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Banking Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords who took part in this—I was going to say ““short”” debate, but it has become rather a long one. I am also grateful that everyone who spoke, except one, agreed with the force of my argument—that particular one being the Minister. I was a little surprised to be lobbied by the Governor of the Bank of England, although in these febrile times I probably should not use the word ““lobbied””. The governor should have declared his interest. With regard to what the Minister said, the notion that there should be a financial stability objective is entirely shared. I am sure that the Bank of England has thought that financial stability has been its objective for the past 300 years, and maybe it is a bit surprised that it has to be told again—but never mind; if it is deemed to be neater to ally the financial stability objective with the monetary stability objective, that is fine. I still do not understand the particular statutory need for the Financial Stability Committee. The core of the governor’s argument was that the committee will be advising the court and the executives are responsible to the court, so the court is the key strategy-making organisation and is responsible for the balance sheet and so on. In my structure the court would have received advice not just from the independents but from the FSA—it would have had a wide range of advice coming into it, on which it could perhaps have made more effective decisions. One element of my amendment that the Minister did not mention at all is that the amendments would make financial stability an overt objective of the Financial Services Authority. He did not address that issue or indeed the fact that it would be the role of the Financial Stability Committee, as I formulate it, also to advise the board of the Financial Services Authority. The Minister told us forcefully last time that financial stability was the responsibility of the Financial Services Authority; he said it was embodied in the Financial Services and Markets Act. If that is so, why does the authority not also require a committee to advise it? I suggest that the structure I have proposed is the economical way to provide a wide range of advice both to the court and to the board of the Financial Services Authority, and would be an efficient means of securing the integration of financial stability policies across the piece for both the Bank and the authority, which is what the country really needs. It is clear from both the governor’s intervention and the Minister’s remarks that the Government are not going to accept any change on this. It is also clear, I notice with interest, that the Minister accepts the argument that this may be a temporary arrangement, looking forward to the more coherent structure of regulatory legislation and institutions which is likely to come later this year. If this is indeed a temporary arrangement and the Minister has gone a tiny way towards accepting the validity of the arguments on the need for co-ordinated activity, it would be churlish of me to divide the House in those circumstances. I therefore beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 87 withdrawn. Amendments 88 to 98 not moved. House resumed. Clause 235: UK financial stability Amendment 99 Moved by