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Banking Bill

Amendment 193 requires the publication of the minutes of the Financial Stability Committee by inserting a new Section 2BA into the Bank of England Act 1998 via Clause 228 of the Bill. The Bill is silent about the workings of the Financial Stability Committee, yet its deliberations will be important to all those working in the financial services industry and more widely. It is unusual to require the workings of a board committee to be made public, but the Financial Stability Committee, as conceived by the Government, appears to be an unusual board committee as it underpins one of the Bank’s primary functions. My amendments have a strong connection with the arrangements of the Monetary Policy Committee, which publishes its decisions and minutes, but the arrangements suggested are not the same as there is an important override in that the minutes do not need to deal with matters that threaten financial stability. In that way, we can avoid the FSC being part of the problem instead of part of the cure. I know that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said in the past that the proceedings of the Financial Stability Committee will be published, but he has been unspecific about that, and there is nothing to compel the Bank of England to honour that commitment to transparency. I hope the Government will confirm that they are committed to transparency and that the Bill will be improved to reflect that. I beg to move.