---

Financial Services Bill

My Lords, I also support my noble friend Lady Noakes. Before so doing, I will say how much I agree with the comments of my noble friend Lord Higgins about the corruption of language. It seems that every time the Government have something unpleasant to say, they invent a new word and hope that people will not notice what it means. I have already made known my views on splitting authority for any enterprise, let alone one that is as important to the well-being and prosperity of Great Britain as the financial services industry. I will not waste the Committee’s time by repeating those arguments, except to say that the Minister has not been in the least convincing that, with responsibility split three ways, there is anything but another disaster in the making. It has been clear from our debate, as several of my noble friends have pointed out, that the proposed arrangements are nothing but the old ones in a different piece of rather shoddy wrapping paper. There is nothing fundamentally new. I wish only that there was some way that the Government could come to their senses and see that they are in the act of perpetuating a horror story.