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Banking Bill

An important element of my noble friend’s reply to the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, was that by accepting her amendments, he would discourage the formation of branches of foreign banks here in the UK. Is he aware that an important theme of the discussions of the Basle Committee, and a theme likely to be important at the G20 meeting in April, is precisely to discourage the formation of branches in foreign jurisdictions and replace them with subsidiaries in order to achieve regulatory consistency within any particular jurisdiction? Surely we should discourage branches which are then subject to overseas regulation by foreign regulators in which, outwith the EU, we may have no confidence.