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Banking Bill

I have Amendment 174GA in this group, which is a response to the second report of this Session from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which came out only late last week. The committee made it clear in paragraph 20 that this sort of regulation-making power is inappropriate in normal circumstances and that more should appear in primary legislation. It pointed out in particular that the Government themselves concede that banking insolvency law is highly complex and that a significant shift in insolvency law was likely. In those circumstances, the committee believed that secondary legislation was an inappropriate mechanism and said that it was for the Government to justify to the House the exceptional circumstances that resulted in departure from this normal practice. I do not think that the Minister even tried to set out the exceptional circumstances that led to taking this power. The Delegated Powers Committee went on to recommend that, even if the Government persuaded the House, the power to make regulations and any regulations made should cease two years after Royal Assent. As the committee said, that would cover any emergency situation, if the Government genuinely needed emergency legislation; it would also give the Government sufficient flexibility to bring forward primary legislation for proper parliamentary scrutiny, if they so wished. Amendment 174GA deals with that recommendation, including the saving for bank insolvency procedures already entered into before the end of the two years. The Minister said several times that there was proper opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny. The affirmative procedure simply does not provide that. I have told the Committee more times than I care to remember that there is no opportunity to amend secondary legislation. The kind of legislation which the Government contemplate making by order is very extensive and is exactly the sort that both Houses of Parliament ought to consider on a line-by-line basis. The secondary legislation procedure is inadequate, and by a long margin. That is why—although we see that the Government might need to move quickly—there has to be a case for considering, on a proper time scale, whichever permanent solution is put forward to deal with this matter. I am not denying that there is an issue, and for the first time today I am not even challenging what the solutions might be. It is simply that there has to be a proper mechanism at some stage for Parliament to play its full part in the making of such complex, far-reaching law.