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Banking in Scotland

I express my gratitude to all those who have contributed, not only to the debate, but to the report. That includes our witnesses and those who provided written evidence. Some of the contributions have been excellent. I hope that the Government Whips have taken note of the expressions of undying loyalty that were made by some of the newer Members. Nevertheless, I am sure that they will develop out of that in due course. I also thank the staff of the Scottish Affairs Committee for all their work in preparing for the debate and the report. When I was much younger, there used to be various cartoon characters who could rub a brass lamp and say, ““Abracadabra””, so that a genie appeared. Earlier, I mentioned the arc of prosperity and a nationalist appeared. In some mysterious way, he disappeared thereafter. I have mentioned the arc of prosperity again, so I am waiting to see whether he will pop in again The wider matters to which the Minister referred—I understand entirely why he did so—are more the responsibility of the Treasury Committee than of our Committee. We have tended—rightly, I believe—to restrict ourselves to those aspects that impact on Scotland. However, I was heartened by what he said about encouraging the mutual sector. Several of my colleagues, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson), will be looking at ways in which we can have a discussion about the mutual sector in Scotland. I hope that in due course we will have some dialogue with the Minister on that. As we have done elsewhere, we hope to have some informal sessions with witnesses before moving to formal hearings and visits, which will be helpful. We are likely to support some of the changes that the Minister outlined that seem to be moving in the right direction, but there are areas on which we would like ongoing dialogue and input from his staff when we prepare documents. It is not immediately clear, for example, how overdraft charges will be handled. It seems to me that there is a need for ongoing discussion on how those proposals will be implemented and what their impact will be. I welcome the fact, which the report made clear, that Scotland remains a good place to do financial services business. The question now is about how the Committee adds value to that whole exercise. In our discussions, we have identified several areas where the system seems to be breaking down. [Interruption.] I thought that that was a nationalist returning, having mentioned the arc of prosperity, but it is not. The construction, road haulage and video games industries—the three industrial groups that we met—all said that the banks did not understand them properly. We ought to turn our attention to various steps that we can take to improve those relationships.