The claim that Gordon Brown, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, transferred banking supervision (control of the banking industry) away from the Bank of England is directly supported by primary evidence. On 20 May 1997, Brown announced in Parliament that "responsibility for banking supervision will be transferred, as soon as possible after passage of the Bill, from the Bank of England to a new and strengthened Securities and Investments Board" (which became the Financial Services Authority), as recorded in Hansard. This was enacted in law through the Bank of England Act 1998, Part III, titled "Transfer of supervisory functions of the Bank to the Financial Services Authority," with Section 21 explicitly stating: "The following functions of the Bank are hereby transferred to the Authority." The Bank of England's own 1997–98 Banking Act Report confirms this transfer, and a 2017 Bank of England speech also notes that "the new government transferred much of the responsibility for banking supervision to the Financial Services Authority." Wikipedia's article on Brown's chancellorship likewise confirms he "stripped the Bank of England of its regulatory powers, transferring them to the newly created Financial Services Authority." The cause (Brown's policy decision as Chancellor) directly and unambiguously produced the effect (the Bank of England losing banking supervision authority to the FSA). This was a deliberate, legislated transfer of regulatory responsibility with no confounding or alternative explanation. Sources: - UK Parliament Hansard, 20 May 1997, "Bank of England and Financial Regulation" — https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1997/may/20/bank-of-england-and-financial-regulation - Bank of England Act 1998, Part III (legislation.gov.uk) — https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/11/part/III/enacted - Bank of England, Banking Act Report 1997–98 — https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/archive/banking-act-report/1997-1998.pdf - Bank of England speech, "Twenty years of Bank of England independence," 2017 — https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/speech/2017/twenty-years-of-boe-independence-the-evolution-of-monetary-policy.pdf - Wikipedia, "Chancellorship of Gordon Brown" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancellorship_of_Gordon_Brown