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Banking Bill

I thank the Minister for his generous remarks. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, made a brilliantly shrewd but simple point about the question of the definition of inflation; namely, that there is some time for Eurostat and the other bodies perhaps to form the consensus described. It is most unlikely that we will have another asset bubble any time soon. On Amendment 198A and the remit, in November, when I put it to the Minister that this remit wanted changing for all the reasons we have discussed, he firmly said, ““Not at all: the remit is excellent””. Therefore, being a modest soul, my hand literally trembled over what I think Trotsky called ““the rubbish heap of history””. I was about to drop my Bill into the rubbish heap of history on the basis that the Minister knew what he was doing, as did all the luminaries in the Government, and that I was perhaps wrong about this remit for the reasons which the noble Lord, Lord Newby, outlined; namely that it is better for a person to have one target than two, because they can get confused and conflicted and so on. I felt that until this Banking Bill dropped through my letterbox. Then I saw that the luminaries had decided that the existing remit was incorrect and that something else needed to be added, which the Government have added in the form of Clause 228 on financial stability. I was going to drop my Bill and this point because of the merit of one remit rather than two, which the Government have abandoned under Clause 228. Five minutes ago, the noble Lord, Lord Davies, praised the merit of the ““dual remit””. What was once the benefit of a single remit—which, as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, said, is concentration on one target—has been dropped by the Government in favour of the merit of what the noble Lord, Lord Davies, a few minutes ago called the dual remit. If there is to be a dual remit, I would very much like my version of the second remit to be considered. I hope that the Minister will think about the merit of such a remit. It is not so remarkable. The Federal Reserve Act 1913 gave the Fed a dual mandate. It is apparently not the end of the world. The American economy has not done too badly since 1913. I hope that the Minister will reflect on it, and I thank him for his generous response. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 198A withdrawn. Amendment 198B not moved. Clauses 229 to 232 agreed.