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Credit Rating

Volume 481: debated on Tuesday 28 October 2008

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will establish an inquiry into the competence of credit rating agencies. (228372)

The European Commission finished consulting on a EU-wide registration scheme for credit rating agencies on 5 September, and is due to report on the outcome of this consultation on November 12. We are working internationally to improve the incentives for credit rating agencies to supply more and better information that market participants want and to avoid creating undesirable incentives for investors to over-rely on ratings. However, any approach will need to be internationally agreed as far as possible both given the nature of the ratings system as well as to avoid the possibility of regulatory arbitrage.