At the Building Society Association’s (BSA) conference, Miles was asked ‘what next?’ for the review, who responded: “I’m trying to recover from a state of exhaustion.”
He added: “The FSA and the Treasury are under a state of obligation to consult on the report’s recommendations and a lot of this will take time.” However, he admitted he has ‘stood back from the report’ since he finished it.
During question, Peter Williams, deputy director general, CML, asked Miles what had been achieved by his report, other than a seat for Miles on the Financial Services Authority’s (FSA) board.
Williams later commented: “I was simply trying to ascertain what had happened and compare it to Barker where the government gave an immediate response via the Red Book. David indicated, as reported, that both HMT and the FSA were looking at it and given the complexity of the issues, this is only right.”
In his budget speech this year, Chancellor Gordon Brown, said: “I hope that over the next year all parties will study the Barker proposals,” and committed itself to a series of reforms backed by an ongoing £22 billion funding package.
Meanwhile, the Miles review on stability and Long Term Fixed Rate mortgages was under heavy industry fire from inception, and on publication, was barely mentioned by the Chancellor in the budget.
