Silicon Valley Bank

Debate between Andrew Griffith and Bim Afolami

Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith]

I do not accept that for one minute. We are only just bringing forward the deregulation. The Financial Services and Markets Bill is not even on the statute book. The regulations that affected this situation are precisely the same regulations that we have inherited from Brussels.

[Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

It is when we act in haste that we need to think about the long-term consequences of the regulatory actions taken. I join others in the House in commending the Treasury, wider Government and the Bank of England. The Minister said that HSBC has been given a waiver on certain ringfencing rules. I ask this as someone who, before arriving at the House, worked at HSBC on ringfencing in detail and many other things: will the Minister explain that waiver in more detail? More importantly, will that waiver on ringfencing apply more widely to other banks caught by ringfencing regulations?

[Andrew Griffith]

As my hon. Friend well knows, the Government are undertaking a review of ringfencing. There is a call for evidence on how we could reform that, following the work of Sir Keith Skeoch into how we mesh the ringfencing arrangements put in place back in 2008 with the more modern resolution arrangements. We will learn the lessons that we can from this but, as I said at the beginning, in this case we have been able to achieve an outcome that has protected customers, the taxpayers and the financial system.