Speeches by Glen.

“I welcome the news of the capping of ground rents for existing contracts, and I thank the Minister for the time he gave me last year, but he will recognise that many city centre developments require ongoing investment from pension funds, so could he say a little more about how his announcement will not spook the City a…”

“Last week I met Lawrence Bowman, the chief executive of South Western Railway. I am keen to make sure that all the Government’s changes take positive effect in Salisbury and south Wiltshire, so that tracks, signal and stock can be improved. Will the Minister make sure that there is a suitable reference board along the …”

“Can I respectfully remind the Minister that when Jonathan Russell from the Valuation Office Agency came before the Select Committee, he was very clear that the impact of the rate rises was made known to the Treasury before the Budget? The VOA provided data drops over 12 months, which did not detail the rates for indivi…”

“I have one final question. What sort of modelling do you do about scenarios where a mid-tier bank failed for a reason that you could not foresee from the data that you get? While it is covered by the recapitalisation payment levy, would it have a knock-on effect on other challenger banks and be disruptive to the system…”

“I find it difficult to understand.”

“You have been in this role for nine and a half years. You would rest your professional reputation on the integrity of the system post crisis. To a person who is not close to all of this, why do we need such a significant protection limit if all of our banks are so well regulated and everything is in a sound state?”

“Just as an aside, is there some concern over the treatment of what money is, what a money market fund is, and so on? Does that not leave meaningful ambiguity, which is unhelpful overall to the market?”

“You, I, to a lesser extent, and all of us on the Committee are quite steeped in this. The public will see a significant increase in the level of absolute comfort that they can have in their cash reserves and a significantly lower total in their investments, which bear some risk. Has any analysis been done of how behavi…”

“My final question before I pass to my colleague is around smaller banks. We have had, I think, 40 new institutions over the last decade. You talk about strong and simple. You talk about the attempts to try to make it an easier path to growth. One enduring frustration is how you really achieve that, because there are, i…”

“Could I turn to the cash deposit protection limit increase to £120,000? That was, I think, higher than some anticipated—all the proposals were initially for £110,000—but broadly represents nine years of indexation. The obvious question is that it is now different from the £85,000 limit, at a time when the Government, v…”

“Some who would push back on that would say, “In other jurisdictions, they do not necessarily take the same approach.” If you are in a global institution and running an entity based in London, you might say, “We are at a disadvantage to secure more investment to grow business here.” That is crudely, to make it accessibl…”

“You achieved something: you got it mentioned here.”

“Thank you. I have another question for Mr Woods, in terms of your Mansion House speech, in which you referred to this proposal to provide capital relief to banks on their portfolio of foreign Government debt. You used quite a striking phrase: “would be equivalent to ripping off our jacket, warm hat and gloves and throw…”

“The ABI will be happy when we see them next.”

“We hear sometimes, when we talk to people in the City, that that sounds very reasonable but they say that there is, overall, a lack of not so much urgency but determination to put emphasis on growth‑enabling activities. A moderate reduction in, say, some of the reporting requirements for an entity that is not go…”

“Mr Woods, I would concur with your assessment of our previous dialogue. I very much respect the way you conducted that dialogue. Can we turn to the matters at hand around your role at the PRA in terms of supporting economic growth? We have seen the letter that you wrote to the Prime Minister, and last year you had 23 c…”

“I recognise that. I, as a former Minister, was sat in between you. It felt like sometimes I got an extreme view of one side and an extreme view of the other, and I sat in the middle trying to mediate. It is technically quite complicated to do that, and I would be sympathetic to all my successors, whichever Government t…”

“Basically, you have all referred to the aggregation of pension funds, new financial instruments that look at things such as intellectual capital as something that you can invest against, and improving market awareness.”

“Yes, and that was never going to be fruitful in the first place.”

“It takes time to consolidate.”