I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, and she is correct. It shows what disregard the Chancellor has for the taxpayers’ coffers and the public purse—he is also showing that in his numerous meetings with Google and their shoddy outcome. Financial stability and the effective regulation of our banking and wider financial services industry are vital in ensuring that the sector serves the interests of the whole economy, does not hurt ordinary people or small and medium-sized businesses, and delivers vital investment that our country needs for long-term growth. Getting the balance of regulation right is an important task for any Government, one that Governments around the world have failed to fulfil in the past decade. It is a task that has been attempted since the bankers’ crisis of 2008, but today the Government are threatening to set back this task.
The context of the Bill is vital to understanding our concerns, and the reasonable concerns and demands of the public. We are eight years on from the economic crisis—the bankers’ crisis, which brought the financial services sector and the country to its knees. Banks that were too big to fail were bailed out by the state.