I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Davies, for his kind words. Let me reciprocate by saying that it has been a pleasure having discussions with him, and with the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer. I hope that this constructive spirit is retained all afternoon.
The noble Lord, Lord Myners, made a good point: why are we bothering and why do we need to do this? The point that the noble Lord, Lord Davies, made answered that in large part: it is because there was concern. But specifically, the court’s powers of delegation are limited by paragraph 11 of Schedule 1, and it may not delegate duties and powers that are expressly imposed on the court in legislation unless it has express permission to do so.
This has been a good debate, and I return briefly to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell. He asserted that we have gone back to 1997. I would dispute that that is the case. The Government have given the Bank the tools and powers that it needs to deliver its financial stability mandate. In particular, the Bank is now the statutory resolution authority with primary operational responsibility for financial crisis management. On top of that, we have created the FPC as a statutory committee of the Bank with the responsibility for monitoring and mitigating systemic risks for financial stability.
As to why prudential regulations should reside with the Bank, one of the key weaknesses of the tripartite system was a failure of co-ordination between those responsible for overseeing the financial system. We do not want to return to that. As the Chancellor said during the passage of the 2012 Financial Services Act, the Bank of England is the natural home for the microprudential, macroprudential and monetary policy functions because the interconnections are so great between these three critical functions. Having the PRA as part of the Bank also reduces underlap that could be harmful in the event of a crisis.
I turn to the issue of democratic accountability of the Bank. Since 2012, a number of measures have been introduced that have significantly enhanced the transparency of the Bank, and I will briefly recount some of these. For example, the court is now required to publish minutes of every meeting within six weeks. It has also voluntarily published historical records of court minutes, including those during the financial
crisis, and, through this, Parliament and the public now have greater insight into the governance of the Bank and the key decisions made. Similarly, the Bank has introduced measures to enhance the transparency of the Monetary Policy Committee following the recommendations of the Warsh review. Clearly, therefore, the Bank is a more transparent institution than it was in 2012. However, there obviously remains room for further improvements. This Bill builds on those reforms through changes to the Bank’s governance, to its policy committees and to its accountability. However, as I argued previously—and as the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, has argued—this amendment is not necessary.