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Banking Bill

Given the reluctance with which the Government have exercised the powers under the banking special provisions legislation, it might be thought that a debate about this kind of wording was completely unnecessary because the Government have consistently and obviously tried to avoid having to get involved in dealing with banks if they possibly can. They have reluctantly got involved because they have been persuaded that the banks were going to collapse and there was systemic risk. So why are we arguing about two forms of words, either of which one could spend quite a long time deconstructing? I am sure that you could end up proving that they both mean exactly the same. As we discussed earlier, and as the Government accepted, language matters. When we had the debate about whether the word ““temporary”” should be in the Bill, there was a consensus—although there was a difference about what ““temporary”” might mean—that the reason it was there was that the Government and everyone wanted anyone reading the Bill, whether from this country or outside it, to realise that public ownership was not seen as a course of early resort or something that anyone across the parties wished to see as a positive object of public policy, but that it was being forced on the state and would be remitted as soon as possible. Therefore, taking that analogy, there is a good argument for having the words ““highly unlikely”” in the Bill rather than the words ““not reasonably likely””, just because to any reasonable person it sets a higher bar. I suppose it could be said that if we decided to define ““not reasonably likely”” as being that no reasonable person would think it likely, it is not all that different from ““highly unlikely””. But that is not the way it will be seen by most people who read the Bill and is not the impression the Bill makes. Given that, I am sure that the Government will accept that the term means ““highly unlikely”” in layman’s language, so the logical thing is to use it in the Bill and be done with it.