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Banking Bill

My Lords, I follow, reluctantly, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and my noble and learned friend Lord Morris of Aberavon, who is so expert on these issues. I spent five years in the Treasury, and I am sure that it will come up with a response that might just be suitable. I have a Question on the Order Paper tomorrow about banks, and I might be saved a lot of time on at least one aspect if I get a fuller reply now from my noble friend Lord Davies. No one who has who had anything to do with retrospective legislation likes it at all. I certainly do not like it. The Treasury has tried to come up with a reply, and to some extent it has managed to tell us something and to give some concession in the area. However, my noble and learned friend Lord Morris thought that it might just be that the Treasury had in mind retrospection regarding bonuses. That might be popular with the general public if the powers were even retrospective, but is that the only issue that the Treasury had in mind? Perhaps if my noble friend Lord Davies can give us some idea of where the Treasury, or some Treasury officials who are ingenious on these matters, could come up with some alternative areas of retrospection that they might wish to use, it would be helpful in reducing the length of my supplementary question tomorrow on banks. That might please my noble friend Lord Myners. So many questions arise on what banks are doing and what the Government are doing in relation to them; I could be asking such questions tomorrow although, if at all possible, I would like to limit my supplementary question. I hope that my noble friend could give us some idea of other areas that the Government had in mind and whether they might be thinking of using retrospective action. Amendment 22, the Government’s proposed amendment to deal with it, simply says, "““but in relying on this subsection, the Treasury shall have regard to the fact that it is in the public interest to avoid retrospective legislation””." But that is the Treasury having it in mind. What the Treasury has or does not have in mind is not necessarily what the rest of us might have in mind. I would be very interested to hear from the Minister, as my noble and learned friend Lord Morris pointed out, the Treasury’s interpretation of ““necessary”” and ““desirable””. That would be of great interest to your Lordships’ House. The Constitution Committee, which is now becoming much more active under the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, on important public interest issues, is clearly concerned—rightly—about retrospective legislation as it is important. As I say, I am interested to hear from my noble friend what the Treasury might have in mind.