What's missing from this news report?

The BBC finally get around to reporting the House of Lords' Economic Affairs Committee report on the banking crisis. The BBC report that:

"There has been fresh criticism of the way banks were supervised by the Treasury, Bank of England and Financial Services Authority (FSA).

The House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee said the so-called tripartite system had failed and must be reformed.

Its defects were highlighted by the failure of Northern Rock.

The report said the problem was that it was not clear who would be in charge in a crisis. It said the Bank of England should get a clear executive role.

The Lords' findings mirror the report of the House of Commons Treasury Committee, which said that the tripartite financial authorities had been insufficiently prepared to deal with Northern Rock's difficulties and needed to communicate better with each other.

"Without a clear executive role, the Bank can do no more than talk about financial stability. This exposes it to reputational risk without generating any clear benefit," the Lords' report said.

Financial stability

It recommended taking the responsibility for supervising the banking system as a whole away from the FSA and giving it to the Bank of England.

The committee's chairman, Lord Vallance of Tummell, told the BBC that the new powers that the Bank of England has been given by the Banking Act 2009 do not go far enough.

The report criticised the FSA for concentrating on its consumer protection role at the expense of its responsibility for maintaining financial stability.

The Lords also called for the authorities to be given more power over foreign banks operating in the UK.

"The degree of control that our supervisors and regulators here in the UK have over bank branches of foreign banks is very limited," Lord Vallance said.

"If there is a crisis then the money tends to rush back to the home of the bank itself leaving the problem with the UK taxpayer." "

In the whole of that report there is not a single mention of who set-up the tripartite regulatory arrangements, that's odd. Back in 1998 the BBC reported the Queens Speech thus:

"The Financial Services Authority, the financial markets' new super regulator, will be given greater power, to create a safer environment for investors and tackle market abuse... The United Kingdom's financial markets are currently regulated by a number of separate organisations, among them the Building Societies Commission, the Insurance Directorate, the Investment Management Regulatory Organisation, the Personal Investment Authority and the Securities and Futures Authority.

But the distinctions between these markets have become blurred, and mergers have led to one company operating in many areas.

Therefore the government has been searching for a new approach to financial regulation.

In May 1997 the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, announced he wanted to change the whole system, merging all regulators under the roof of a single body, the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

The FSA was launched in October 1997 - in fact emerging from the Securities and Investments Board, and this summer it was given the responsibility for banking supervision.

The new legislation will give it the powers necessary to do the whole job, and create a single regulator.

The FSA is expected to be fully operational in Autumn 1999."

Ah that's who set-up the tripartite system, Gordon Brown. Now why do you think the BBC are so coy about reminding people of that fact in 2009?