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Banking Bill (Money)

It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd), who speaks with immense sense and with whom I entirely agree. I had the great pleasure of attending every Committee sitting, where the Economic Secretary, who is also at the Dispatch Box today, would spend five, 10 or 15 minutes discussing some sentence in the Bill. However, when it comes to spending so much money that we do not even know the size of the sum, with the danger of bankrupting the British economy, we get a very short speech. I do not believe for one moment that that was by the Minister's design—I think he was sat on from on high. The theory is, ““Whatever happens, let's not discuss the Bill but simply get it through quietly; let's spend billions and billions of pounds, and nobody will notice.”” I spoke in a debate in which we spent £42 billion in 90 minutes. The larger the amount of money, the less time we have to discuss it.