Banking Industry News
Roger Bootle on the Future of Banking Commission
Tuesday, 15, June 2010
I was invited to join the Future of Banking Commission by John (now Lord) McFall, then Chairman of the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee, to which I have been a specialist adviser for 13 years.John is a dedicated public servant and a very persuasive man, as all those who appeared in front of the Treasury Committee can testify. I found it very difficult to refuse his invitation.
As it happens, I had been thinking deeply about many of the questions that the Commission had been asked to examine in connection with my book, The Trouble with Markets, which was published last year. So in many ways, what I experienced with the Commission was rather like seeing the live performance of a play that you had previously only read.This was the first such Commission that I had sat on. It proved to be a revelation. It was particularly fruitful to be surrounded by people of very different backgrounds – first of all, distinguished members of the three main political parties – David Davis, Vince Cable and John McFall.