Treasury Committee secures transparency changes to Co-op Bank review

Earlier this year, the Treasury announced that it had directed the PRA to conduct an inquiry into financial collapse of the Bank, over four years after George Osborne first announced an independent review.

In June, the PRA published the review protocol, which stated that the Treasury ‘may choose to withhold documents from the reviewer on the grounds of legal privilege’.

The Treasury Committee argued that this ran against economic secretary John Glen’s commitment to provide ‘full access to all relevant documents and correspondence’.

Nicky Morgan, chair of the Treasury Committee, wrote to Glen to ask him to reconsider this position. In his response, he confirmed that ‘no legally privileged information has been withheld from the independent reviewer’, and that the protocol will be amended to reflect this commitment.

Morgan also asked the PRA to reconsider the section of the protocol which states that the reviewer’s interview transcripts with current and former employers of the PRA, the Treasury and the Financial Services Authority will be provided to the PRA.

She believes this would risk inhibiting what interviewees are prepared to tell the reviewer, and the PRA agreed that transcripts will not be shared with the PRA and that the protocol will be amended accordingly.

Morgan’s letter also raised concerns that no information had been provided by the PRA as to how interested parties could contact the reviewer.

Nicky Morgan said: “The Treasury Committee expects full transparency on the findings of the review into the Co-op Bank. This would not have been possible if the Treasury chose to withhold certain documents from the review, or if the reviewer’s interview transcripts were shared with the PRA, so the changes to the protocol are welcome.

“The Committee looks forward to seeing the findings of the review, which will no doubt yield important lessons for the financial regulators.”