Financial Services Regulation Debate

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Department: HM Treasury

Financial Services Regulation

Sajid Javid Excerpts
Wednesday 16th June 2010

(13 years, 11 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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George Osborne Portrait Mr Osborne
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The hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to the role of the credit rating agencies. Of course, all sorts of organisations and products received triple A ratings that they should never have received. That triple A wrapper basically made them immune to investigation by the firms that were buying those products. Certainly, we need to improve the regulation in the domestic sense—here in Britain—but that is also the subject of decision at a European level, and the la Rosière proposals on European supervisory agencies will consider in particular the role and regulation of credit rating agencies.

Sajid Javid Portrait Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con)
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Will my right hon. Friend commit to ensuring far greater scrutiny of EU regulation concerning financial matters than the previous Administration ever did, to make sure that it helps, rather than hinders, our banking system?

George Osborne Portrait Mr Osborne
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My hon. Friend makes a very good point that we must get the European regulation right, and the United Kingdom has a particular role as the location of most of the wholesale financial services in Europe. We therefore bring some insights to the table, which not all other members of the European Union can do. I am clear that we must do that. It will be under discussion at the European Council later this week and, I suspect, in pretty much every ECOFIN meeting for the rest of the year.