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Banking Bill

I thank the Minister for the latter point; I shall look at it carefully. He described the liquidation as sequential, so that first the liquidator comes along, overseen by the Bank, the FSA and the FSCS, to achieve objective 1; and once that is done, objective 2 can be done. However, Clause 96(4) states: "““Objective 1 takes precedence over Objective 2””—" nobody is arguing about that— "““(but the bank liquidator is obliged to begin working towards both objectives immediately upon appointment)””." That must be right, but the creditors are not allowed in until objective 1 has substantially been dealt with. That seems potentially to disadvantage creditors. My amendments seek not to delay dealing with objective 1, which can be started immediately with a committee that is just the inner group, but to allow objective 2 to be set in motion. Everybody knows that you have to find out who are the creditors, write to them and call a meeting, and that takes a bit of time. The process could go on some time and the creditors could join at the first natural opportunity. The creditors are put to one side under the Bill’s arrangements as if they have no interest in the early stages of the liquidation. But they clearly do, because objective 2 runs from day one of the liquidation. Can the Minister explain why the creditors have to be excluded, rather than admitting them into the process a little later once the formalities have been dealt with?