Banking (Special Provisions) Bill

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord’s final point. The House and the country still find several aspects of the situation facing Northern Rock pretty obscure. Despite what seems like many hours of discussion of Granite, we are not much clearer than we were when the issue first broke on to the scene. For reasons that I gave less than two hours ago, I do not believe that any great purpose is served in this case by having affirmative resolutions. There are strong arguments for having negative resolutions. To make a general point that I have made many times in the past in your Lordships’ House, there is a bit of a myth about the affirmative resolution procedure and the degree of scrutiny that it allows. I have sat through many debates involving affirmative resolutions. They are short, desultory affairs because we know that we cannot amend the resolution; we know that we cannot throw out the resolution except in extreme circumstances. Affirmative resolutions do not give this House the power that is sometimes ascribed to them. That does not mean that in all circumstances we say that they make no difference but, in this case, and combined with the other arguments that I gave earlier, we cannot support the amendments.