Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill

As has been mentioned already, some in the Bank, including Sir Mervyn King, argued that insufficient lending is a consequence of insufficient capital. I put that to Mr Bailey a few days ago in the Treasury Committee. I asked him about the net new lending level now compared with when funding for lending began last August, and he said that it was flat. Is that not evidence for his proposition that we cannot have tighter adequacy requirements on capital and lots more new lending? The figures show that lending is flat.