Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill

I am trying to follow the hon. Gentleman’s argument, but it has become fatuous. The fact is that the banking system had a leverage ratio of 20 times in 2000, as it had had on 40 previous occasions. Deregulation under the last Government but one had nothing to do with this financial crisis, which was caused by an increase in leverage—an explosion of leverage—under the Labour Government between 2000 and 2007. It is in the Vickers report.