MP warns against financial regulation 'on the hoof'

Treasury Committee chairman Andrew Tyrie has warned that the government may be creating financial regulation policy ‘on the hoof’ in scrapping the Financial Services Authority and transferring many of its powers to the Bank of England.

Speaking to the Financial Times, Tyrie said that the regulation changes do not make clear who would be responsible for making decisions in another financial crisis, despite the government’s claim that this would fall to the Chancellor.

‘Only when we find out exactly how it is structured and how it operates can we as a committee assess whether it strikes the right balance,’ Tyrie, who is the Conservative MP for Chichester, told the Financial Times.

‘It is clear that the architecture of financial regulation doesn’t seem to be settled, there seems to be an awful lot of questions knocking around resulting from the decision to end the FSA,’ he added.

‘It may turn out to be legitimate to make the point that some of this policy appears to be being made on the hoof.’

Tyrie is chair elect of the Treasury Committee, but the remainder of the committee has not yet been appointed.