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Banking Bill

We on these Benches support the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi. If I can dare to give him a slight lesson in negotiation, I do not think he should have pre-empted the Minister. He makes an extremely powerful case. The Sunday Times yesterday also made a powerful case about the questions and the potential conflicts of interests for auditors, who are taking large fees for auditing our banks as well as substantial fees for non-audit work. I think the example that they gave was that Barclays last year gave £25 million to PricewaterhouseCoopers for auditing and £19 million for non-audit fees. There are serious questions, as in America, as to whether major audit firms should do non-audit work for banks, particularly in the present climate. I remember during the passage of the Bill to nationalise Northern Rock that my amendment for an independent audit by the Bank of England was passed with Conservative support. Unfortunately, it was overruled in another place. PricewaterhouseCoopers were, again, the auditors there. Serious questions remain over their failure to get to the bottom of what was going on at Northern Rock and properly to alert the Financial Services Authority. We on these Benches believe that the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, are timely, significant and appropriate. If he chooses to press them to a vote at this late hour, we will support them. If he feels that he does not want to, I hope that the Minister will think carefully and consider what the noble Lord has said, and perhaps come back with a substantial response on Report. In the present climate, with the taxpayer at risk for literally trillions of pounds, these are important and timely amendments. I hope that the Minister will take them seriously.