---

Debt Relief (Developing Countries) Bill

I do not discount it as irrelevant. The association is entitled to its view, but I do not happen to agree with it. I have a lot of time for investment management—more so than many people in this House or in the country generally. It performs a vital function in ensuring that economies can get the finance they need in order to grow. I always consider carefully the views of associations that represent such companies, but I do not believe that what they are saying in this instance reflects the true situation. We are talking about a very small number of transactions overall. My hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish's Bill has been carefully calibrated, and the Government want to ensure that English law retains its status as a preferred choice of law for finance, and that the City retains its status as a leading financial centre. There is nothing in the Bill to jeopardise those aims in any way. I believe that the concerns about it have been overstated. Those expressing them do not necessarily object to the targeted measures in the Bill, but they say that they would not want them to go further. This point was raised by the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire when he spoke of the danger of setting a precedent. I do not see it in that way. In giving our support to the Bill, we have been careful to say that it needs to be carefully targeted and that we need to be cognisant of the legal position. The best analogy that I can provide is that of the debate on the hunting ban. At the time, many people argued that if we banned hunting, the next step would be to ban shooting and fishing. The legislation that we passed, however, has not been the thin end of the wedge, and we have seen no subsequent measures to ban shooting and fishing. Those who put forward those arguments were wrong to do so and, similarly, those who say that supporting this carefully calibrated Bill will open the door to a far more extreme Bill that would jeopardise Britain's long-standing reputation as a leading financial centre have just got it wrong. It is not like that.