Banking (Special Provisions) Bill

Time is limited, or at least it will be if this motion is passed, and I do not want to turn the debate on the motion into a substantive discussion of the issues before the House. However, I must place on record our view that nationalisation is not the way forward and that the Bill is, therefore, not the best use of the legislative time available to us today. We have always made it clear that if the Government introduced an emergency Northern Rock nationalisation Bill, we would oppose it in principle and seek to amend it where necessary, but would accept a timetabling of the process. We expected, and I believe that the country expected, a specific Northern Rock Bill: a narrowly focused, substantive measure specific to the case that consisted of a few clauses and could be effectively scrutinised in a day. Nothing prepared us for this 24-page Bill of 17 clauses and two schedules, which includes quite complex provisions of wide general applicability. The Bill is not a measure targeted at dealing with Northern Rock, but one that allows nationalisation of other deposit takers—not only banks, but also mutual building societies. If we are asked to set aside our procedures for a specific emergency, the resulting measures must be targeted at that emergency. They must be concise, relevant and clearly necessary to the resolution of the problem in hand. Of course, we understand that it would be convenient for the Government to have legislation on the shelf to cover any future bank problem, but such standing legislative powers are for another day, with proper consultation and proper scrutiny. We cannot casually hand over to the Government a blanket power to nationalise banking institutions. If such a power is needed in a specific case, the Government must come to this House of Commons and justify it on a case-by-case basis. Over the past couple of days, we have heard many references to the Rolls-Royce nationalisation by a Conservative Government in 1971. The legislation to nationalise Rolls-Royce consisted of a two-clause Bill, which was read for the first time on 8 February 1971 and given its Third Reading on 11 February 1971. The decision to act in that case was made expeditiously, the legislation was concise and focused on the specific case in hand, and Parliament was able to scrutinise it properly—all very different from the present case. Indeed, one might ask, ““Where's the fire?”” The problems at Northern Rock have been with us since September. The Chancellor has had a fairly laid-back attitude to the passage of time. He originally told us that the fate of the bank would be clear by Christmas, then he came back to us before Christmas and told us that it would be clear by the New Year. Here we are in February, and apparently there is now a pressing need to do everything in one day. Why? The shares are suspended. Depositors are able to operate their accounts normally. There are no queues around the block at Northern Rock branches. There is no threat to the stability of the UK financial system; the damage has already been done. In fact, there is no fire. The Government have produced a relatively long Bill for an emergency measure, of general application, with a procedure by which the specific provisions, including very important ones, are in a draft order that is unamendable and, if the Bill is passed unaltered, is subject to the negative resolution procedure only. I ask the Chief Secretary for at least an assurance today—now will do, if she would like to intervene—that regardless of whether the Bill is amended, either here or in the other place, the Government will allow a full day's debate on the orders when they are laid, on the Floor of the House, in Government time. It would be an outrage if the detailed arrangements for the sequestration of private property, for the compensation of those who lost out as a result of that sequestration and for the transfer to the taxpayer of a contingent liability of approximately £110 billion were considered in just 90 minutes on a damp Tuesday morning along the corridor upstairs. The melodramatic timetable has already created practical difficulties with drafting and tabling amendments, which we have had to do without hearing the Chancellor's presentation of the detailed rationale for the individual clauses. Outside bodies have had no opportunity to give their input to Opposition parties on the principles or, indeed, the drafting. We now face a Second Reading debate of probably no more than three hours and a Committee stage of, at most, two and a half hours to consider a Bill that transfers liabilities of £110 billion to the taxpayer. That is about £650 a minute of Committee scrutiny—a rate of pay that would make even Ron Sandler's eyes water. The result will be that even the few amendments that the Opposition have tabled will not all be debated, the vast majority of the Bill will not receive line-by-line scrutiny and, once again, it will be their lordships or, more probably—given the time constraints in the other place—the courts that have to deal with the inadequacies, imperfections, drafting errors and omissions that we shall inevitably miss during the travesty of a scrutiny process.