Member

The FCA’s letter declared itself open to views on how best to improve parliamentary scrutiny, but the PRA’s letter did not go quite that far. In conversations with the Minister, he asked me, as chairman of the Financial Services Regulation Committee, to try to take something forward with the FCA to see whether we can strengthen parliamentary accountability in ways that do not involve structural changes—such as that suggested in Amendment 68. The Minister would have heard that one of my fellow committee members has already applied her mind to some creative ways in which that might take place; they would, of course, have to include not only the FCA but all the other regulatory bodies operating in the financial services space. I am sceptical about whether such engagement will do more than improve things at the margin but, in the spirit of being constructive, I am prepared to give it a go through the Financial Services Regulation Committee. On that basis, I shall not move my amendment.