Speeches by Blake.

“Thank you very much, Professor Moloney. It is really good to have you here. We are hearing a lot this week about the balance between growth and regulation, and I would be really interested to hear from you about how you see the relationship between regulation and growth.”

“You highlighted that there was not enough resilience in the run-up to the financial crisis and the conflicts of interest around conduct and behaviour. Where do you think there is the scope in that case to encourage growth through the work of the PRA?”

“You talked about the financial crisis. The Chancellor has talked about the response and reaction to the financial crisis perhaps having gone too far. How would you see the response to the financial crisis, particularly in terms of the roles of the Prudential Regulation Authority?”

“Then the formal review of the limit is October 2025?”

“Can you describe the nature of the pushback to the £415,000 limit?”

“Have you had any pushback from fintech and the sector about those?”

“So this less than 1% figure is above the £85,000 threshold?”

“Staying on the theme of the APP fraud, I wanted to get into the detail of the decision to move from the £415,000 to £85,000. Why was that decision made?”

“We talked a bit about engagement with industry in terms of any meetings with the Treasury about the amount. I think that the Minister at the time expressed that he was not that keen on the £415,000.”

“Given the significance that you have apportioned this within your questionnaire, are you concerned about a slow rate of progress to use these tools and the level of visibility of this type of risk?”

“In terms of the political environment in the United States, how worried are you about a change in risk culture within US firms and the impact that this could have on UK firms?”

“Are you surprised at the slow progress with this, given the significance of the risk?”

“In your questionnaire you wrote, “If we look back to the major episodes of failures at financial firms, we can always identify a root cause in poor culture—especially risk culture—and ineffective governance”. At the same time, you said that culture is a difficult area for supervisors to intervene in: “It is not easy to…”

“Can you measure improvements in the culture of firms?”

“You said it will be measurable. Can you give us any figures that you are observing?”

“You talked about how changes in remuneration and the removal of the cap were measurable in terms of behaviour. Can you elaborate on how you can measure those and what you are seeing in terms of those behaviour changes?”

“Last week gave me two really clear reminders about why this issue matters. First, I spoke with my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell) at a rally to mark the illegal invasion of Ukraine. We saw a frank reminder of authoritarianism right on our doorstep. Then, on Thursday, the Labour party lo…”

“That is what I thought you were going to say, so we are all on the same page. What are the drivers that you see?”

“Just to follow up on health sector productivity, you talked about whether it is real or a measurement challenge. Let us say that it is real. Is there any analysis around this being connected to the complexity of health challenges that this country faces?”

“So it is still too unknown for you. You are not the experts and you are not engineers, but you are looking at prices a lot. What I am hearing you say is that at this point, the stated desire for investment is not flowing through into any stabilisation. That is what I am hearing.”