Campaigners are demanding the chancellor holds an independent review into Andrew Bailey’s appointment as Bank of England governor, saying his tenure at the Financial Conduct Authority was characterised by a “toxic cocktail of negligence, incompetence and indifference”.
The True and Fair Campaign group, led by Gina Miller, is calling on chancellor Rishi Sunak, and the head of the Treasury select committee, Tory MP Mel Stride, to force Bailey to face questions over a string of financial scandals that wiped out the savings of small investors during his time as chief executive of the City regulator.
Miller said of Bailey: “On his watch, tens of thousands of Britons have lost money – in many cases losing their life savings which has devastated their lives, families and business.”
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She added that if Bailey were confirmed in the “highly responsible and prominent role” of Bank of England governor, “it would be a gross betrayal of the government’s duty to protect consumers and a textbook example of rewarding failure”.
Investment Week says Miller’s report, Asleep at the Wheel: An expose of systemic regulatory failure and consumer detriment, lays the blame for a series of scandals at the door of the FCA.
The Guardian says that the alleged failures included the lack of investigation into allegations contained in Lloyds’ internal Turnbull report, in which a former employee claimed executives covered up fraud at the HBOS branch in Reading.
It adds that there are also allegations of “a lack of sufficient regulation around peer-to-peer platforms like Lendy which collapsed last year” and “the collapse of London Capital & Finance and the liquidation of Neil Woodford’s once-popular flagship investment fund”.
An FCA spokesperson told City AM: “We utterly reject these claims which contain numerous inaccuracies and are made with little understanding of the role of the FCA.”
Miller, a businesswoman, is best known for being at the forefront of anti-Brexit campaigns, coming to prominence through a series of court challenges.
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