(4 years, 1 month ago)
Public Bill CommitteesQ
Sheldon Mills: I will go first and then pass over to Vicky. It is useful to start with our current accountability, because the Bill and future regulatory frameworks being consulted on by the Government deal with that issue. We wish to be accountable. As an independent regulator, an important part of our process is for us to have public accountability. We serve the public and ultimately are scrutinised by Parliament. Our main form of scrutiny is that of the Treasury Select Committee, but we attend many other Committees. Explaining our activity to Parliament is an important part of our work. Below that, within the Financial Services and Markets Act for the FCA specifically, are our statutory panels. They are there to scrutinise our work in a much closer engagement with the organisation. Then we have the consumer panel, the practitioner panel and the small business practitioner panel, as well as the advisory panel on markets and listings. They are able to make public their views, and—believe me—they do very often make public their views on our activity. In addition to that, we will consult on our policies when we do policy-making work ourselves, as do other public authorities. We will also provide access to non-confidential information and data so that all interested parties can make their views known to us.
We also evaluate our work to ensure that it meets its intended outcomes. We already have an existing accountability framework that would sit well with the additional rule-making powers we may get through the Bill and as we move forward with the proposed reform to the financial services regulatory regime. The future regulatory framework is out for consultation, so I will not say much in relation to it, but we of course acknowledge that there may need to be adjustments to the accountability framework to accord with the additional powers that we are getting. We look forward to seeing the responses to the Government’s consultation in relation to that.