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Investment Exchanges and Clearing Houses Bill

I understand my hon. Friend’s point, which we considered in some detail on Second Reading. The US consensually decided that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act would provide proper consumer protection and be consistent with the continued success of its financial markets. We considered that exact issue at the time in the UK, and we were criticised by some commentators for refusing to go down the road of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. We feared that that approach would damage the competitiveness of our financial markets and that a move towards a more heavy handed, dirigiste, box-ticking approach to regulation would be likely to undermine, rather than to enhance, consumer protection. As I have said to my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West, a light touch, proportionate, risk-based system requires one to act more decisively when one sees risk than is possible under a more legalistic, box-ticking approach to regulation, which allows one to comfort people that the boxes have been ticked but does not involve the identification of risk.