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Banking Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords for their responses, which reflect the seriousness of this issue. As I have indicated to the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, the Government do not lightly pursue a course that they know is not in accord with the committee’s recommendations. He will, however, appreciate from the amendments that we have tabled that we have taken on board the thrust of the argument that underlay the recommendations his committee made. We have not followed them in quite the terms that he would have wished, but we clearly expect the review to produce an analysis of how these regulations are working. If the review says that the issue is significant enough for primary legislation, the Government will have to respond accordingly. As I indicated in my opening remarks, we all appreciate the complexity of these issues—they are so complex for me that I cannot even pronounce ““Lehman”” accurately. I never suffer from the mispronunciation of my surname but I spend my life correcting its misspelling, so we all live with these difficulties. I apologise to the noble Lord if I got the name wrong. Far greater difficulties awaited me when I examined these issues at all stages of the Bill and at this point. I hope he will accept that in the Government’s approach to these matters we are all too aware of the anxieties that he has expressed and those of his committee, but we are also well aware of the significance of this for the banking community—for investment banks in particular, but for the City of London as a whole and its financial role. Amendment 28 agreed to.