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Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

My hon. Friend’s intervention is rather timely. As some hon. Members will know, the financial services were my trade before I came to the House. There were two amusing things about the Financial Services Authority: it instituted a huge amount of extra legislation across the City, including money laundering legislation, and it failed to produce any protection for people making the biggest transaction of their lives, namely, taking out a mortgage. It instigated huge amounts of regulation of, and interference in, the business-to-business sector, but none at all to protect people undertaking their biggest financial transaction. Part 1 of the Bill gives me major concern, so I hope that the Minister will tell us what safeguards he intends to incorporate into it. More importantly, I hope that he will use the Bill—after it has been heavily amended—to deregulate rather than to regulate.