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Banking Bill

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Davies of Oldham for the comprehensive discussion of the amendment. I quite understand his desire for flexibility—indeed, I argued for it on a previous amendment. However, I was attempting to point out that the desire for flexibility actually contradicts another goal of government policy, which is to encourage netting and the use of relatively simple financial instruments to replace the complex instruments which are felt to have been an important element in recent, rather unfortunate, events. Having said that, I feel quite strongly that the words ““shall have regard to”” are very weak indeed and introduce a degree of legal uncertainty which is likely to be significantly damaging in the operations of financial services. I have tabled amendments on the clauses to which my noble friend referred, specifically related to netting. I will be interested to see the Government’s response to those amendments in the light of what I see as the need for legal certainty to increase simplicity and financial services. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 20 withdrawn. Amendment 21 not moved. Clause 5 agreed. House resumed. Clause 6: Code of practice: procedure Amendment 22 Moved by