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Banking Bill

These are pretty wide-ranging powers which masquerade under extremely bland parliamentary drafting. At first sight, apart from it being difficult to understand what the government amendments are getting at, you would not gather that the homeowner mortgage support scheme, for example, would be covered by these powers. They raise a general issue with which we have been grappling: the need for the Government to move quickly to deal with exceptional circumstances, and the need for adequate parliamentary scrutiny. As the Committee will know, sympathy on these Benches has, broadly speaking, been with the Government. I am not saying that we are departing completely from that on these amendments, but the noble Baroness has raised a number of issues on which we await the Government’s response. The concerns raised by the Council of Mortgage Lenders about what happens next, the extent to which consultation will take place, what further scrutiny there will be of the homeowner mortgage support scheme and whether it will have a sunset clause demonstrate the general point that these are significant powers which, unless the Government take the situation seriously, can be exercised almost in secret. Unsurprisingly, given our later amendment, I have some sympathy with the noble Baroness’s proposal for a two-year sunset clause. However, the thought of having a two-year sunset clause on one small bit of the Bill demonstrates why you need either a sunset clause for the whole Bill or no sunset at all. In reality, it is difficult for a Government to bring forward a Bill amending just one aspect of what we have here. I have considerable sympathy with the comments of the noble Baroness on proposed new subsection (6) in Amendment 174B. The Treasury might well think it necessary on public interest grounds to keep quiet about a whole raft of things that the public would legitimately feel that they had a right to know. Can the Minister explain the circumstances in which he envisages that being required? Equally, can he explain why the Treasury is resisting Amendment 174C on affirmative resolution? During the passage of the Banking (Special Provisions) Act 2008, we supported the need for speed in nationalising a failing bank. However, the kind of schemes that we are talking about here do not have the same kind of urgency. The homeowner mortgage support scheme is announced and must then be worked up. It almost certainly could not be legislated for at quite the same speed—and almost certainly would not need to be—as a bank that was suddenly collapsing. We will listen carefully to what the Minister said on that amendment.