Dame Clara Furse under fire at hearing on new financial watchdog Dame Clara Furse, former London Stock Exchange chief executive, faced a withering critique on Tuesday as MPs sharply questioned her independence, qualifications and fitness to join the Bank of England's new stability arm. Members of the Treasury select committee took aim at Dame Clara's prior service on the risk and capital committee of the failed bank Fortis. They also criticised her lack of enthusiasm for tighter leverage caps, rules on overall bank borrowing that Parliament backs in the face of opposition from the Treasury. Jesse Norman, a prominent Conservative, called her testimony "amazingly unimpressive" and called into question whether he could support her appointment to the Financial Policy Committee, which has responsibility for disarming threats to UK financial stability and growth. The attack on a senior City figure comes as the TSC and the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards have been flexing their political muscles on financial services issues including leverage, and governance and independence at the Bank of England. George Mudie, a Labour MP, sharply questioned Dame Clara's written testimony in which she flagged up a plethora of conflicting regulations as the "most significant" risk to financial stability. "I could list about half a dozen things that I could put higher than regulators getting overzealous," he said. The former LSE boss, who helped the exchange fend off a high profile 2004 bid from Deutsche Börse, countered that the FPC needed to be aware of the impact of regulation on the economy. "There will be consequences that will otherwise surprise us," she said. Dame Clara, Richard Sharp, a former Goldman Sachs banker, and Martin Taylor, a former chief executive of Barclays, were named to the committee by George Osborne. The TSC is due to report on their candidacies on Wednesday. Dame Clara staunchly defended her stewardship of Fortis, which collapsed in 2008 after it failed to find funding for an agreed purchase of part of ABN Amro. It wasn't about toxic assets ... It wasn't about solvency," she said. It was about execution of the funding plan when the market disintegrated [in 2008] ... It was devastating for shareholders, which I deeply regret, but actually taxpayers have done quite well out of it. Dame Clara, who currently sits on the board of Japanese bank Nomura, also clashed openly with MPs, saying she did not agree with the committee's view that the new regulator should immediately be given power to set leverage caps I don't think it's an urgent requirement ... It's another tool that we don't need right now," she said.