Andrew Bailey faces grilling over LCF and his effort to avoid censure

Andrew Bailey, the Bank of England Governor, faces an inquisition over his handling of the London & Capital Finance fiasco today – including “absolutely disgraceful” efforts to get his name removed from a highly critical report into the saga.

Mr Bailey, who appears before MPs on the Treasury select committee, was in charge of the Financial Conduct Authority when the company collapsed in 2019, leaving 11,000 bondholders with losses of £237m and costing many their life savings.

LCF was regulated by the City watchdog but sold ultra-risky unregulated mini-bonds to investors on the strength of its accreditation from the FCA, advertising returns of up 8pc.

But an excoriating review of the episode by Dame Elizabeth Gloster published in December said the FCA missed at least six red flags indicating that the firm was breaching financial rules. Mr Bailey, who waived his bonus at the FCA, has apologised over the LCF failures.

But Dame Elizabeth accused the Governor of a “lack of judgment” after he attempted to get his name and those of two former FCA colleagues removed from the report, calling it “inappropriate in quite a serious way”.

Westminster sources said Mr Bailey’s attempt to avoid being named was “something the committee will be looking at closely”. Conservative MP Kevin Hollinrake, who has campaigned on behalf of the LCF victims, said: “I think it is absolutely disgraceful that he sought to anonymise the report and have it focus on institutional failures rather than individual failures.

“It is just so indicative of how the FCA operates. We need a different approach. It is just not acceptable.”

Andrea Hall, a member of the LCF Bondholders campaign group, said: “We were really shocked.”

The Bank declined to comment.