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Banking Bill (Money)

I shall discuss those points, but basically the answer is that we have the balance right in what we are proposing today. The right hon. Gentleman will remember that there were concerns about this precise issue when the news about Northern Rock first broke. There were concerns that the provision of financial assistance by the Bank of England had to be disclosed by the recipient firm—as is the case for listed companies—under Financial Services Authority rules. There were also concerns about the way in which the publication of the weekly Bank of England return could be used to work out that such support was being given. Indeed, clause 244, which removes the obligation on the Bank to produce a weekly return—the right hon. Gentleman referred to that—was included in the Bill precisely because of those concerns. So there must be a balance between the need for transparency and the need to protect confidentiality where it is clearly in the public interest to do so. The Government feel that the original clause 230, although a noble effort, does not quite get the balance right. We simply feel that there is too big a risk that it could be possible to identify the beneficiaries of financial assistance under some schemes or the amounts that they could receive. I am sure the House will appreciate the risk, therefore, of damaging speculation about the identity of the institution concerned. That could be bad for confidence and it could even lead to the kind of situation that we are all trying to avoid. These issues were debated in Committee in another place, and the version of the clause accepted on Report in the other place has gone some way to recognising these difficulties. For example, clause 230 does allow the Treasury some leeway to delay the disclosure when it is in the public interest to do so—for as long as that remains the case. That is sensible, but because of the risks and concerns that I have just described, the Government might well end up relying on this public interest exemption rather too often. That is bad for two reasons. The first is that it increases the chance that the Government may not be able to make a disclosure—that is clearly bad for transparency and we ideally want to avoid it. The second is that the frequent delay or omission of information could, itself, lead to destabilising and damaging speculation of the kind that we all want to avoid. So we have been considering ways in which regular reports of the kind provided for by clause 230 could be made while minimising the problems that I have described.