Speeches by Glen.

“I congratulate the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the hon. and learned Member for Northampton North (Lucy Rigby), on her elevation to her new position. The subject that I want to focus on—the enhancing financial services Bill—makes me reflect on the fact that I was in office as Economic Secretary for 1,640 days and, …”

“The right hon. Gentleman is, quite reasonably, setting out his assertions about where he wants the Government to go, but does he not see the irony? After all the events of last week, the cost of borrowing in the UK is higher than that of many of our competitors, and all business leaders say they feel the instability. T…”

“I think that is reasonable. Can I ask you about the dissonance that may exist between the regulators in the US and UK? You have represented the UK regulators and banking in the international forum. Obviously, many people would observe what is going on in politics. Could you say something about what that means for conve…”

“In the FCA, you have engagement through digital sandboxes and so on, where you bring these innovators in, so that you can understand what they are doing. Is there something similar in the PRA?”

“Is it fair to characterise what you just said as, regardless of what happens with politicians in terms of whether they move closer to the EU or the US, there is an underlying depth of interwiring between supervisors across different jurisdictions, which serves us well in all circumstances?”

“Do you think there is a risk in terms of regulators’ knowledge and depth of understanding, given the pace of these incredibly innovative niches of technology, coding and thinking? How do you feel about the capacity to keep up with that?”

“For the record, does that relationship exist at a similarly strong level vis-à-vis our neighbours in the continent of Europe?”

“Do you think that?”

“You know what the big banks thought till quite recently.”

“You are!”

“Thank you very much.”

“Few of them really compete with the big banks today. We have not really cracked that.”

“You seem to be saying there needs to be greater transparency than exists at the moment. Is that correct?”

“So did I.”

“May I probe a little more? The capital held by the top UK banks, I think you would acknowledge, significantly exceeds the losses incurred in the financial crisis, and it is enough to absorb the losses implied by the latest Bank of England stress test—I think three times over. Does that not imply room for bolder decisio…”

“Do you think that the right work is under way in the institution that you are about to rejoin, in essence, to examine whether the PRA supports the Government’s growth and competitiveness agenda? Are you going to do anything new on the assessment of the capital rules vis-à-vis the UK and the US in particular? That is th…”

“Your role is very important, Ms Braddick; 85% of household lending comes from the banks, and half of corporate lending in the UK, so the decisions you make will be really important. There was an article a couple of weeks ago by David Postings, which I am sure you have read, and he pointed out that some of the decisions…”

“My final question is on the secondary objectives: stability is No. 1, but there are also competition and global competitiveness. I do not think that you say so much about competition in your application. Will you tell us about how you see the institution and what you will do to address those two elements of the seconda…”

“I want to probe around the impact that the regulation of banks has had on the development of private credit. As I understand it, you regulate banks in one way and it creates an incentive, or not, to find returns elsewhere. When it goes into that private credit situation, it is not within your oversight but, as you have…”

“In the last 10 years we have done a great job of having more banks.”