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Banking Bill

In any legislation of this complexity one always reaches a point where one believes that the parliamentary draftsman has had a nervous breakdown. Any draftsman who comes up with the expression, "““is not reasonably likely … (ignoring the stabilisation powers)””" has probably reached that point. Clearly that expression, and the one put forward by my noble friend, seeks to assess in some way the probability that something is going to happen. While I do not suggest that we should write odds into the Bill as my noble friend seemed to suggest, it might be helpful to have from the Minister a view on what he thinks the odds are on the expression ““not reasonably likely”” as against the odds for the expression in my noble friend’s amendment. We will not be writing into the Bill the travaux préparatoires of our discussions, but should the matter be disputed it will provide some evidence for the court about what the Government’s view really was. These two expressions are so vague as to require some clarification. It is very much a matter of timing. Correctly, the clause says that timing needs to be considered. However, as we know from the circumstances of the Northern Rock affair and questions about whether it might be rescued by this or that party, a situation can be extremely fluid at that point. As my noble friend said, this is an important part of the Bill as regards whether the trigger should be pulled. I hope we can have some indication of what the Government think this expression means. Alternatively, my noble friend’s expression seems a rather better indication of the probabilities of action being justified and taken.