Hitchin & Harpenden Member of Parliament and Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Financial Markets & Services Bim Afolami MP called for regulators to be more accountable to Parliament and Government during a debate in the House of Commons. Rising to support New Clause 17 of the Financial Services and Markets Bill, the MP told Parliament that criticism of regulators stems from the UK’s regulatory system and that this could be solved by making regulators more accountable to Parliament and to Government, particularly with regards to their interpretation of the intentions of Government policy.
Mr Afolami recently launched the Regulatory Reform Group to look at reforms to the UK’s regulatory system. Speaking in the House of Commons, Bim Afolami MP said,
“We have to work out how we are going to put together a framework that enables better accountability to this House, and better accountability to the political aims that have been passed by this House and to the aims of the Government, so that we get a regulatory system that drives a better, more competitive, safer financial services system.
“To that end I have set up the Regulatory Reform Group, of which some Members of [Parliament] and others…are a part. I intend to work with the Government on this issue, because unless we get it right, all the best intentions that all [MPs] have in different areas will find it hard to be effected because of the structural difficulties that are inherent. So I would like to stick up for the regulators but say that they need to be able to operate in a more effective system.”
