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Banking Bill

My Lords, there is a general principle about which I am unclear. We seem to be in a position where the amount of expenditure will be disclosed but the recipient will not. We have to ask ourselves whether that should always be the case. If a bank in trouble is assisted by the authorities, but in the mean time goes, for example, to find people who can raise capital and it puts the deficit in its capital to rights and repays the assistance, one could take the view that that should never be revealed. The fact that someone borrowed from the bank could be revealed but you would never say which bank it was. Alternatively, should we follow the principle that, as soon as it is possible to say that it would not damage the bank or plunge it back into the problem that it had faced originally, its identity should be disclosed? I can remember in the early 1990s, when I was at the Treasury, having discussions with the then Governor, the noble Lord, Lord George, and I think the agreement was that when assistance was given by the Bank—they were much smaller banks in those days than we are now talking about—the amount or the identity would not be revealed immediately, but that it would appear in the first annual report of the bank which appeared after six months. However, I cannot remember whether only the amount of the assistance was revealed in the annual report or the name as well. There may be two distinct, subsequent announcements: first, that a scheme has been used and the amount and, secondly—this is what I am seeking guidance on—that a particular bank received help. I suppose the case for doing that would be wanting to judge whether the bank's judgment was correct. The bank may have survived but it may have been rather a foolish thing to have done. Are we entitled to know? Is that as much as Parliament is entitled to know or will we stick, as we have now in Clause 227, and add the requirements in the following clauses on the National Loans Fund that only the amount and the fact of some help is to be revealed?