The Financial Conduct Authority defended its hiring process and the appointment of Megan Butler as director for transformation last year, a decision questioned by the Treasury Committee in light of the collapse of mini-bond firm London Capital & Finance.

“I wanted to get things moving quickly and in order to do that, we chose to recruit an executive director for transformation from within the current executive team,” wrote Nikhil Rathi, chief executive of the watchdog, in a 25 August letter to the Treasury Committee. The letter was made public by the committee, a group of MPs tasked with holding the City to account, on 13 September.