Banking: Regulation Debate

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Department: HM Treasury

Banking: Regulation

Lord Sharkey Excerpts
Monday 10th December 2012

(11 years, 6 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Sharkey Portrait Lord Sharkey
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My Lords, regulation will surely provide for penalties for those who break the rules. However, when it comes to the massive mis-selling of pensions, endowments or PPI policies, the FSA has confirmed that in the past five years not one single bank employee has had disciplinary action taken against them. Does the Minister believe that that is right, and can he reopen the issue with the FSA?

Lord Newby Portrait Lord Newby
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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.