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Finance (No. 3) Bill

Yes, I think we could, which is why I made that recommendation well before the credit crunch occurred. In '06 and '07, it was obvious to me and to some other commentators that things were getting out of control—indeed, it was quite common for Opposition parties in this House to say they thought there was too much credit about. I went a bit further and said that could be remedied by changing the way we regulated the banks. It was quite wrong to allow a bank to extend more credit when it only had a 4% tier 1 capital ratio. I remember that when I was a financial regulator, we lived in an era when banks needed twice or three times that amount of capital to be acceptable to the regulator. There was a clear diminution in standards at a crucial time, which fuelled the credit binge.