BRITISH PRIME minister Gordon Brown used his speech to the UN general assembly yesterday to call for an end to the “age of irresponsibility” in the financial sector, adding his voice to the growing clamour for greater regulation of international finance.

“This has been an era of global prosperity. It has also been an era of global turbulence. And where there has been irresponsibility, we must now say clearly that the age of irresponsibility is over,” Mr Brown told delegates.

Echoing the sentiments expressed by dozens of world leaders, including French president Nicolas Sarkozy, in speeches to the general assembly this week, Mr Brown called for an overhaul of the global financial system.

“We must now build a new global financial order founded on transparency not opacity, rewarding success not excess, responsibility not impunity and which is global not national,” he said.

In meetings on the sidelines of the debate, the British prime minister sought support for long-term reform plans, including an initiative by the Financial Stability Forum under which international “colleges” of regulators would oversee each of the world’s largest financial institutions.

Mr Brown told the general assembly: “Just as banks are global, the flows of capital are global, and the risks they carry have become global, so too the oversight cannot just be national but must be global.” He added that 30 such “colleges” were due to be established by the end of the year.

Mr Brown demanded greater transparency and improved international accounting standards so that nobody need “fear what might be hidden in each other’s books”.

He called for “sound banking practice and more effective regulation” and greater responsibility.

In Mr Brown’s speech, which came ahead of meeting President Bush in Washington, he restated support for the administration’s rescue plan. “In the short term, each country is taking action to deal with the fallout of the credit crunch. And America deserves support from the rest of the world as it seeks to agree in detail what all parties agree in principle.”