(14 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberI am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his comments. He takes a close interest in these matters. Of course, he will remember that in 2006 the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) praised the system of “increasingly light-touch” regulation and claimed that he had
“resisted pressures from commentators for a regulatory crackdown.”
The right hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher) ought to take up some of these historical issues with his own Front Benchers.
As regards a change to the regulatory approach, we need to see a move away from the prescriptive, box-ticking approach that we have seen in a recent years to a system in which the PRA and the CPMA can make more judgmental decisions about what is happening in the markets they supervise and with the prudential decisions that individual institutions are taking. If we put judgment at the heart of the system, we are more likely to avoid some of the issues that we have seen arise in recent years.
May I warmly welcome the Minister to his role? Will he tell the House about conversations that he has had with international colleagues about the need for radical reform of the regulatory system and the failure of the last Government’s tripartite system?