Speeches by Baldwin.

“The Business Secretary, the Minister and the Chancellor have all said that they want growth, including in rural areas. I have searched high and low for business growth statistics since the Budget of broken promises, and I find that, in the last quarter, there has been a growth of 50% in the number of businesses that ar…”

“When was that announced that you heard it, Mr Geale?”

“If you believe all those things today, Mr Geale, why were they not in your letter to the Prime Minister after the summit on how regulators could help growth?”

“How recent was it?”

“That there was a potential for this happening and that No. 10 and the Chancellor were looking at the number of financial services regulators. When did you become aware of that? It does not have to be the hour of the day.”

“To clarify, you said, “We were aware”. Could you say the moment when you first became aware?”

“To confirm, in the national payments vision published last November, 2024, you were named as being part of that vision; then, within a few months, you are gone?”

“We can park those as things that are in the past.”

“Last year was 2024.”

“When did you get the call?”

“Was it after January?”

“I have so many questions. I will start with Aidene and try to get a sense of the timeline on all this, because I am a little bit confused. The Joe Garner review into the payment systems started under the previous Government, then underwent a process and was published by the current Government back in November, and it m…”

“It is not one we have seen. Then your chief executive leaves. Could you tell me what date your chief executive leaves?”

“Again looking at the Government press release that announced your abolition this morning, it said, “Regulation will be cut back,” economic growth will be boosted by your abolition, and more money will be put into “working people’s pockets.” I have to say—I may just be speaking for myself—I am worried about what we migh…”

“Can I say thank you? You had a lot of people trying to slow you down and have this not rolled out, and yet this has had a really beneficial impact on our constituents who were being scammed and a really beneficial impact in terms of their economic wellbeing. The UK is very much at the cutting edge in terms of payments.…”

“I would like to slightly shift the line of questioning to what you have achieved in terms of rolling out automatic push payment fraud reimbursement. Members of this Committee get lobbied as well, by the people who were concerned about the roll-out. In our published reports to you in the past, we have raised concerns ab…”

“You were not having one set of private conversations about, “We think we should do this”, while you made a public letter about, “These are the things we think the regulator could do to help”.”

“The headline today from the Government—and I am reading it verbatim—is, “Regulator axed as red tape is slashed to boost growth”. You could have put this in your letter, couldn’t you, if you think it is such a good thing now?”

“I was also interested to see that you divested yourself of your cryptocurrency holdings. Was that bitcoin or something else? Tell us about why you were in the cryptocurrency markets.”

“Do you think that the Bank of England should issue its Britcoin?”