Not least has this happened with the Treasury Select Committee.
Now chaired by Andrew Tyrie, it has launched itself into many of the big issues in financial services, and made the news itself with revealing admissions from the big names of finance of the day. In the past few years, it has gained the credibility and gravitas that some feel has been missing from other committees.
Andrew Tyrie could not be more different from his predecessor, John McFall. Whereas the vocal Scot let his anger be known with ministers and others who sat in the hot seat, Mr Tyrie adopts a more cerebral approach, and under his chairmanship, the committee has gone for the jugular.
The committee has been noted for its independence and newsworthy revelations. For example, last year at a select committee hearing Paul Flowers complete unsuitability for the chairmanship of the Co-operative Bank became apparent.
In addition, as befits the role of independent watchdog, Mr Tyrie has not been afraid to show his independence. He frequently writes letters to key people, such as Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, and Martin Wheatley, chief executive of the FCA, to get them to explain themselves on important points.
For example, earlier in the year, Mr Tyrie wrote to Mr Wheatley about the potential dangers of interest-only mortgages and asked what the FCA was doing about it.
Furthermore, as the FSA was ending last year and becoming the FSA, so in February Mr Tyrie castigated the old body, saying the regulator should not rely on a “box-ticking” approach, but should instead use “grey matter” in its enforcement approach.
At the time, he said: “We must have more confidence that [banking scandals such as Libor] will not happen again. Much work remains to be done. The welcome adoption of judgement-led regulation can help.”
However, it has been his appointment as chairman of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards last year that has really marked him out, not least for the esteem with which his colleagues hold him.
This committee, including the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Lawson of Blaby, has produced several compelling reports over the past 12 months, including a condemnatory account of what went wrong at HBoS. It claimed HBoS was a story “of catastrophic failures of management, governance and regulatory oversight”. The report prompted James Crosby, a former chief executive of HBoS, to lose his knighthood.
The committee also produced its final report into banking culture, Changing Banking for Good, where it recommended that “senior persons” guilty of “reckless misconduct” should be subject to a criminal charge, and face a custodial sentence.
Mr Tyrie became chair of the TSC in 2010, after having sat on it since 2009, and an earlier stint in 2001 to 2003. Becoming Conservative MP for Chichester in 1997, he held Shadow Treasury posts during the Labour government. Before this, he worked as an adviser to Nigel Lawson, when he was chancellor and Andrew Turnbull when he was Cabinet secretary.
In the past three years, he has been seen to show determination when dealing with sometimes slippery bankers and sticking to his mission to get to the heart of the problems in some of the UK’s biggest banks. For this reason, Financial
Adviser is nominating him as ‘person of the year’ for 2013.
Melanie Tringham is features editor of Financial Adviser
