Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

Conservatives have a tendency to try and rewrite history, but this really takes the biscuit. If the Minister is seriously saying that he would have preferred to have stayed with a non-statutory regulatory arrangement, which was the option available, he should stand up and admit it. He often asks where the apologies are, but we have accepted that we should have adopted a more prudential approach to regulation than the arrangements in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. It is now equally important, however, that Conservative Members recognise that regulation is a good thing, that we need regulation of the financial services sector and that they were wrong to prefer a self-regulatory, non-statutory environment. Until they do that, they will never really confront the demons that still exist within the Conservative party’s philosophy.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

Surely, the argument is not about whether regulation is good or bad, but that the tripartite regulation was completely incoherent and led to a mess in the banking sector and the consequent recession that we are all paying for now.

[Chris Leslie]

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is telling the full story of what he truly believes about regulation. To listen to Conservative Members today one would think they were all keen market regulators. Perhaps the Conservative party has transformed—the Cameronian vision we have all been waiting for—but, as I understand it, it still regrets the regulatory encroachment on to the market in these matters.