Nick Goodway: Regulators must explain why HBOS chiefs escaped big fines

The key question for the City regulators — the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority — when they finally release their report into HBOS on Thursday is why on earth they have allowed things to go on so long that the main characters in the tragedy, James Crosby, Andy Hornby and Lord Stevenson, cannot be fined?

The FCA has powers — barely matched by any other authority in the country — to act as policeman, prosecutor and judge, as drawn up in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.

Legislators did not give such power to the regulators for it to be dissipated by statutes of limitation.

Banning the miscreants at the heart of the HBOS scandal from ever again acting in the financial services arena is hardly the point.

Most of them are at an age where they no longer need to work and at least two of them are entitled to massive pensions from HBOS.