Grant Shapps to meet with Hector Sants over MMR
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Housing minister Grant Shapps is set to meet with Hector Sants, the head of the Financial Services Authority this week to discuss the Mortgage Market Review.
In an interview with The Financial Times, Shapps says he will urge the regulator to not make its regulations so they block would-be homebuyers.
Shapps has previously hit out at the MMR, saying the regulator’s measures must be “proportionate” and “avoid unnecessary prescription.”
Speaking at the National House-Building Council annual conference in November, Shapps told delegates that the FSA’s current proposals would prevent him from getting a mortgage.
He says problems in the mortgage market did not stem from “pernickety” issues such as how much someone can borrow or what forms they sign.
Shapps says: “The problems occurred because of a lack of central regulation around the way banks were operating and their ability to carry on when they didn’t have the balance sheet to do so.”
He adds: “We need top-level central regulation and not pernickety down-in-the-dirt regulation about what a company can and can’t do.”
At the time Shapps told delegates the FSA was independent and entitled to produce the MMR, but he urged it to learn from mistakes.
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