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European Financial Services Proposals

I would suggest that emergency circumstances were the sort of situation that we faced last year, with the possibility of the entire global financial system going into meltdown. I will get clarification, however. I turn to some specific clarifications that the European Scrutiny Committee requested, following the Committee's correspondence with Lord Myners on these issues. With reference to the Government's progress in ensuring a balanced representation of non-eurozone member states on the European systemic risk board steering committee, there is broad consensus in Council that there should be an appropriate representation of non-eurozone member states on the ESRB, and in particular, that there should be five, rather than three, additional members of the steering committee, and that two of those should be from non-eurozone central banks. The need to ensure an appropriate balance of eurozone and non-eurozone members was one of the key issues stressed by the Chancellor during the discussion of these proposals at the ECOFIN meeting of 2 October. The Government are therefore confident that this position will be reflected in the Council's discussions with the European Parliament as we go forward.