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Banking Bill

The note that I have been handed was not relevant to what I was going to say. Nor will it lead me to deviate from what I was going to say. Anyone who assumes the position of a director of a bank should do so with due and careful consideration of their public responsibilities. The nature of banks, their critical importance to the economy and the fact that a failed bank can place burdens on society should require particular focus and application by a director to rise to the very highest standards. Abject failure by bank directors is not a circumstance in which compensation is necessarily appropriate. The noble Baroness uses the term ““disproportionate””, and I envisage that the authorities, when looking to these clauses, will have regard to proportionality, as indeed we have in some of our discussions with banks in circumstances where we have intervened. A number of directors have left those banks, and in one or two cases the directors volunteered to surrender certain rights that they had under their contract, for which I commend them. In the circumstances, that was an honourable and good thing for them to have done. Proportionality is important. The note that I have received advises me that it is possible to litigate the convention rights in UK courts under the Human Rights Act. They do not have to be taken to a court outside the boundaries of this country. On that basis, I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.