No. I have taken two interventions from the hon. Gentleman and he did not do well with either. I want to make progress, because I am conscious that time is moving on.
I shall return to the comments made by someone who, unlike the hon. Gentleman, speaks with professional expertise, namely the Father of the House. He was correct—as he is on so many issues, but particularly this one—to talk about the danger of focusing on structure and not rooting out conflicts of interest. That is at the heart of the point I want to make about individual accountability, linked to conflicts of interest—about the awareness, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk pointed out, of those in institutions who know where the risks are and how they are incentivised to speak up. On Thursday we will have a debate on the NHS and the fear of whistleblowers to speak out. Many of the issues in the NHS are similar to what we have seen in our banks. Let me give the House an example that makes the point highlighted by my hon. Friend. So far, the two biggest fines imposed on any individuals in banking were imposed on two Northern Rock executives. On both occasions they were less than those individuals’ bonuses the preceding year. How are people incentivised to do the right thing in our financial sector when they can see such short-term benefits from wrongdoing and very little downside risk?
I very much endorse what my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) said about empowering consumers by having portability in the system and grass-roots pressure. However, we cannot
rely on that alone—I do not think she would suggest for a minute that we could—to address the regulatory failures or the asymmetry of information that customers face.