The second risk that may arise after we have left the EU, is the related but perhaps more prosaic issue of the flexibility of the UK’s regulatory framework and allocation of responsibilities within it – the division of tasks between Parliament, Government and the regulatory authorities. Much of our financial sector legislation and regulation has been made at the EU level. This has increasingly taken the form of extremely detailed EU primary and secondary legislation directly applicable in Member States.4  This approach has been justified as necessary in the EU by the need to prevent divergences between member states. The cost, however, as some have observed, is an over complex and rigid regulatory framework.5 As a preparatory step for Brexit, Parliament has ‘onshored’ EU legislation and regulation and also the allocation of responsibilities that lie behind it. At some point, post Brexit, we will, I think, need to address this rigidity and hard wiring of detail to ensure we have a coherent, effective and flexible regulatory system with appropriate accountability. How we do that will have an impact on how we address risks, at firm and at system level, in a fast changing financial system. Financial stability post-Brexit With that nod to the future, I will leave Brexit - for today at any rate – and turn to the examination question you have set for today – financial stability post Brexit. I would like to focus on the question of debt.
But recent events suggest the market may be very sensitive to changes in expectations of growth or inflation. 20  For UK assets, there has been the additional impact of fluctuations in Brexit news and sentiment. The evaluation of Brexit outcomes seems to have dominated responsiveness to near-term domestic news. 13  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  13  As always, the risk picture is mixed. From a financial stability perspective, the right response to this picture is to ensure that the financial system is sufficiently resilient to a very severe but plausible correction in values should it occur. A colleague of mine recently asked me why the financial stability side of the Bank was so gloomy, always pointing to risks on the horizon and seeing the glass as half empty at best? My answer was that it was our job to worry about what could plausibly happen - and to ensure that if it did happen, the glass did not suddenly empty entirely. 14  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  14