Banking (Special Provisions) Bill

I am going to make some progress and then I will take some further interventions. Clauses 3 and 6 will give the power to transfer shares, property or other securities. Clause 3 deals with the transfer of securities. Securities can be transferred to the Bank of England, to a nominee of the Treasury or Treasury solicitor or to another private sector body—in other words, another bank or building society. The power is extremely important, and a similar power may well find its way into future legislation, because it allows us either to take the shares into Treasury control or to transfer them to another private sector body. Clause 6 will allow the transfer of property rights and liabilities in cases where one wants to remove part of a bank that has got into difficulties and transfer it to another bank. It is the sort of bridge facility that the Governor of the Bank of England has mentioned on many of the occasions when he has appeared before the Treasury Committee. Clauses 3 and 6 contain precisely the sort of power that the Opposition seek to promote, in so far as I understand their position. I therefore hope that they can support those two clauses at least. Clause 8 provides for further transfers following a transfer to the public sector, and is designed to give some flexibility in restructuring the business. All the powers are necessary. No matter where parties or individual Members of this House stand on the question of public ownership, there is nearly universal agreement that it can be only a stepping-stone to transferring the business back into the private sector. The clauses to which I have referred are necessary to transfer ownership from Northern Rock and clauses 8 and 9 allow transfer back to the private sector. Opposition Members such as the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) have asked, ““Why can't you do it all in one clause?”” The answer is that we need to provide powers to acquire the bank, to run it and then to transfer it back into the private sector. That is how the Bill is structured.