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Banking Bill

My Lords, this amendment conveniently follows the previous group. It proposes leaving out subsection (8). Alternatively, Amendment 57 proposes leaving out subsection 8(c) and (d). Subsection (7)(b) provides that an order, "““may not be made unless a draft has been laid before and approved by resolution of each House of Parliament””." Therefore, Parliament can retain control under subsection (7). It will be an affirmative resolution, and that is a significant measure of control. I propose deleting subsection (8) because it will remove that measure of parliamentary control. When you reach paragraphs (c) and (d), you discover that the lapse of an order under paragraph (b) does not invalidate anything done under or in reliance on the order before the lapse, and at a time when neither House has declined to approve the order. Paragraph (d) says that the Government can make order after order after order. The Government have suggested, in Amendment 107 and the other two government amendments grouped with it, that if they come back and revise the order, it must be in new terms. Let us hope that they are not cynical about that. I support the Liberal Democrats, who I know are very much opposed to that amendment. It is not right for parliamentary control to be removed. What we have here—subject to agreement on the word ““desirable””, there is a good deal of consensus on this in the House—is effectively a strong and very wide Henry VIII clause that allows for retrospection. Now we reach Clause 75(8) and find that we have retrospection without any parliamentary control if the Government so wish. If they lay an order and things are done pursuant to that order, as presumably it is intended that they should be done—banks will be transferred and so on under the special resolution—then they can never be unscrambled. The Minister has told us nine, 10 or 17 times that we are in an exceptionally difficult financial situation. We would all agree with that. However, that is not a reason for removing parliamentary control. The Government are, by their own admission and to put it politely, in a fog. They are not sure what to do. It is difficult to believe that something that they do as a result of late-night meetings will suddenly resolve the world financial crisis in a way that cannot be achieved with up to 28 days—or possibly, if it is just before the Summer Recess, three or four months—of consideration for Parliament to come back and approve it. I listened carefully to what the Minister said about how there might suddenly be regulatory penalties or unenforceable contracts that would have to be dealt with. However, those examples, for which we are grateful, do not make the point that parliamentary control should be removed. If a perfectly sensible government proposal is to be implemented but looks as though it might incur regulatory penalties, then a new order could be laid to lift those regulatory penalties retrospectively. Unless the House has lost its marbles—to use rather inappropriate language—and the common sense which normally characterises the dealings of both Houses has gone out the window, the regulatory penalty will be lifted or, alternatively, the unexpected unenforceability of the contract will be rendered enforceable, because that is what people had anticipated and it can be corrected. However, it does not require the exceptional powers of subsection (8)(c), which says that the Government can do it and thereafter it will stand whatever the views of Parliament. I seek to avoid that. I beg to move.