Banking: Regulation

Lord Peston Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, one of the general problems that we are grappling with is that bankers seem to think that they live in a different world to the rest of us and that they should be able to avoid not just censure but charges if they have done something that is criminally wrong. That is why in the recent Financial Services Bill we introduced new provisions to deal with people who have manipulated the LIBOR rates so that, when the whole episode is fully looked into, if criminal action is necessary, it will for the first time be able to be taken against people who have cheated the system.

[Lord Peston]

My Lords, bearing in mind the global nature of the whole financial services sector, and certainly of the banking sector, in the Government’s opinion does any central bank or other financial regulator, acting on its own, have any chance of success? Must not the future basis of regulatory policy be one of international co-operation between the regulators and the central banks?

[Lord Newby]

Yes, my Lords, I completely agree. One of the things that the banking crisis has demonstrated is that the banks understand the international situation better than Governments understand it. One of the things that we have been trying to do, both through the EU and internationally, is to close that gap. No doubt the noble Lord has seen the article in the FT today by Paul Tucker from the Bank of England and Martin Gruenberg, the chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in the States, which looks specifically at how you deal with resolving problems concerning the largest systemically important banks in the world.