IFA urges Tyrie to challenge FCA accountability

Simon Mansell, managing director of Worcestershire-based Temple Bar IFA, has urged Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the Treasury select committee, to ensure that the incoming Financial Conduct Authority is more accountable than the Financial Services Authority.

This follows the government’s response to the Treasury select committee report on the Financial Services Bill in which it said the accountability mechanisms for the FCA “should be at least as rigorous as those place by the FSA”.

However, the TSC said it is widely argued that accountability mechanisms for the FSA have been “seriously defective”.

The TSC said its recommendations “require statutory force”.

The government has stated it will look again at whether there is a way of requiring the FCA in legislation to publish board minutes while not setting a precedent on the degree of intervention in how boards function.

The Treasury select committee welcomed the government’s “willingness to re-examine this issue in the House of Lords”.

The TSC emphasised the Financial Services Bill should be amended to ensure that Parliament, through the Treasury select committee, may request restrospective reviews of the FCA’s work.

In an open letter to Mr Tyrie, Mr Mansell said: “We know the FSA is not accountable to Treasury Ministers or to Parliament, as confirmed by Hector Sants at a Treasury Select Committee meeting on 9 March 2011. As a parliamentarian can you really accept the delegation of your elected democratic powers?

“The FSA is an unelected, unaccountable body of the executive. In constitutional law the executive is the part of government but separate with responsibility for the administration of the state, in our case the regulation of the state and its financial services.

“Hector Sants snubbed the TSC on the 9 of March 2011 and now it’s time for you as elected MP to reclaim your powers and make our future regulator accountable to parliament.”