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Banking Bill

I thank the Minister for his response but he did not deal with the point that I raised. He described issuing a direction in the context of a payment system being important to financial stability, but my point concerned a failing bank which needs continued access to the payment system for continuity of banking services, or something like that. The rules of a payment system are usually to chuck out someone who is financially a bit dodgy—that would be the normal practice—but the Bank is saying, ““No, you can’t apply your normal rules. We want you to continue to take this failing bank in order to keep things going””. My point was to ask whether the operators should at that stage have an indemnity in doing something that, under the terms of their rules, they would not normally want to do. We are not talking about a payment system that is itself threatening financial stability, and which will therefore take whatever pain the Government want to impose on it. We are talking about a payment system that is happy to comply with whatever is necessary but which is also concerned about the consequential impacts of claims against it by other parties. The Minister did not address that point. I think that the Minister also said that there were no equivalent provisions in the Financial Services and Markets Act. It is my understanding—I do not have the chapter and verse as I do not have the Act with me—that there were similar situations within the Financial Services and Markets Act where indemnities were provided. I am sorry to press the Minister on these points but they have been raised with me by the Payments Council. I wonder whether he can help.