Richard Hobbs on the FSA timetable

The clock is ticking on the timetable to replace the FSA. The deadline for comment on the latest Treasury consultation passed on 14 April. The government has promised a minimum of 12 weeks pre-legislative scrutiny and to publish the Bill in “mid-2011”. To do that, it will publish a White Paper including the draft Bill “in the spring”.

None of this timetable works. It is “spring” now. Parliament only sits for 11 weeks between now and the party conferences in the autumn. Something has to give.

Why all the hurry? Andrew Tyrie MP, the wise chair of the Commons Treasury Select Committee, has said it is better to get this change right than to get it all done by the end of 2012. Why not acknowledge that the timetable is impossible and set about producing change that more people can buy into?

Richard Hobbs is director of Lansons Communications.