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Financial Services Bill

My Lords, we have some sympathy with the arguments of the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, on sunset clauses, but not with those in relation to disclosure of remuneration—the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, touched upon. If I heard her correctly, the noble Baroness is concerned about an excess of regulatory zeal in dealing with well paid bankers’ remuneration packages. If only. There has been precious little sign of that so far. There is plenty of room for more. There would be no danger of damaging the UK’s competitive position. What has damaged that is the lack of dealing with such packages and the wild operations in the City of London that have done much damage to Britain’s reputation as a place to do business. We support the Government on this amendment.