The McDowell group believed strongly that separating consumer issues from the prudential regulator had two important disadvantages. First, it left unresolved the legal problem of passing relevant information from the authority to the Director of Consumer Affairs and, second, the advantages of a one-stop-shop would be lost in that there would be two official bodies dealing with different aspects of financial services regulation. The group concluded that, given the requirement imposed by the relative EU law, the best mechanism for providing for the maximum flow of information between prudential regulators and those concerned with consumer protection was to combine both functions within one authority. The Government considered this restriction in the exchange of information was unacceptable. Because of this and other considerations, it decided to implement the structure before the House today. It is important to stress in the light of comments made by various Senators that this is not the existing Central Bank, standing as is, or amended by this legislation. A new authority is being established under the legislation which will have a special relationship with the Central Bank which is being transmogrified by the legislation.