Banking Act 2009 (Restriction of Partial Property Transfers) (Amendment) Order 2009

Perhaps I may make a brief intervention as a Member of the Merits Committee. I reinforce what my noble friend Lady Noakes said on the matter of the advice being published on the Treasury’s website. On the morning of the meeting, if I remember right—it might have been the day before—we asked whether we would be able to see this advice on the website because it did not look as though we would. In fact, we were not, although it did come on the day that the Merits Committee met. The Treasury assumes—one understands why—a level of understanding among the people who look at statutory instruments in the Merits Committee that they may not always have. You could argue that from time to time the Treasury takes advantage of the fact that the chances are that the members of the committee are not as sophisticated as it is itself and minimises the explanation it gives us, rather than thinking of how to make it clear to the average Member of the House of Lords.