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Banking Bill

I thank my noble friends Lord Higgins and Lord Eccles for their contributions to this debate. The Minister has disappointed me yet again. The Government seem to want to keep financial stability as loose as possible. I concede that I accepted that financial stability should not be on the face of the Bill but, as the Minister will recall, especially if he looks carefully at Hansard, I argued strongly for a definition to be required to be included in the code of practice. It is right, for consistency across the tripartite authorities, that the Treasury defines what it wishes to be meant by financial stability for the Bank then to use. It is sheer nonsense to say that the Bank can make up its definition and consider as many definitions as it wants. I do not think that I have never heard such a stupid thing come from a ministerial source. The Government should be clear about what they want the Bank to do and tell the Bank what the parameters are—that is all we are really asking for—and then the Bank can deal with it. The important thing is that there is clarity and transparency about that, and financial stability can be seen as a common currency. I do not doubt that on individual cases decisions have to be nuanced. Definitions will not cope with all individual cases and definitions will change over time. But to think that the Bank should gather in as many definitions as possible is plainly ludicrous. I do not think that we are going to make any more progress, because the Government are in a complete mindset this evening that the Bill is perfect. I assure the noble Lord that not a lot of people think that it is. We will return to this on Report. Amendment 176 withdrawn. Amendments 177 and 178 not moved.