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Banking Bill

It is something of a relief to get away from discussing individual amendments in order to have a clause stand part debate. One should be grateful to the noble Viscount for giving notice of his intention to oppose the Question that Clause 12 stand part of the Bill. Clearly, the second option is very important. The noble Viscount raised a number of questions which I hope the Minister can clarify. In particular, I am not quite clear what will happen if part of a business, rather than the whole of it, is transferred to a bridge bank. Would the bank concerned effectively be split into two parts, one of which remains in the private sector and one of which would become a company owned by the bank? We are told that the code of practice will set out a number of things, including the content of the articles of association, which will obviously be very important, and the objectives. Perhaps the Minister should give us an idea of what the objectives will be. Will it not simply operate as a normal, commercial bank? If it is to have objectives beyond that, will it seek to facilitate, for example, the extension of lending when we know that considerable controversy has arisen because the Government have given large sums of money to banks which have failed to lend it on? Will there be objectives of that kind? Like my noble friend who has just spoken, I am somewhat mystified by the concept of an ““onward bridge bank””. It is not at all clear why, if it has been set up as a ““bridge bank””, it will need to be transferred to a different company. What will be the difference between the initial bridge bank and an onward bridge bank? In that context, the code of practice is said to be important in setting up the objectives, the articles of association and so on for a bridge bank, but does not, apparently, fulfil the same function in relation to the onward bridge bank? It would be helpful to have clarification of that, which, as my noble friend has said, is apparently a completely new innovation and a concept we have not had on any previous occasion.