Banking (Special Provisions) Bill

The Chief Secretary has given her version of the events leading up to the introduction of the Bill, so let me remind the House of mine. In the summer of 2007, the credit crunch arrived—from the United States, as she said—and placed Northern Rock in difficulties. The Government had an opportunity then to pursue an expression of private sector interest in acquiring Northern Rock, but they were not interested; they dithered and passed up the opportunity. On 13 September, when it became clear that Northern Rock was in serious trouble, they dithered, delayed and prevaricated over the weekend, leading to the events of Monday 17 September, when eventually they stopped the run on the bank by introducing a general guarantee on deposits. They then ignored—very expensively, as it has turned out—the advice they received that they needed to act quickly and decisively in order to protect the taxpayers' position and resolve the issue of Northern Rock. We have had more dither and delay since 17 September, leading on Sunday to the announcement that the Government were going to go down the route that they had desperately sought to avoid for the past five months and nationalise Northern Rock. One thing that we have clearly understood from today's debate is that the nationalisation of Northern Rock is but a mechanism. The Opposition submit that there is nothing substantive that the Government will now be able to do with Northern Rock in nationalisation that could not have been done without taking the bank into public ownership and with only slight modifications to powers that already exist in the Enterprise Act 2002 and insolvency legislation. However, proposed legislation was rushed out yesterday and rushed through this House today under an emergency procedure, and we and the public were clearly told that it was legislation for the purpose of nationalising Northern Rock. What we have before us today is a Bill—now on Third Reading—that includes many provisions that are not relevant to the nationalisation of Northern Rock, but which deal with other situations that we are not facing today. They might be sensible provisions with which we could agree, but we will never know because we have not had the opportunity to scrutinise the Bill properly and to consider those measures. It is our submission that when a Government come to the House and ask it to set aside its procedures and its standard practices for scrutiny and to rush through legislation in a day, that legislation must be for an immediate and pressing purpose; it must not be a portfolio of powers that the Government would quite like to have in case they come in handy at some point in the future. We have seen the weakness of this compressed procedure this afternoon and this evening. Our amendments were tabled without the benefit of consultation with outside bodies; they were our amendments and they did not reflect, as is the usual practice in this House, the real and detailed concerns of experts in the relevant field and from across the relevant industry. Ministers saw the amendments just a couple of hours at most before having to respond to them. In those circumstances, I do not blame them for adopting a defensive strategy and approach; what else could they do? They have not had a chance to consider, or consult on, the amendments; they have not even had a chance to sit with their officials and think about them. [Interruption.] Yes, they might have another chance when the other place gives them an opportunity to consider some of them again. All of this is a genuine shame, because it means that the legislation that is leaving this House today is weaker for lack of scrutiny, and that we, as the superior House, are once again in the humiliating position of relying on the other place to look in detail at the provisions that have been put before us. As it, too, has been prevailed upon to limit its consideration of the Bill, it is likely that unelected judges in the courts will have the final say on a matter that we know will be the subject of substantial litigation.