Mr Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con): As international organisations and major Governments seek to understand the cause of the global financial crisis, small international financial centres have repeatedly endured political attacks and misguided criticisms-from pejorative sniping about their being tax havens and offshore centres for avaricious bankers, to allegations that they provide secrecy jurisdictions for shady figures in the international business community...

Mr. Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley) on her charming maiden speech. She spoke with great passion about her constituency, although I felt slightly guilty when she lamented the fact that there were no railway stations in it. There are 32 tube stations in my constituency, along with no fewer than three of the four railway stations on the Monopoly board....

Mr. Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con): I am waiting to hear the Latin tag, and I shall try to get hold of my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) to find out exactly what it was. The sorry tale of what happened in Equitable Life is well documented and, depressingly, was accurately catalogued by the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable). It has also been picked over by the House on countless occasions, and I think that we all feel a sense of deep disappointment and frustration that we are gathered here yet again to press for the Government to honour their duties to Equitable Life policyholders. ...

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend on the alternative investment directive. Is not the bigger criticism of it, however, that it simply betrayed, among those in the European Union who are attempting to introduce it, a lack of understanding about the role of asset management and, indeed, its non-role in the credit crunch and financial crisis that we have faced over the past two years? Whatever other problems there may have been, hedge funds and private equity have not been responsible for any systemic problems that that directive and others have tried to address.

Mr. Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con): For some centuries past the City of London's greatest attraction has been its international reputation as a bastion of commercial certainty and reliability. English law is respected across the globe: countless contracts between parties from far away continents are often drawn up under its jurisdiction. In commercial affairs the City of London is rightly seen as a watchword for justice, neutrality and fairness. Too much, I fear, of what is proposed in this Financial Services Bill flies in the face of this fearless and hard-earned reputation. It threatens to do untold damage to the United Kingdom as a commercial and trading centre.