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Sale of Student Loans Bill

I assure my hon. Friend that I desperately do not want to get involved in a discussion of my lease. I should like to make a point to the Minister through my hon. Friend. As the Minister explained in Committee, the rules that are defined relate to control. If a controlling interest of some sort is involved, the loans are still on the Government's books and there is not a transfer of risk and a privatisation in that sense. There must be a qualitative judgment; I think that my hon. Friend was getting to that. The Opposition have tabled a clever amendment, which, based on the Minister's wording originally in Committee, relates to clause 3(6)(a)—that is the qualitative judgment made on control. However, (b) and (c) are therefore not judged qualitatively as having sufficient control and therefore offending against Treasury rules. The clear issue for many of us, though, is that there should be control. The ingenious Opposition amendment falls between both stools—there either is or is not control. In my view and that of many others, if there is no control, we will not have sufficient power over the future. If there is control, the issue falls foul, like ““shall”” in regard to subsection 3(a); it would fall under the guidance of the ONS, as it would be classified as still being under the control of the Government and therefore, under Treasury rules, part of the Government's expenditure.