Lord Pitt-Watson (Lab)

My Lords, I will not take up too much time because I responded to many of the points at the beginning of the debate. On the Independent Evaluation Office at the Bank of England, the Bank is committed to independent evaluation. It is strengthening the independence of the reviews that it commissions by moving to a model where it commissions external independent experts to lead the reviews. I echo the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes—and the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, I should add—because we have a commitment from the FCA. If you want to be cynical about it, it may not be as fulsome a commitment as we might want, but it says that accountability, scrutiny and proportionality are central and it wants to support effective parliamentary scrutiny, which I think is where we are all coming from. I thank the noble Baroness and her committee for picking up the baton on this because we must all—Parliament and regulators, with the help of the Government where we can help—work together to have a regulatory environment that is effective and proportionate. With that in mind, the Government do not think that at this stage further legislative amendments are helpful. I beg to move Amendment 31.