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Financial Services Bill

The House is less heated than it often is when we have these exchanges, which is a good thing, so may I ask the Chancellor in all seriousness whether he agrees that there seems to be a trend in many countries to try to put the central bank back in charge of prudential supervision—where it is not already in charge? I am sure the Chancellor has met Stan Fischer, the Governor of the central Bank of Israel and also former chief economist at the World Bank. He says:""It is very likely that prudential supervision will return to central banks when the lessons of this crisis are drawn."" Jacques de Larosière—the architect of the European changes—says that"" in our present world it's good to have the central bank in charge of supervision."" Although of course there were many problems in many different regulatory regimes, one of the emerging consensuses after what has happened is that central banks need to be in charge of prudential supervision.