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Banking Bill

The amendment raises a number of interesting issues concerned with a bank in temporary public ownership. We find ourselves in a situation in which it is difficult to realise exactly what is going on because much of it is so radical that we have no previous experience of it. Effectively, we have had a situation where a huge percentage of the UK economy is dependent on financial services for its whole prosperity to a large extent. We are now moving into a situation where the returns from that will clearly be substantially less than they were before. Much of the banking sector will be run, effectively, by the Government. That raises the question—I shall be interested in the Minister’s response—that what we are really trying to do is to tie them down or even encourage them to maximise the proceeds available for distribution. There was a similar experience in the way in which conditions were imposed on some of the banks which have already been affected. It may be that one really wants to maximise the long-term prospects of the bank concerned, which is not the same as maximising the proceeds for distribution in accordance with the order. Is the Minister proposing at some stage to set out what the serious objectives should be of banks which suddenly find themselves either temporarily or in part under government control?