Building Societies (Funding) and Mutual Societies (Transfers) Bill

I understand why the amendment is here, and of course we accept it. However, one notes that the FSA is currently running a surplus on its income, all of which has arisen from fees charged from varying transactions. Secondly, many of the mutuals are very small organisations and one encouraging feature of the Bill is that it will allow small and medium-sized mutuals to work together and amalgamate in one way or the other in the UK or across the UK and the EEA. I hope, therefore, that when the FSA comes to provide its fee structure, it will recognise that these are small mutuals, entirely there for the benefit of the membership that has joined together, and that it will not provide for—as it attempted when the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 was passed—a de minimis fee structure. I hope that the Government and the Minister speaking for the Treasury will recognise that this is a different kettle of fish and that while there is to be a fee structure—and it is understood that there has to be one—nevertheless the message will go to the FSA that normal fee structures are not always appropriate to small mutuals.