On the Richter scale of parliamentary rollockings, MPs on the Commons Treasury Committee notched up a full eight as Britain’s two most senior banking supervisors received their Northern Rock punishment yesterday.

This turned out to be a more bruising beating than that meted out to their opposite numbers in the Bank of England two weeks ago.

In ferocity, it came close to the roasting given five years ago during the split-capital trust scandal to their FSA predecessors, who were accused of being asleep at the wheel.

As then, the chief prefect wielding the cane was the long-time committee chairman John McFall, the Labour MP. He was initially restrained, but when Sir Callum McCarthy batted away yet another suggestion of FSA incompetence with his oft-used phrase, “You are describing something I do not recognise”, something snapped.

Mr McFall said: “This is getting really, really unsatisfactory. You’re crawling into your den and not answering anything.”

“Is that another non-answer?” he barked a few minutes later when Sir Callum was less than clear over whether Rock’s existing management were fit and proper to continue running the bank.

Siôn Simon, Labour MP for Birmingham Erdington, accused Sir Callum of being glib and dismissive, adding: “You are the Sugar Ray Leonard of the financial services world, a world-class ducker and diver.” However, it was the FSA’s insistence that the tripartite arrangements between itself, the Bank of England and the Treasury had worked well that drew most derision. Mr Simon said: “There was a run on the bank, the nation was a global laughing stock and you say the arrangements worked!”

Mr McFall chimed in: “If that’s success, what is failure?”

Michael Fallon, Conservative MP for Sevenoaks, was equally blunt, saying: “Isn’t it the case that the FSA has fundamentally failed in its supervisory duty?”

Mark Todd, Labour MP for Derbyshire South, queried the FSA allowing Rock to waive Basel rules and pay a bigger dividend shortly before its collapse. It signalled health, he said. Sir Callum denied as “absolutely incorrect” the suggestion that the waiver was a box-ticking exercise.

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