Derek McDowell (Labour)

Perhaps the Minister of State might indicate when he intends that the legislation will be enforced. I understood from his earlier comments that the Minister intends to appoint the board in a few months or perhaps even sooner.

This legislation is an extremely important departure in the regulation of financial services and the industry is concerned that it should work well. Nonetheless, we should ensure that each function of the new authority will be allowed to have its own ethos. As I said earlier, there will inevitably be tension. I am aware of what has happened in other jurisdictions and the temptation will exist to adopt a softly-softly approach in the coming years in which the old embedded – if Members will excuse the use of that much-used phrase – traditions of the Central Bank will come to the fore and result in a careful approach to prudential supervision. However, there will be reluctance on the consumer side to exert the new powers of the regulatory authority with the force necessary to lend credibility to the new structure. I hope the consumer protection functions are provided with sufficient teeth in the Bill so they can be used in a public fashion, even if this is seen by some as rocking the boat and uncomfortable for certain elements in the financial services sector.