that leverage is an important part of the regulatory toolkit. That is why it is wrong that the Bill ignores the recommendations of Vickers, in particular, but I am afraid that the Chancellor seems to have dismissed the recommendations of not only Vickers but the parliamentary commission on this issue. It is not good enough that the Government are leaving this matter out of the Bill, perhaps assuming that the European Union will somehow address it in the next eight or nine years.
Even the incoming Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, pointed to the value of a higher leverage ratio as a backstop for a risk-based capital regime when he gave evidence to the Treasury Select Committee. There are ways of overcoming the impact of such a
measure on a minority of non-plc institutions—I know that some of the bigger building societies, in particular, have expressed their concerns about a crude leverage ratio approach—but that is not a reason not to put a safeguard in place. At the very least, the Government ought to accept the parliamentary commission’s proposal for an annual assessment to be carried out by the Bank of England of the progress of the work to improve risk weightings and the work towards the leverage ratio.