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Banking Bill

I thank my noble friend Lord Northbrook for his participation in the debate. I agree with him that it would be a good thing to have a public report on these issues, and I shall think about that before Report. In particular, I will think about the role that the Banking Liaison Panel can play in that and whether that is an adequate substitute, which I think is the burden of the Minister’s response. That will take me back to the wording of Clause 10, which we discussed earlier when we talked about the remit of the Banking Liaison Panel. Clause 10 states: "““The Treasury shall make arrangements for a panel to advise the Treasury about the exercise of powers to make statutory instruments””." Between now and Report, will the Minister consider whether the wording of the remit of the Banking Liaison Panel adequately reflects that the consultation will not only be about the exercise of powers but include the effect of existing statutory instruments after they have been drafted and have been through the normal processes? This will be a retrospective look at how they work and it may not be easy to reconcile that with consulting about the exercise of powers. We raised earlier the need to reflect the more dynamic role that the Government are saying the Banking Liaison Panel should have but I am not sure that that is accurately reflected in the wording.