Lilley Report: Three Large and Festive Cheers for Parliament

The Lilley Report on the Draft Financial Services Bill, produced even without final sight of the government response to Vickers, is an excellent sign of effective legislation scrutiny.

The Lilley Report on the Draft Financial Services Bill, produced even without final sight of the government response to Vickers, is an excellent sign of effective legislation scrutiny.

And it should reaffirm faith in both of our Houses of Parliament.

It marks the first detailed critique of the Osborne plans to scrap the FSA since he first produced them while in opposition in the summer of 2009.

At that time - in response - Cicero Consulting called for more effective parliamentary accountability, to ensure not too much power was handed to the Bank of England alone and that the new structures would be able to have the right expertise to hold the new regime to account.

The Lilley Committee has made exactly the right recommendations in calling for more effective oversight with a new parliamentary committee and by calling for the scrapping of the Court of the Bank - replaced with a powered up Supervisory Board with expertise and teeth.

Equally the need for a majority of members of the new Supervisory Board not to be Bank of England insiders is spot on.

While we now know the government is expected to accept the Vickers report in full - the Lilley group makes clear that there should be pre-legislative scrutiny of the proposals. Given the comprehensive analysis Lilley and his fellow Parliamentarians have produced in this case, this is spot on again.

The Committee calls for the extension of the powers of the Prudential Regulatory Authority to systemically important investment firms - we will have to see more detail of how this might work in practice. As long as it ensures joined-up regulation with less overlap in the new 'twin peaks' approach then this may have something to recommend it.

In the light of the EU veto - the report calls for a new high level committee reporting to the Chancellor to scrutinise EU financial services legislation which will maximise UK influence.

I know the Committee has been looking at such an idea throughout its work over the past six months. This is not a knee jerk reaction and recent events only make this idea yet more timely.

Finally the Lilley group hark back to a Centre for Policy Studies report before the 2005 election calling for more competition in the sector as well as ensuring the new regime has the right skills to exercise 'judgement-led supervision'.

These are the real challenges for the Chancellor and his new regulatory train set - but the Lilley report has set the 2012 legislative journey off on the right track.

Now let's see what the Chancellor has to say at 3.30pm this afternoon...

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