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Banking Bill

My Lords, I will also speak to Amendment 55. Amendment 54 would omit Clause 75(3). This subsection allows Her Majesty’s Government to amend any law retrospectively. The Minister has pointed out that this clause can be used only within narrow limits and would not be used to amend the safeguards in the Bill. However, subsection (3) refers to subsection (1), which says ““amend the law””, so not only banking law but a much broader picture has to be considered. There is nothing narrow about this. If there is a severe danger of financial collapse and unforeseen circumstances arise, there is nothing to stop Parliament being recalled and the necessary powers being put in place. That is why there is the power to recall Parliament to cope with unforeseen emergencies. There has been talk about the cost and the difficulties of this, but these are small matters compared with the surrender of democracy that is proposed. I wondered when reading Hansard whether the Minister and I were discussing the same clause. The Minister justified the inclusion of retrospective legislation by citing the precedents of the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 and Section 148 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. The Government’s arguments that these are precedents for Clause 75 are baffling. The examples contain nothing of a retrospective nature. The Minister compared retrospective legislation with the effect on a contract of employment if there was a change in taxation. That is no comparison, because the employee would pay the revised tax rate from the date of the introduction of the new tax, not on previous earnings. I do not think that the Minister was proposing that a poor worker should have to pay a tax on the earnings of previous years when that tax did not exist or, to take the reverse side of the argument, be able to claim a retrospective tax rebate. When we debated the clause in Committee, more than one noble and very experienced Lord commented that they had not previously seen such legislation as this clause proposes. The Minister has repeatedly emphasised the need for flexibility to deal with unforeseen circumstances and has not yet justified this massive departure from the democratic processes of this country. The Minister gives assurances about how the legislation will and will not be used. As my noble friend Lord Forsyth pointed out, how can the Minister give assurances when he has no idea what the events will be over which he is giving the assurances? I beg to move.